The Morning After...

Some quick post-election thoughts...

• President Obama. Those two words fill me with both fear and amazement. Fear...that Obama will not defend my country against fundamentalist Islamic terrorists, that instead he will accommodate them. Fear...of the Supreme Court judges that we're likely to see him nominate. Fear...of what his socialist inclinations will do the U.S. economy in general, and to my family's fortunes in particular. Amazement...primarily that within the span of my life, America went from segregation and overt discrimination against blacks to the point where we have elected a black man to be President.
  
  
• Senate races. The Democrats did not get their 60-vote filibuster-busting super-majority. Under current Senate rules, this means that the Republican minority can (with a concerted, near-unanimous action) block any bill or appointment. The possibility remains that they will repeal the filibuster rule, so that their simple majority can run over the Republican minority. I suspect Obama will ask the Senate to do exactly this – but I hope not.
  
  
• Proposition 8 (ban on gay marriage): as I write, it is leading – but just barely. 9% of the vote remains to be counted, and it has a 1.5% lead. If it wins, it seems like an out-of-context victory for sanity in California.
  
  
• Wacky state-wide propositions: alternative fuels, high-speed trains, free electric cars for everyone, etc., etc. These propositions all look like they're failing.
  
  
• San Diego City Attorney: this race doesn't affect me personally, but still I was interested to see that the man I'll call the “candidate of rationality” has handily beat Mike Aguirre – the incumbent who seems more like a circus clown and posturing mayoral wannabe than an attorney (much less the City's attorney!).

Somehow this morning I am not all filled with hopeyness and changitude. Rather the opposite.