The Morning After

It was bad. But it easily could have been far worse. Nevertheless, the stage is now set for some interesting months ahead leading into the 2012 campaign. And the political map is starting to look more like 2000 than it did in 2008 with blue on the west coast and northeast, and red filling in the middle.

The worst of it:

Florida. One word: Rubio.

Kentucky. Two words: Rand Paul.

Pennsylvania. Three words: fucking Pat Toomey!

California: Gee, there must be so much available pot out there that the 18-24 group just doesn't see it as a big deal. Those who need it medically can easily get it legally, and those who use it recreationally are content to pay their fines if caught. Personally, I'd rather be a responsible legal consumer vs. a responsible illegal consumer, but that's just me I guess.

It's pretty clear that Prop. 19, in being defeated 55-45%, took a late hit from an infusion of Reefer Madness-inspired money, and a spineless calculating Democratic establishment that wasn't in the mood this year to make the case for it. Sad.

Iowa: Very disturbing that voters ousted three justices who participated in the same-sex marriage ruling last year, despite the sky not collapsing after same-sex marriage became legal, and life going on as usual for the past year.

Each of the three judges received about 45-46 percent support with 91 percent of precincts reporting, according to The Associated Press, marking the first time members of Iowa’s high court had been rejected by voters. Under the system used here, judges face no opponents and simply need to win more yes votes than no votes to win another eight-year term.

You'd think the voters could just move on, or that the judicial ruling would have faded from memory in favor of more pressing issue, but unfortunately there was some outside efforts to jog the voters' memories...

Though several groups formed to support their retention, they were significantly outspent by the organizations that bankrolled the ouster effort, including the National Organization for Marriage and the American Family Association.

Wisconsin. What the fuck? Seriously, that's like burning your house for the insurance money.

Arkansas. No real surprises here but it's aggravating to watch my home state officially officially seal the deal and join themselves at the hip with the other neighboring red states of Texas, Oklahoma, and Mississippi instead of maintaining the mid-western independence of Missouri. Blanche will be packing her bags and a hard right turn is ahead with Republican John Boozman.

Even the 2nd congressional district which includes Little Rock, a traditionally Democratic seat being vacated by a Democrat, is falling strongly into the GOP column this time around, to a fucking Karl Rove protege no less. The vote wasn't even close.

Arizona and South Dakota have rejected medical marijuana ballot measures.



Some positives:

Rhode Island. We now have our 4th openly gay member of Congress.

Alaska. Residents saw the face of evil and cast over 80,000 write-in votes to propel Lisa Murkowski above Tea Bagger Joe Miller. And I hesitated to put this under the column of positives since it's still not ideal, but could have been worse.


The remarkable:

Nevada, where Harry Reid managed to slither past Sharron Angle by a fairly comfortable margin. And that is rather extraordinary given that Nevada is, one could argue, ground zero in the economic collapse. Las Vegas in particular is reeling.

As usual, the New York Times has some really cool interactive maps you can check out and survey the damage.

The Senate

The House

The Governors

That, folks, is how America looks this morning.