Die Bold Statement

Tuesday was a great day for Democracy in America. As seenos blogged below, the California voters resoundingly defeated Arnold's so called "Reform Agenda". Who's the girly man now?

Prior to the 2004 Presidential Election I was convinced that the voters would make a statement by sending Bush and his cronies back to Crawford. Unfortunately, the statement wasn't bold enough to overcome the Diebold machines and we've been forced to absorb four more years of this disastrous administration.

But yesterday some good things happened. The people of Maine reaffirmed a law prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation. In Pennsylvania all eight members of the Dover School board who had voted to include "Creationism" as part of their science curriculum were soundly booted from office. Democrats were elected governor of both Virginia and New Jersey and in California the people just said no by defeating every initiative intended to hurt working people and the rights of women.

California's Proposition 73 was a typical "Rovian" ploy. It was an initiative designed to energize the conservative base. Surely the image of a young teenage girl getting an abortion without her parents knowledge would coax evangelicals out of their caves and into the voting booths -where they would vote like the sheep that they are. Arnold's agenda would pass.....or so they thought.

But in the wake of Tuesdays election, it appears that these tactics aren't going to work anymore because a majority of the electorate is finally coming to their senses. The voters of California, Maine, Virginia and New Jersey seemed to realize that every issue is not black or white..... good vs. evil. Issues have nuance....... and laws have consequences. Tuesday people seemed to realize that the good of a true democratic society might just out weigh the heft of their own personal fear.

I'm sure that the voters in Maine didn't just recently decide that they love all gay people. Many Pennsylvanians are good Christians and will never believe they decended from apes. And In California - many voters would never personally consider an abortion, but realize it is a personal decision not a legislative one.

In other words we saw the big picture and cast our ballots on the underlying, more important issues. It may be a small step forward for our democracy which has taken several gigantic steps backwards with the Neocons in charge and we still have a lot of work to do. Lets just call it our "Project for an Old American Ideal" - FREEDOM.

Now the bad news:

Tuesday - the people of Kansas still believe the world is flat. Voters there approved a "creationist" educational agenda for their public school system. And, Texas became the 19th state in the union to formally ban gay marriage. But you can't blame Texans. They heard all of Bush's talk about a pandemic and assumed he was talking about homosexuality.