Cheers and Jeers: Election Day '09

Bill in Portland Maine for Daily Kos

Community

Tuesday November 03, 2009 · 6:05 AM PST

2009/11/03 · 06:05

From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE...

Just Another Tuesday

[Yawn]

Oh yeah, that's right...it's election day! I should've known by the 200,000 people standing in my living room holding ballots and magic markers, trying to decide if my being---soul, id, ego, spirit, whatever you wanna call it---is "equal enough" to deserve entry into the world of civil marriage. They're checkin' my teeth, smellin' my pits, making me turn my head and cough, and asking me if I recite the Red Sox Loyalty Oath every day. (Well, duh!)

I've been through a bunch of these referendums and they never become any less insulting. But, to paraphrase Don Rumsfeld, "You go to the voting booth with the referendums you have, not the referendums you might want or wish to have at a later time." Or something like that. And so today Maine's GLBT residents will once again be hoisted up on a jack (quit shoving!) and inspected for quality and purity, hoping that the "Grade A Equal Citizen" tattoos applied to our butts by the legislature and the governor last spring won't suddenly be scrubbed off by the voters. (They use Brillo Pads---Owie! Owie!)

So how did the 'No on 1' campaign perform? Well, let me put it this way: win or lose, I hereby nominate Jesse Connolly for Governor. The organization is amazing. I'm sure there were times of massive internal frustration and crisis, but the campaign has had this constant, reassuring hum to it. They stayed on message, responded to the right's lies quickly and unequivocally, raised lots of dough, and creatively recruited volunteers with campaigns-within-the-campaign like Calls for Equality and "volunteer vacations." Their ads were crisp and featured dozens of real Maine families. (The other side featured a few glum conservative Christian teachers from Maine---the rest of their cast consisted of out-of-staters and stock footage they rented that'll probably turn up one day in commercials for life insurance and laxatives.) And their ground game, with several regional offices, could well be the silent secret weapon that puts us over the top.

'No on 1' has a contagious buoyancy about it---a grassroots energy that I haven't felt in my bones like this since the heady days of Howard Dean's campaign, circa late 2003. Yesterday, for example, they put up an Act Blue "thermometer" and broke their fundraising goal three times in just a few hours. Jesse literally ran to the bank before it closed to wire money to TV and radio stations for more ad time. The guy's a friggin' George Bailey. (And now that I think about it, the head of the opposition has the same black-hearted soul as Mr. Potter.)

There were no trip-ups by 'No on 1' during the campaign. No slip-ups. No scandals (though the 'Yes on 1' campaign clumsily tried to create some). Just the occasional little brushfire that typically burned itself out in a news cycle. The question on everyone's lips around the country during this campaign was, "Did they learn from the mistakes of the anti-Prop. 8 campaign?" Yes. Yes Yes Yes.

Meanwhile, with one exception (the Lewiston paper, which stayed neutral), Maine's newspapers strongly endorsed a 'No' vote. As much as we appreciate the larger ones (The Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram, The Bangor Daily News), I think the wisdom in the smaller ones is even more gratifying. Like, for instance, the Lakes Region Weekly:

At the heart of the issue of same-sex marriage, past all the very public rhetoric of faith, morality and tradition, is the very private love and commitment between two adults, and society's duty to recognize that. [...]

And, no, domestic partnerships will not do. To many gay couples, they are an embarrassment, an indication that the love they feel so clearly is simply not up to par with that between a man and a woman. It implies a lower status, a lesser commitment. Separate but equal can never really be equal. [...]

Nothing would change, except throughout Maine, in gatherings large and small, all people who love each other enough to commit to a life together, with all its ups and downs, could do just that.

Amen. To the legislators and campaign organizers, volunteers and advocates, donors and phonebankers, bloggers and pastors, carpoolers and canvassers, Bishop Gene Robinson and Governor John Baldacci and 87 year-old internet star Philip Spooner (go ahead---watch him again), families and friends and complete strangers from here and away, and of course the Daily Kos community---all of you who helped our state get this close to upholding our historic marriage equality law:

Thank you. You've made this demeaning ritual rather inspiring.

Good lord willin' and the creek don’t rise, we'll have good news to report tonight.

Cheers and Jeers starts in There's Moreville... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]

Cheers and Jeers for Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Note: Just a heads up that tomorrow's C&J will be short 'n sweet instead of the usual format, on account of we'll be phonebanking all day today and observing the election results tonight (read: drinking and making obscene balloon animals). Believe me: when I phonebank, I use The Force, so even the hardest-core nutters are putty in my paws.

By the Numbers:
Days `til Thanksgiving: 23
Days `til the Northwest Food and Wine Festival in Portland: 11
Number of vehicles stolen per 100,000 people in 1991: 659
Number of vehicles stolen per 100,000 people in 2008: 315
(Source: FBI stats via USA Today)
Age of the internet as of last Thursday: 40
(Source: CNN)
Cost of a 2-lb lobster dinner at Warren's Lobster House Restaurant in Kittery in 1945: $2.25
Cost of a 2-lb. lobster dinner at Warren's today: 1 gold bar

World Series Phillies 8 Yankees 6 (Yankees lead 3 games to 2)

Tuesday Words of Wisdom from the Right-wing Blogosphere:

[Senator Jim] DeMint is one of the reasons we don’t need a third party. We already have the conservative leaders like him who can rebrand the GOP and lead us to victory. There may be a few seats lost in the process at first ... Snowe, Graham, etc. When you pull weeds in your garden there are a few bare spots at first. But you gotta get the weeds out of the way so the good stuff can flourish.
---Commenter Vallgreaser at the Michelle Malkin blog

All together now: One...two...three... Great plan!!!

Puppy Pic of the Day: Seems like a good day for a dog/baby cuddle pic.

CHEERS to Election Day! I had no idea until five minutes ago that there was anything going on besides the Maine referendum. Oops! Because I know Nate Silver and all the other pollster gurus are full of crap, let me give you the real results that we'll see today...complete with detailed reasons why:

New Jersey: Jon Corzine will win another term as Governor because he took a little girl's advice and grew a beard.

Virginia: Mark Warner will be the surprise write-in-vote winner, becoming the first person in history to be both a sitting governor and U.S. Senator because people like him. Or, more specifically, they like his chocolate fountain.

New York's 23rd District: The day will start with Mrs. Gladys McGillicutty of Potsdam accidentally swallowing her toothbrush. By the end of the day Fort Drum will be on red alert, Sarah Palin will be in jail for illegal possession of a bazooka, and the winner by one vote will be the lady who dropped out. I figured this out using statistics.

Washington State: Voters will grant the GLBT community expanded civil union rights that equal those of marriage. But they won’t be allowed to call it marriage. But they will, anyway. Because they're nothing but trouble, that's why.

Kalamazoo: The civil rights ordinance will be upheld because the other side are idiots who think that it "could force women to share locker and changing rooms with cross-dressing men." Wrong---they'd only have to share J.C. Penney.

Ohio: Issue 2 is pure evil star-chamber-type shit that will give the agricultural-industrial complex unfettered power in the state. Voters will bury this sucker, according to my cow sources.

Afghanistan: ~~The run-off between Karzai and Abdullah will go smoothly, leading to Jeffersonian democracy and a new era of honesty, cooperation and transparency.~~ CANCELLED DUE TO CORRUPTION

Vote early and vote often. So I can see what you look like in a mug shot.

CHEERS to a very bad day for the GOP. Seventy three years ago today, on November 3rd, 1936, FDR was re-elected in a landslide over Alf Landon by---get this---523 electoral votes to 8! Twenty eight years later Lyndon Johnson beat Barry Goldwater 486-52. And 28 years after that Bill Clinton dispatched George H.W. Bush by a less-substantial but still impressive 370-168 margin. Grand total: 1379 to 128. Takeaway message: George Will is right---cherrypicking is fun!

JEERS to mad medicine. The Republicans launched a "health care reform plan" via catapult from their camp in the wilderness yesterday. Once she deciphered the words scrawled on the slab of tree bark, Darcy Burner wasted no time summarizing its contents, with an assist from Congressman Alan Grayson. This is actually very, very close to the truth:

Don't get sick.

If you do get sick...

Die quickly!

Although, in fairness, the GOP would go beyond the Democrats' plan by offering every American a free tube of heel-softening cream. Great idea, Boehner!

CHEERS to your Hot Investor Tip of the Day. Five simple words that could make you rich: Buy oceanfront property...in Ethiopia:

A 35-mile rift in the desert of Ethiopia will likely become a new ocean eventually, researchers now confirm. ... The African and Arabian plates meet in the remote Afar desert of Northern Ethiopia and have been spreading apart in a rifting process---at a speed of less than 1 inch per year---for the past 30 million years. This rifting formed the 186-mile Afar depression and the Red Sea. The thinking is that the Red Sea will eventually pour into the new sea in a million years or so.

We're talkin' casinos, luxury hotels, professional beach volleyball tournaments, regattas, moving the Miss America Pageant, and championship putt-putt golf! Just sign on the dotted line and I'll take care of everything. (Step One: figure out how to live to a million.) It's gold, baby---GOLD!

JEERS to little green footballs. On November 3, 1952, Clarence Birdseye first marketed frozen peas. We hate 'em---they're stinky, pungent and squishy---and anyone who thinks otherwise must be a socialist Marxist commie bedwetter. But we'll say this: if you're packin' a spoon, they make awesome catapult ammo at the dinner table. (If you hit Gramps on his upper lip his dentures fall out.)

Five years ago in C&J---November 3, 2004: the day after the election

CHEERS to Dubya's comeuppance. Oh, this could be good. New 9/11 revelations, the Plame investigation, Halliburton hijinks, Iraq incompetence...feel free to add to the list. None of it goes away just because Bush (apparently) won. Memo to CBS: Y'all can go ahead and show that damning '60 Minutes' segment on Niger documents now.

JEERS to Kentucky. Um...you guys just voted for mentally incompetent loon Jim Bunning. Ladies and gentleman...the Senate has its new Zell Miller.

And just one more...

JEERS to bad timing. For some strange reason, HBO chose election day---when a lot of people will be watching returns roll in on cable and local news---to air the premiere of their documentary, By the People: The Election of Barack Obama:

[A] moving record of the Obama campaign's history-making odyssey to the White House. Interwoven with the drama of the campaign is never-before-seen footage of Obama behind the scenes, as well as interviews and candid moments with wife Michelle Obama, the couple's young daughters, Malia and Sasha, and senior campaign staff, volunteers, reporters, supporters and opponents.

So that means I'm gonna have to build a time machine so that I can both watch the returns tonight and then go back in time to watch the movie. But what if I spill my booze in the past? It would likely set off a dangerous chain reaction that would wreak untold havoc on the future---our present!---that no vaccine or fleet of bulldozers could ever fix. Or perhaps I could just tape it. Nahhh...it might not take. Time travel it is. See ya yesterday tomorrow!

You may begin holding your breath...now. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?

Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:

Darth Vader's Death Star? Ming the Merciless and his war rockets? The awesome power of Chuck Norris? Piffle, suggests one astrophysicist, at least when it comes to explaining what force could have permanently bent a ring in our Milky Way Galaxy within the last 60 million years. The real explanation may be the power of Bill in Portland Maine.
---Dan Vergano
USA Today

Poll
6448 votes Show Results
Aw, screw it. I'm canceling the Maine election and leaving the decision up to you: 'Do you want to reject the new [Maine] law that lets same-sex couples marry and allows individuals and religious groups to refuse to perform these marriages?'

Yes

No

6448 votes Vote Now!
Aw, screw it. I'm canceling the Maine election and leaving the decision up to you: 'Do you want to reject the new [Maine] law that lets same-sex couples marry and allows individuals and religious groups to refuse to perform these marriages?'

Yes

693 votes

No

5754 votes

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