OK, so my Libertarian pipe dream of national domination will never come true, but at least the results of the midterms were a defeat for Bush and Rove, with the Democrats picking up 21 seats to win control of the House and taking six state governorships away from the Republicans.
The 28 states that will be led by Democratic governors include Ohio, whose voters trounced the loathesome Ken Blackwell, and New York, which elected corporate reformer Eliot Spitzer.
Regardless of political party, one can only rejoice at the crushing defeat of Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, one of several far-right nuts who politicized the Terry Schiavo case last year, not to mention the despicable Katherine Harris of Florida.
At this hour, Democratic Senatorial candidates hold narrow leads in Virginia and Montana, with a recount likely in Virginia.
Among the state referenda, propositions, and amendments on yesterday’s ballots, South Dakotans defeated what would have been the most punitive ban on abortion in the country, and Missourians approved stem cell research.
In a semi-failed attempt to “energize their base”, Republican right-wingers had put bans on same-sex marriage on the ballot in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia and Wisconsin. Republicans won contested governorships in 3 of these, with the Dems winning 2. The Virginia senate race at this hour is still too close to call; Wisconsin kept its Democratic incumbent.
Closer to home, I’m disappointed that Rhode Island voters turned down casinos and that Massachusetts voters rejected Questions 1 and 2, which would have allowed the sale of wine in grocery stores and cross-party political endorsements, respectively.
Mercifully, there were a minimal number of reports of dirty tricks and potential voting machine irregularities this time, thus sparing us the banana republic ignominy of 2000 and 2004.
Now it’s up to the majorities at both the federal and state level to make the changes some of us, evidently most of us, have been waiting for. Will the results of yesterday’s elections end the hammerlock on national politics by the religious wrong? Only time will tell.