Election items

Catholic Anarchy: Why I decided to vote
Iafrate:

Voting in the united states is indeed participation in a corrupt system. Critics of voting are indeed right that casting a vote is, in some sense, to be complicit in that system. There is a real danger, though, in believing that abstaining from voting will make us less complicit with this death-dealing system. While I believe Christians must witness to “the wider culture,” to imagine that we are completely separate from that culture, and that we play no role in making it and perpetuating its good aspects as well as its bad aspects, is an illusion.

Worcester voted….
Against eliminating the income tax 71.7%
For Obama 67.7%
For marijuana decriminalization 66.9%
For the dog racing ban 57.5%

I know that Adam voted against the proposed farm animal care reforms in California, but I’m happy it had enough support from others out there that it passed.

Catholics and the vote
Rocco Palmo lays out the scene:

In record numbers described as “breathtaking,” the nation — and, by the looks of it, the church — have spoken… and they’ve made Joe Biden the First Catholic of the United States.

This post has the details:

Bishops and apparatchiks, you might just want to avert your eyes… not much “good news” here.

I’m looking forward to working hard to oppose or change many of the new administration’s policies, especially the first part of next year. More on this in a few days.

Buck Paxton
My podcast co-host stuck his neck out with some election predictions. How did he do?

69% of Mass. voters were against Question 1. (All stats from the Globe).

He guessed the winner, but not the margin:

This is going to fail by the slimmest of margins, I’m going to guess by under 5 percentage points, which will hopefully be a wake-up call to State Legislators and Municipalities to change the way they spend.

Worcester voted against this more than the statewide average, 71.7%.

Question 2 was supported by 65% of voters statewide, and 66.9% of Worcester voters.

I’m going to say this one passes at somewhere between 65-70%.

Good call. And Question 3 got 57.5%:

Question three is going to pass by the same ridiculously slim margins that question one fails, but that passage will end up being overruled/ignored by the legislature.

I’m also surprised that Q3 did so well; recent polling showed it to be more of a tie. Overall, good job. I have so little a sense of Mass. politics that any pre-election guessing would just be at random.

The election night experience
Kottke’s collection of election maps. I found the New York Times online coverage especially helpful, with conservative predictions and easy access to the % of the vote counted in each state. Spent election night with a progressive friend who happens to be the child of a black man from Africa and a white woman from the Midwest, and whose sister has been working on the Obama campaign for a year–tears upon tears of joy.

Coates, liveblogging:

9:51 From the Dept of Can’t Beat ‘Em, claim credit. I’m listening to Karl Rove and Chris Wallace claim that Obama “moved to the center” and didn’t campaign as a liberal. Last week he was a socialist. Now he’s Reagan.

The whole evening reminded me of why I hate TV news, and love the Internet.

One thought on “Election items”

  1. It’ll be interesting to see what happens with the egg industry here in California. Will they really all ship out to other states? I dunno. They might. If they do, a co-worker of mine suggested that with them out of the picture, they won’t be around to lobby against pet owners, and ferrets might become legal in California.

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