Election Afterglow

BIG PICTURE
So, this is what it feels like to go to bed happy on Election Day? A nice day for Democrats across the country. In nearly all the major races we came out on top. Virginia and NJ governors, even though the Republicans pulled out all the dirty tricks. Bush helicoptered down to personally drive the final nail in Kilgore's bid to take Virginia, and the Democrat mayor of St. Paul, MN who supported Bush, got stomped.

Bush has worse than jumped the shark, he is chum in the water for Republicans at this point.

Maine rejects a gay discrimination proposition and California voted "NO!" to every one of Ahnold's ballot initiatives. It would have been nice for Bloomberg to lose in NYC, but I can see how no one was excited by Ferrer.

It's too bad 2006 is a year away. If Congress was up for grabs this year, we might have walked to control. Can we sustain this momentum?

MORE: Carpetbagger, Kos, Ezra. John Cole on the good and the bad results and Steve G. has some sour grapes, but then floats an interesting theory—Bloomberg won as an R, but will switch back to D by next fall. Interesting indeed.

CLOSER TO HOME
Over in Detroit, a shocker. Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick staged a late rally to defeat same-party challenger Freeman Hendrix even though Hendrix appeared to be winning handily all night last night. Kwame was elected the first fall I moved to Michigan, and I was excited that such a young guy was elected mayor. I remember him "raising the roof" during his victory speech—a hip-hop mayor. Unfortunately he proved to be a disaster, and we would have been better off with P. Diddy as mayor. By all accounts Kilpatrick should have gotten his ass handed to him, and all the allegations of voter fraud building over the last week look like they might have merit. At the very least, his victory will be viewed as extremely tainted. This is bad news for Detroit, which really need a fresh start.

Even more locally, here in Ann Arbor, the $4.2 million millage to pay for cutting down thousands of ash trees killed by the motherfucking Emerald Ash Borer failed. I'm fairly surpried by this one, as it's a pretty progressive and environmental city, and at a glance this would seem a no-brainer to support. But the fact was, the City probably didn't need to raise taxes to pay for this, and voters were wise to axe it...(groan).

In addition there is controversy over the misleading ad claims by the city that "Ann Arbor voters have an opportunity to approve funding for more rapid ash tree removal.'' [emphasis mine]. Apparently, the City was prepared to remove the trees as quickly as possible regardless of the millage outcome. Yeah, I call that misleading, and par for the course for this mayor. Last year I voted for a Republican (the only time in my life) for mayor because of stuff exactly like this. Heifjte is a mirror image of Bush. Sure, he's liberal and everything I want in a politician on issues, except that he lies and skews facts all the time to suit his needs and exhibits plenty of cronyism. I've got no use for that shit, even from liberal Dems.

SIDEBAR
And all that money would do nothing to ease the burden on homeowners with ash trees to remove. I have two of them, and it will cost me a couple thousand bucks just to chop 'em down and not replace them. The mayor decided last year Ann Arbor would not participate in a state aid plan for homeowners, and it was probably to do with this millage initiative. Thanks, dick.

And a special "Fuck You!" shout-out to the bug that killed two of the four mature trees in my yard, and the power company that last week overzealously chopped half of my maple away, literally. I'm left with my gorgeous shade tree looking like the letter D, and a hickory that the squirrels use to pelt my car and driveway with an endless supply of nutshells. Grrrr...