Election Night!

D and I spent pretty much the entire evening watching the election results on CNN. I must say, I was pleasantly surprised by their coverage. The format was good and most of the coverage seemed quite balanced, though Wolf Blitzer seemed to have trouble containing his excitement that the Democrats took control of the House.

I'm, of course, thrilled that the Democrats took control of the House. It will be nice if they take control of the Senate too, but that's something we're not going to know for a while based on the current non-final results. The Virginia race is aggravating; it drives me crazy when Green party candidates run in tightly contested races because it just divides the vote and makes the Republican candidate stronger. But I suppose it's good to get other ideas out there rather than the same old stuff from both parties. I truly hope that the Democrats do intend to work in a bipartisan manner as was indicated in a lot of the speeches I watched tonight. I'd also love to see both parties move more towards the middle overall. What I now tend to believe is that when one party has too much power, that is when everything goes to hell in a hand basket. I am not at all confident that if the Democrats had as much power as the Republicans have had over the past 6 years (12 really), that the outcome would have been all that different. I think we'd have different problems certainly, but I feel more comfortable with a nice balance of views in office. Of course, I definitely prefer those view be tipped slightly liberal; I just think it would be best to fight for the slight tipping of views rather than a complete annihilation of the views of the opposing side.

In local election news, it looks like Measure 43 - a parental notification requirement for abortions for young women aged 15-17 here in Oregon - has thankfully failed. I feel like I played a small part in that defeat with both my vote and my volunteer work. Also, the Democratic incumbent governor of Oregon was reelected. I did end up voting for him over the Republican. I can't say it was a vote I was thrilled about; however, in the end, the Republican candidate just didn't have enough substance to sway me from voting for someone who shares my values, though is probably not the most competent governor. If I'm going to vote for someone who doesn't share a majority of my values, she/he definitely needs to be very, very competent and have solid action plans, not just bullet pointed ideas.

Hopefully everyone took their duty to get out and vote seriously, even if you voted differently than I would have. I really can't imagine what it would be like to not have the right to vote. I hope never to take that right for granted, regardless of how busy I am or how discouraged I am with the current crop of candidates and issues.