As a native Ohioan and currently a voter in another swing state that went for Barack Obama, I’d just like to take this opportunity to say you’re welcome.
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Historiann 
Almost, Democrats didn’t vote for Obama; they voted against the Republicans. We are still scared. This time of Obama.
Several new female senators. Great.
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Agree with koshembos especially the new senators like Baldwin and Warren. Yippee, too, about Duckworth and McCaskill. Anyone else remember year-of-the-woman 1992? I’m reminded although I can’t forget Historiann’s mentions of patriarchal equilibrium.
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The Senate is the icing on the cake. And it looks like there’ll be no “b’b’b’but the popular vote…” whining for them to do. (It would have been tasty, though, to see them try to distinguish this case from 2000). And the Supreme Court can get on about it’s business without having to serve as a college of cardinals.
I watched the results on Fox/Business, because of where I happened to be and what was on the big screen that was available, and it was both painful and delightful to hear the commentators moaning and grousing about the decline and fall, and watching Ohio creep toward the brink of toppling. The main desk guy was even so deranged as to try to award *Idaho* to Obama, several times, which would have been nuts! Now let’s just get Florida called and I can sleep the sleep of the wicked!
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Indyanna, go to sleep. They’ve stopped counting votes in Florida for the evening.
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The really hardworking ward committee people in the overwhelmingly African-American areas of Philadelphia, who turned out the votes without which Pennsylvania would have been iffy if not bright red, would also like to say you’re welcome.
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And….you’re welcome.
Sincerely.
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I’m in Florida and we are taking our sweet time. Does it really matter anyway?
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Smalltown prof, look at it this way: Romney voters and Republicans get all of their disappointment out of the way in one fell swoop. Liberals and Dems will suffer many, many smaller disappointments over the next two to four years. Our only fun now is to watch the Night of the Long Knives that the Republicans will indulge in over the next few months.
The news for Dems and liberals is pretty good from where I sit this morning: Colorado and Washington legalized pot. The Colorado statehouse is now fully controlled by Dems, and both the anticipated leaders of the Dem majorities in both the Assembly and the state Senate are gay men. Marriage equality measures had a good night in Maine and Maryland, and the pro-marriage measure has a lead in Washington too. As LadyProf suggested above, it was a good night for women candidates, with Massachusetts electing its first statewide female official in Elizabeth Warren, and with the election of America’s first out lesbian (or gay) Senator with Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin. So, yay! Now get to work.
Republicans can take comfort in the fact that Democrats never hold onto complete power very long.
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What’s round at the ends and high in the middle?
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Ay-O Way to Go, Ohio.
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You know, I just like seeing the Obama family up there on the stage. It makes me tear up, thinking about what children see when they look at those images. I feel the same way looking at the pictures in the news this morning of the big party in Chicago. The crowd looks like who actually lives in this country and (naive though I may be) I think that counts for something.
I certainly did vote for Obama (drones and all), not against Romney. It’s just the reality of this country at this time in history that these are our choices and unless I’m actually out there on the street trying to upend it, I think I better stay off any high horses about the state of affairs. That said, if it is possible to read the tea leaves of last night, the picture of who voted is encouraging, as are some of the people and the social justice issues we voted for.
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http://www.politico.com/blogs/burns-haberman/2012/11/its-official-new-hampshire-governor-house-and-senate-148769.html?hp=l11
“The AP has now called both congressional races for Democrats Ann McLane Kuster and former Rep. Carol Shea-Porter. Democrat Maggie Hassan became the governor-elect earlier in the night. The state is already represented in the Senate by Democrat Jeanne Shaheen and Republican Kelly Ayotte, making this the first state ever to have an all-woman federal delegation and governor.”
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Thanks, Profane: I forgot to mention NH entirely! I found this paragraph of that blog post even more interesting:
Well, we shall see in 2016 just how serious a problem the major parties think this is.
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In gratitude to Ohio I’d like to propose re-building that train station in downtown Akron; which would first require reconstituting downtown Akron. Also, if Idaho *had* flipped to Obama, I was moving to Canada, because it would suggest a degree of volatility down this way that would be just not healthy. Otherwise, thanks to *all* the blue states.
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The women cleaned up in the Senate! It was a true joy to see historical numbers of women in the Senate. (They are still pathetic numbers, but still I’m taking my victory.)
I am also a swing state voter and will also say you’re welcome. I know, VA isn’t as important as OH (I did vote in OH in 2008) but it did drive Romney to concede.
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I saw an interesting comment on another blog that advised that everyone “thank a gay today” for Tammy Baldwin’s historic victory in Wisconsin last night. Her candidacy was buoyed by the support (financial, mostly, and otherwise) of gay Americans from around the country.
So if you are gay, please join in the “you’re welcome!” chorus! (Incidentally, the title of this post is a riff on Will Ferrell’s brilliant one-person show, “You’re Welcome, America,” his farewell to Geo. W. Bush.)
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As a lesbian, “you’re welcome” indeed, but as a native Wisconsinite (now in NY) I have to point out that Baldwin deliberately did not court loud national gay support, and so kept the campaign focused on state and economic issues as it should have been. The national support she got was helpful, I’m sure, but people in the state would have been alienated if they felt pressured by outside groups. All of my family is in Wisconsin, and they’re pleased and relieved. On Wisconsin!
And go Colorado! Your victory parties are going to be *really* fun!
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Latinos/as in the house!
I’ve read a couple of accounts of Republicans blaming Romney for being a Mass. liberal — and the hurricanes, etc. Or just being angry at the Communists. I doubt they will change. More likely they will go the way of the California Republican Party — increasingly irrelevant in statewide elections, but holding on to their House seat in Newport Beach.
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The commentators on the Fox/Business channel last night were literally distraught, and it was clear that they totally buy into the 47% thing that Romney was obviously just badly-parroting at the fundraiser. As if anybody who ever got a polio shot as a kid is now a bought-and- owned vassal of the “statist” regime that Obama is driving, and will do its bidding, if only so they can get a booster polio shot when that disease returns.
Of Mass. liberals, I read this week that Michael Dukakis was going door to door for Elizabeth Warren. So he obviously lives–who knew?–and how great to know that old-guard jacobins of his stripe are hiding out in the Berkshire hills, drilling and waiting for an opportunity to bring the revolution back toward Wichita, Tulsa, and Cheyenne, as soon as the leader gives the word.
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THIS:
“Of Mass. liberals, I read this week that Michael Dukakis was going door to door for Elizabeth Warren. So he obviously lives–who knew?–and how great to know that old-guard jacobins of his stripe are hiding out in the Berkshire hills, drilling and waiting for an opportunity to bring the revolution back toward Wichita, Tulsa, and Cheyenne, as soon as the leader gives the word.”
If only, huh?
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I have been pleased to go around today saying, “This election was soooo gay.” As Historiann mentioned above, Colorado became much, much gayer. All seven openly gay candidates running for seats in the Colorado legislature won their elections. There was a concerted effort by LGBT organizations in this state to oust the politicians who procedurally blocked civil unions last spring. It worked pretty well.
The bad news in the state of Colorado: one of the men who won his race for the U.S. House has said nasty, nasty things about liberal arts education. (It’s a waste of time and money to get a degree in, say, history.) And on my side of the state, we elected two wing nuts to the Colorado House.
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May I add a thank you to all in swing states, who survived the campaign. California was never in question, but I’m grateful especially to my students who helped pass Prop 30, which gives a bit more money to public education in the state.
I spent the day in airplanes, and when I arrived in Montreal at the end of the day, I said something to one of the staff about being in a good mood, and he said, “Oh, your side won.” To which I said, the important one was the state race…
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The BBC has an interesting breakdown of the role of female voters, with 53% of voters women and 11% more women voting for Barack than Romney. No surprises to anyone here I’m sure: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20231337
I’m also in Montreal, and spent the 6th in two US airports, including four hours watching the results coverage on CNN. Was kind of disappointed to not have been there when the result was announced, but my facebook feed was very happy, despite having a minority of US friends.
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Rad Readr has the pick: If you’re not with the brown, you’re going down, at least in my state. This is doubtless part of the reason the Colorado House flipped from a one-seat R majority to a 5-seat Dem majority on Tuesday, too. From the Denver Post:
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I stood in line for c. 1 hour mid-afternoon, listening for much of the time to a brown-skinned man who clearly spoke English as a second language (and whom I’d guess originally hails from southeast Asia, but I’m no expert) exhort the assembled crowd that “the ladies are voting en masse for Romney; this isn’t 2008.” I didn’t engage him in conversation, but my guess from his other comments, and from the economic demographics of my area, is that he would probably self-identify as an entrepreneur/small businessman (or at least someone who aspires to that category). These things aren’t always so easy to parse.
There was also an encouragingly large and efficient corps of non-partisan poll watchers/voter advocates (including one lawyer standing directly behind the check-in workers), most of whom would, if questioned, admit to supporting/being supported by Obama for America, but who were doing a very good, and, as far as I can tell, genuinely non-partisan, job of helping people make sure they were at the right precinct, had the right i.d. (still fairly minimal in my state, but you need at least a voter card or utility bill or something along those lines), etc., and helping people who were issued provisional ballots understand what they needed to do to follow up. In my particular precinct, there were fairly good odds that they’d help more Democratic (or Green/Independent) voters than Republican ones, but it was still a cheering effort to see.
Those who stood in very long lines well past poll-closing hour, often in majority-minority districts (and often after very long days of work, in contradiction to early-in-the-day jabs about the late vote belonging to hard-working Republicans), also deserve a “thank you.”
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I knew I could count on you as a held down the fort in my blue city.
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