As this blog hasn’t seen a post in a long time, today is Election Day, and I’m a certified Rabble Rouser ™, I’d like to throw my hat in the ring – so to speak – and offer my impressions of this year’s most celebrated contest.
No, not Lindsay vs. all the other dumb starlets. But considering that Ms. Lohan was Yahoo’s #2 Top Search yesterday, one has to wonder what the country is thinking.
Well, we pretty much know what we’re thinking tonight. At the moment of this writing, Barack Obama’s 338 electoral votes puts him over the top, making him the presumptive President and a symbol of American hopefulness. This liberal, at least, can say adieu to 8 years of conservative hegemony and stunted progress. And hello, as it turns out, to the nation’s first African-American Commander-in-Chief. Hell, yes.
The problem – and the speedbump on the happy road to voter satisfaction, it would seem – remains California’s Proposition 8.
First off, I’d like to remind you that I live in California…er, I mean the California Republic; the distinction is subtle, but important. Living in the “One State That Wants to Be Several” takes a lot of patience, not to mention suspension of disbelief. Recall (pun certainly intended) that we’re the folks who ousted a standing governor to install the Terminator; for a voting body as large – and as diverse – as California’s, speaking with one voice has seemed remarkably easy. The thing with California voting, though, is the nature of the Republic’s approach to democracy, so similar to many other states: every political contest, especially the general elections, are replete with Measures, Propositions, and other referendum-type ballot issues. And this year, Prop 8, a state constitutional ban on gay marriage, became the central issue.
Now, you know I’m not shy about saying that I support gay marriage – simple equality, really – and think a constitutional ban is a really, really dumb idea. But the media blitz over the contest quickly became an example of mutually assured destruction. In total, the competing camps on this issue have spent some $80 million on the advertising campaign to sway the state’s voters one way or the other. What a $#@!ing waste of money. And the pro-ban “Yes” camp’s rhetoric was the worst part. From the general pandering to the Christian Right to the absurd fearmongering commercials suggesting that California children will somehow become homosexual if California continues to allow gay marriage, the entire issue was a masterstroke of redirection away from what it really represented: discrimination, plain and simple.
And as I write this, amazingly, California voters somehow seem to be 53/47 in favor of this ban with 29% of precincts reporting. As reasonable a fellow as I am, I can’t help but feel the bile rise in my throat as I watch a conservative spokeswoman for the proposition on television, her pinched face trumpeting the apparent success of Prop 8. “It’s a good day for us,” she says. What terribly smug, self-centered bullshit. As if the married status of someone down the street matters a whit to how her life should be lived. When will we learn?
I don’t worry, though, because gay couples can still share love. No constitutional ban can take that away, no matter how hard the bitter Christian right might try. And that’s the real message.
And finally, Obama is the President-Elect, and we have hope. Not since 1992, when my first year of voter eligibility coincided with the rise of “Rock The Vote” and the beginning of the Clinton Era, have I felt as much excitement in the air as I do at this moment. Listening to Barack’s speech tonight reminded me that the American spirit is a real thing, tangible and alive, and perhaps we can still change the world.
So here’s to a new deal. And Prop 8 supporters can take a flying leap.
