Thursday, November 09, 2006

Oh yeah, there was an election, wasn't there?

Some thoughts on Tuesday's election:

Schwartzenegger was re-elected. I voted for Peter Camejo, the Green candidate. Eh. I didn't really follow or care much about this election, but I'm not surprised that the unwashed masses voted for the movie star.

Actually, of all the top California state officers up for election, only two candidates I voted for won election: Jerry Brown (Democrat) for Attorney General and Steve Poizner (Republican) for Insurance Commisioner. Coincidentally, those two elections are the only ones (for top California state officers) where I didn't vote for the Green candidate. Oh, and my local Assembly person, Lori Saldaña (Democrat), whom I voted for, also won re-election.

For U.S. Senate, I voted for Todd Chretien (Green) against incumbent Dianne Feinstein (Republican) and I voted for incumbent Susan Davis (Democrat) for her House seat. Both incumbents won, but that's expected when there was no real controversy for either election. I have a strong distaste for Feinstein, especially regarding her seeming disregard of the 1st amendment (re: funding of California Missions and her sponsorship of a flag-burning amendment), but also for her willingness to cater to Republicans. But, it could have been worse - at least the Republicans didn't win.

For all those congressional elections that I couldn't vote on, I'm glad that the Republicans were swept from power, but I don't expect much out of the new Democratic leadership. By making promises before the election to not pursue impeachment proceedings against Bush, they've shown that they are willing to ignore our constitution and let Bush and his administration get away with their crimes. My only hope is that they plug the leak of our civil rights, if they don't have the balls to revert the damage already done.

Moving on to the propositions, I voted with the majority on 1A, but my No votes on 1B through 1E (all bonds) were countered by a population that apparently thinks that money grows on trees. My opposition to almost all the bonds on the ballot is not because I don't think that the projects they fund have merit; it's because I think that approval of bond measures sends the wrong message to our elected representatives. I am so disgusted with California politicians because part of their job is to figure out how to spend our tax dollars but, instead, they pawn this job off to us. Like Libertarians, I believe that bond measures are bad, but unlike Libertarians, I also think that our state taxes are too low. We should be able to fund the projects that need funding and I want my elected representative to actually do some work and figure out how to best spend my tax dollars. As it is, special interests push these bond measures and the ones that win are the ones that have the best advertisements. It's simply disgusting.

I voted for the $2.60 per pack cigarette tax (prop 86) and for prop 87, a tax on oil producers to fund alternative energy research and production, but both propositions lost. I am heartened, though, by the 48% and 45% Yes votes on those two measures. However, of all the propositions, prop 85 was the one I cared about the most - I am very happy that this "parental notification" measure failed, although I hate the fact that San Diego county voters voted in favor of it.

Speaking of San Diego, Jerry Sanders got his way with propositions B and C, both of which I voted against, but the fools that keep trying to put a commercial airport at Miramar lost on prop A, which I also voted against. I live in the flight path for Lindbergh field and would love to see that change, but anyone that thinks that the military is going to give up Miramar is chasing windmills. The better location to replace Lindbergh field, in my opinion, is Brown field, but our local politicians proved themselves gutless when that option was put on the table.

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