Voting, California style!
Since this is an historic Presidential election, for several reasons, I did not think that I should let it go by without a few pseudorandom comments, which are about all that I can muster right now. 
1) California is not a “battleground state.” For that reason, we did not get to see all of the contentious TV commercials that were directed to you folks in battleground states, for which I am very thankful, indeed! California is a state in which Presidential candidates or their proxies “dropped in, grabbed a few million dollars, and flew out.” California is very divided though. The heavily populated coast votes Democrat, and the inland areas are predominantly Republican. I have commented that the Central Valley “looks a lot like Indiana with mountains on both sides” and the resemblance extends to politics.
2) The words “…when you’ve got to choose, anyway you look at it you lose” of the Simon and Garfunkel song, “Mrs. Robinson” kept running through my mind during the whole campaign.
3) California LOVES laws (and some folks even think that people OBEY them)! I have mentioned that the California General Assembly loves to pass laws, but cannot seem to pass a budget. A lot of times, the failure of the General Assembly to deal with politically sensitive issues means that these issues wind up on the ballot as initiatives, etc. There were 14 of these beasts (my wife told me that one was printed on our ballots by mistake and will not be counted) on the ballot that I cast – it was probably even worse in places like San Francisco. Many of these are poorly written (read “will wind up in court”), with only “guesstimates” of how much they will cost taxpayers.
4) Proposition 8: One of the issues was “Proposition 8” which (and I quote), “Eliminates right of same-sex couples to marry. Initiative Constitutional Amendment.” Needless to say, there was a lot of controversy over this one, and record amounts of money spent by both sides. When I arrived at my work this morning, there were folks picketing with regard to this issue, and they were standing too close to the polling place. An administrator had them move to a legal distance from the polling place.
5) My computer voice, “Vicky,” just told me that it is 5 o’clock. Since daylight savings time expired on Sunday morning, even places like Arizona that do not “celebrate” daylight savings time are one hour ahead of us. Since it is 5 PM here, the polls in the Eastern Time Zone, which extends to Ohio and Michigan, are closing! (I never can figure out Indiana, which at one time decided on daylight savings time on a “county-by-county” basis. The reasoning was, “The cows know what time it is.”) So soon, I will walk downstairs, flip on the TV and find out who won! 😉 Meanwhile, the polls are open for three more hours in California.
6) The best news for me is that the commercials about the issues will be stopping soon! I received a phone call about a candidate for the California General Assembly at about 4 PM. I cut that call short by telling the person that I had already voted.
Happy Election Night folks! And let’s hope that we don’t get the kind of government that we truly deserve….
-Bill at Cheshire Cat Photo™
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