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2004 US Presidential Election: California
November 04, 2004Prop 62 and GoodbyeIt has now been one whole day since the most important election decision I can remember – of course, I’m talking about prop. 62 here in Cali. The votes are in and it lost by 55/45… sigh. As I noted in this post, prop 62 had the chance to give Republicans a shot in the state. Unfortunately, not only did the Democrats see through the ploy, the California Republican party decided to throw itself on the sword of futility again, and also fought hard to defeat the measure (this is the party that stumbled all over themselves to nominate Bill Jones – who could not win in California if it was a single candidate race – rather than Rirodan even though Rirodan was beating Davis in the general opinion poles by double digits). Too bad. I’d like to thank Michele and Alan for giving me the chance to blog this election. It has been great fun, and hopefully I will get to stay on and do some more writing for Command Post. Trolling around the web today, I would say the following were my favorite quotes… “The Democrats are never going to get America to come to them; they must go to America” “Liberty, if it means anything, is the right to tell people what they don’t want to hear” From the “Europeans don’t understand the U.S.” department… “The families of people in the military will win it for Kerry.” From the Rather… “One would expect that the blogging machine which the White House and the Bush-Cheney campaign has used for any number of purposes over their four years…” (Hey Karl, I never got my check ;-) ) From the “you know your conspiracy theory is in trouble when it requires you to believe: (1) that Florida provides the returns for races in Ohio (?), (2) you actually believe any county in Ohio would vote Green for president, but none in California, New York or Washington” department… “This auction is for whatever relevance Mr. Moore has seven days from now” (hat tip ) Stay Free Election Night in LA
I was so looking forward to using the satirical “John Kerry is not my President” for this entry’s headline, but the senator has just made his call to the White House and conceded the election to George. Oh well, current event humor has a thousand ways to die.
I left the house last night at around 7:30, and started my evening at Akbar. Akbar is in the Sliver Lake area of Los Angeles. Silver Lake is that “artist section” that every city has, filled with real and wannabe actors, writers, filmmakers, dancers, etc. They live there mainly because the rents are cheap in those apartments that one suspect are not quite up to code. There is also a significant amount of gays in Silver Lake (gays with no money live in Silver Lake, those with money live on the West Side).
The crowd was decidedly anti-Bush, and on edge when I went in. I had looked at the numbers on the net before I left, so I know that NM, FL, OH, NV and AR were basically Bush and the media just was too afraid to call it (which I am fine with, BTW – I would rather they call it late than too early), but no-one at the bar knew that.
There was one point where the broadcasts where displaying the results of the various anti-gay marriage initiatives; which was met with a mixture of groans and cheers. At first I was confused since I would guess that about half the crowd was gay, but apparently the cheers were coming from people who thought that the series of “yes” wins meant people were voting for gay marriage. It had not occurred to many in this crowd that eleven states would go out of their way to create initiatives that would explicitly ban (They do not know anyone who is against gay marriage, so they assume most of the country agrees with them). I had to tell the woman next to me that these were votes banning gay marriage. She had thought that gay marriage was already legal in several states (her uncle was married during the short window in Massachusetts), and I had to explain what the situation was to her.
After about an hour of people realizing that Ohio was not going to be called (and I suspect realizing that Bush would take it) the disappointed patrons cleared the place pretty quickly.
Stay Free November 03, 2004Correcting my Correction - I was Right!
Ah, but what about the national vote? In 2000 104,339,125 people voted, and in 2004 115,328,260. 10%. That’s it. 10%. That’s the giant animated voter turnout increase that was supposed to revolutionize our democracy. Right. The problem is that people do not make a distinction between getting people to register (which is easy, they just have to fill out a form) and getting them to vote. The more things change, the more things stay the same. But sometimes when a meme sticks, there is just no getting rid of it - check out the toon. In other news, I am listening to Air America today (I thought it would be entertaining after they lost - apparently Air America cannot be entertaining under any circustances). Here’s the most enligtening quote from Janeane Garofalo, “I want the Archie Bunker contingent in the cracker belt to suffer.” And they wonder why they lost. Stay Free Miscellaneous NotesKerry won California by 10%, one point less than Al Gore in 2000. Helping to close the gap was a 4% increase in votes for President Bush in Los Angeles county, a very blue area of the state. Barbara Boxer wins by 19. The Republicans will have to go back to the drawing board to run against Diane Feinstein. Incumbents have successfully protected their seats in the State Senate and Assembly. The gerrymandering appears to have made almost every single race uncompetitive. Prop 66 Loses -- Prop 71 Wins>95% precincts reporting: Prop 66 (3 Strike Limits): No: 53% Prop 71 (Stem Cell Research): Yes: 59% Prop 66 Losing?The Governor makes this claim, and the Secretary of State website shows the flip to No on Prop 66. Yes 2,708,608 49.3% Message Sent. Is It Received?“The John and Ken Show” on KFI 640 AM radio spent the last several weeks trying to send a message to Washington. That message: Illegal Aliens have ruined California’s economy and opening California up for further disaster. The same talk show hosts that shared a stage with Representative David Dreier (Rep.) during the California Recall made him their number one target. See http://www.johnandkenshow.com for specifics. John Kobylt and Ken Shiampou also singled out Democrat Joe Baca. According to various sources quoted on their radio program, these two Congressmen (Dreier & Baca) have some of the worst records on Illegal immigration in the House. KFI made several attempts to have Dreier on the John and Ken Show during the series, but he would not appear referring to scheduling conflicts and non-returned phone calls. David Dreier had some “last minute” efforts to pass an immigration bill through the house, but facts do show his record is clearly poor. Baca simply refuses to call illegal immigration what it is, often referring to individuals as “undocumented.” John and Ken believed Joe Baca should be fighting for our country and not for the citizens of Mexico. Tonight’s outcome reveals that both candidates will retain their seats in Congress, but John and Ken hope that a message has been sent. The dynamic duo promise to come back in two years even harder at Dreier and are pushing for a Republican stronger on immigration in 2006. Republicans Keep Control of Congress, Despite CaliforniaHere are the congressional results so far: (via FoxNews.com) CA - U.S. Senate CA - U.S. House - District 1 CA - U.S. House - District 2 CA - U.S. House - District 3 CA - U.S. House - District 4 CA - U.S. House - District 5 CA - U.S. House - District 6 CA - U.S. House - District 7 CA - U.S. House - District 8 CA - U.S. House - District 9 CA - U.S. House - District 10 CA - U.S. House - District 11 CA - U.S. House - District 12 CA - U.S. House - District 13 CA - U.S. House - District 14 CA - U.S. House - District 15 CA - U.S. House - District 16 CA - U.S. House - District 17 CA - U.S. House - District 18 CA - U.S. House - District 19 CA - U.S. House - District 20 CA - U.S. House - District 21 CA - U.S. House - District 22 CA - U.S. House - District 23 CA - U.S. House - District 24 CA - U.S. House - District 25 CA - U.S. House - District 26 CA - U.S. House - District 27 CA - U.S. House - District 28 CA - U.S. House - District 29 CA - U.S. House - District 30 CA - U.S. House - District 31 CA - U.S. House - District 32 CA - U.S. House - District 33 CA - U.S. House - District 34 CA - U.S. House - District 35 CA - U.S. House - District 36 CA - U.S. House - District 37 CA - U.S. House - District 38 CA - U.S. House - District 39 CA - U.S. House - District 40 CA - U.S. House - District 41 CA - U.S. House - District 42 CA - U.S. House - District 43 CA - U.S. House - District 44 CA - U.S. House - District 45 CA - U.S. House - District 46 CA - U.S. House - District 47 CA - U.S. House - District 48 CA - U.S. House - District 49 CA - U.S. House - District 50 CA - U.S. House - District 51 CA - U.S. House - District 52 CA - U.S. House - District 53 California and the popular voteCNN has shown the nationwide popular vote totals, with Bush leading Kerry 51% to 48%. It appears GW is gaining votes and doing better in many places than he did in 2000. Since the CA polls closed, with the first poll reports Kerry was leading GW 55% to 42%. Now the latest results from the Secretary of State website, with 14% of precints reporting Kerry 52.1% 1,241,400 November 02, 2004First Returns from CAThis comes from CA’s Secretary of State’s website. Actual tallies reported every ten minutes, 3.8% of precincts reporting: Bush 43% 471,958 Boxer 57% 682,186 Propositions: 1A - local revenue protection Y 83 N 16 0 Precincts Reporting - Kerry Takes California ;-)OK, so California is not exactly where the excitement is at in the presidential race. But I think what will be the most important issue to come out of Cali will be prop 62. One of the hurdles that California Republicans have had to clear for a long time now is that many small l libertarians, moderate conservatives and secular GOP types (the Arnolds of our state) tend to register as independents. This leaves the Republican primary to a very small group of traditional conservatives who inevitably nominate a candidate that has no chance of winning in a general election. This is why Arnold could only have run as a Republican during the recall - because it bypassed the primaries where he never could have been nominated by the party. Because of this contrarian, independent tick of the California electorate, the far left wing of the Democratic party has had it’s power exaggerated. Prop 62 would solve this problem by allowing candidates to bypass the Republican primary trial by fire, and thereby allowing moderates (or more typically for California - hawkish social liberals who are fiscal conservatives) to run against the Democrats. This would likely reverberate on the national level because it would give Republicans some kind of footing in California and it would force the California Democrats to move closer to the center. No results are in yet, but I’m going to be watching this one closely. If the Arnold, Rudy, McCain’s of the elephants can find a power base in California, the implications to the future of American politics are hard to overestimate. All right. I’m off to one of these places to get drunk and watch (at least if the numbers coming out of Ohio and Florida are correct) Bush win. I’ll bring my camera and post later tonight. Stay Free. Red and Blue in LAFor those who are interested in a little taste of life here in LA vis-a-vis the election, interesting article at slate. Local writer dressed up in Kerry gear and walked around town, then dressed up in Bush gear and walked around my neighborhood. Welcome to my World! Stay Free I STAND CORRECTED!
I have been saying all day that it didn’t seem like the voter turnout in California was all that exceptional. Then I stopped into my local polling place and asked a few questions - boy was I wrong. They were amazed at the turnout, and said that at this point over 50% of those registered had actually turned up to vote. Now, granted, my neighborhood is a high turnout one in the first place, but the same poll workers have been maning our polling station for a decade, so they would now how this year compares to previous ones. When I first went in and explained that I was blogging for command post, I was received with some concern by a couple of the poll workers. One of them asked me, “What authority do you have to cover this election?” Another piped up to my defense and said, “The first amendment.” Generally, they were helpful and informative, though.
Two of the poll workers were going over their lists to ensure that no-one had voted twice. They had heard about the party at The Abbey and the free martinis when you have an “I voted” sticker. Since they had boxes of stickers… hmmmm… ;-) They did ask me to leave my name, number and the address of the web site (I think as temporary workers they didn’t know exactly how to handle someone taking pictures and asking questions). I did that - so we’ll see if I get arrested tomorrow… :-)
When I first showed up at the polling station, this car was parked at the end of the driveway. I thought at first I might have uncovered a case of electioneering at the polling place, but the car was gone after I went inside to take some pictures and ask some questions. I guess it just belonged to a voter. I did notice a certain change in tone, however. Since we have the same poll workers every election, and the polling station is literally in a neighbor’s garage, there is a certain joviality and comradeship that has permiated the air at our polling place (the fact that I think of it as “our” polling place is an example of what I mean). But this year it seemed as if everyone voting at least (and most of the poll workers) were very serious. There were no conversations or joking around as there usually is. I don’t want to make too much of this — it’s not as if the atmosphere was deadly serious — but it did feel different.
That being said, everyone seemed open enough, and I was told that I could even examine the records of who voted, as that was public information (I didn’t know that). There was also this sheet telling us who we could use as a write-in candidate. Why exactly I need the state to tell me who I can write in I am unclear on - in a Democracy, shouldn’t I be able to write in whomever I want? But then I’m just a lowly voter, and who am I to question what the aristocracy has decided I can and cannot do[officially getting off my high horse now]. One of the presidential write-ins was Nader; which I am sure many people will be angry about. I don’t know why so many in California are angry about being able to vote for Nader - Kerry will win no matter what. Stay Free No Suprises Expected in CaliforniaLeading off, Kerry takes California and Boxer retains her seat…so far. Still a lot of votes to be counted. Estimates on California issues look like this: The teenager report#4 daughter, Siobhan, 17 y/o high school senior just walked in from band practice. Her observation is that most of the students at her school are apolitical. Of those that are paying attention, the Bush buttons/t-shirts out numbered the Kerry attire. Of the high schoolers who are 18 and eligible to vote, almost all of them are voting Bush/Cheney. She also confirms the attitude of the Bush/Cheney supporters is one of cheerful optimism where the Kerry teens are a surly bunch.
Department of Redundancy Department
The rally was run by Neighbors for Peace and Justice; which has been a vocal ani-war group here in Los Angeles. The rally, apparently, was as uninspiring as all the other GOTV efforts here in California - I passed by the polls again, and didn’t see any more activity than the last time I voted (that was the recall). I have heard very little in the way of political advertising on the radio other than the Arnold/Jerry Brown ad against prop 66 (That’s the prop that alters the Three Strikes Law to exlude non-violent felonies as a strike). It seems that just about everyone, even the traditionally liberal radio commentators here in LA have been against prop 66. Since prop 66 limits violent felonies to crimes that involve direct harm to a human victim (burning down a building, for example, is considered a “non-violent” act under prop 66), the law would actually end up releasing a number current prisoners. How many depends on who you listen to; the opponents say 25,000 prisoners would be released, the proponents say that is unsupportable, but I have yet to hear what number they say would be released. The proposition was originally supported by a 24 point margin (via the LA Times), but the media blitz has erroded that support, and going into the election the numbers were dead even. I suspect it will ultimately be rejected. We may have had a lot of liberal politicians, but the truth is, California has always been a tough-on-crime state, even when Jerry Brown was govenor. Though I do wonder where all the anti prop 66 money is coming from. The media blitz is large enough that somebody is obviously worried about it passing. Also, I did finally hear a presidential radio ad (from the Bush/Chenney camp). I guess that accounts for the $126 the campaigns earmarked for California in the Presidential election. Stay Free. What are the odds?cross posted at Darleen’s Place Note: pictures in this post have been sized down. My own website contains thumbnails with linked full size images.
So I finally head to my polling place after 10 am PST. No long line out the door, but a nice steady stream of people going in. All the booths were full and I waited about six back after signing in (poll workers cannot ask for ID in California.) A few under 30, mostly older voters. The woman keying the voting cards for the electronic machines, Sandy, said there wasn’t the initial crush as they expected first thing in the morning, but that they were surprised at the constant stream of voters. It’s been a few years since I worked the polls, but I remember that outside of the busy morning and evening hours, the worst thing facing the poll workers is boredom. You can easily go hours between voters.
We laugh, we hug, we chat about kids (she has an absolutely gorgeous 3 month old daughter) … she tells her sons to quit picking the berries off the shrubbery and pelting each other … I point across the street to the high school and tell her about #4 being a senior there. We enjoy this opportunity to talk of other things beyond the election. I do tell her of the Bush/Cheney supporters cheering and waving to drivers at a major intersection yesterday, she tells me of similar B/C supporters at a different local intersection who were being harassed by very young thuggish Kerry supporters. We both agree that the level of irrationality and the number of dour, hatefilled incidents has surpassed anything either of us have known. We can hardly wait for tomorrow so we can start putting this behind us. California has never even been in play for the Kerry campaign. So what animates Kerry supporters to harass Bush supporters? After leaving my polling place, I visited a couple others in my area and found a similar scenario; steady stream of mature voters who look calm and serious as they enter and are happy when they leave. In talking with a few others, I encounter the same attitude — relief in casting the vote and high hopes that this Season of Irrationality will pass.
A few miles west of my polling place, I pulled to the side of the road and took this picture of this main boulevard, lined for several miles with trees and American flags, snow-capped mountain in the distance.
Whatever tomorrow brings, The Republic will endure. SoCal Gal Checking InChecked my polling place in Hollywood this morning. Line was out the door. Voted ay 7:30 AM. A Gay/Lesbian organization was soliciting in the parking lot (they were more than 100 feet from the door — I checked). I think they had a petition. I’ll report more in the next few hours as I begin to check polling places. LA GatheringsI am trying to collect a list of places where people can gather this evening for the election coverage - and just to have a good time. Here in Los Feliz I know they will be having election coverage at Akbar. According to the Boi from Troy, The Abbey in West Hollywood will be giving out free martinis to anyone with two “I voted” stickers. UPDATE: Found this helpful guide to election night gatherings in Los Angeles. Quick Glance at the Polling PlacesI took a quick run around to a few polling places here in LA did not make me change the opinion that I expressed here - I still think it is going to be a relatively normal turnout. However, the Boi from Troy is reporting diferently. This may have a bit to do with geography; he is reporting from West Hollywood (for those not in the know, this is the very liberal, and significantly gay, area of Hollywood) and I am reporting from Los Feliz (a curious neighborhood in LA that is a combination of “hipster” types surrounded by the millionaires who own houses around Griffith Park). If you’ve seen Swingers then you know my neighborhood (I live across the street from The Derby; the swing club where the movie ends). My guess is that Boi’s neighborhood is populated with people who are more used to being politcally active, and as a largely Democratic neighborhood, more interested in turning out (given the old saw about optimism about your candidate’s chances of winning bringing voters out and pessimism convincing people to stay home). Because of the hipster/millionaire dicotamy, there is an unusual balance of Democrats and Republicans in my neighborhood. In Southern California voting tends to break down like this…
… I’m going to go take some pictures - will be back with more. Awaiting AhhnoldCA’s Governor is due any moment at his polling place in Brentwood. Local newscasts (I’ve been keeping an eye on KTLA) have been showing busy but not jammed polling places. The polls here have been open now just about two hours. I’m heading out with my camera and will post some local pics later. 2008 : Schwarzenegger Amendment?From The Australian : Arnold Schwarzenegger has confirmed he would want to become US president if the constitution were changed to allow foreign-born citizens to run for the White House. Early Voting in CaliforniaI actually voted last week using one of LA County’s fancy touch-screen voting machines. The LA Times is reporting a record turnout for early voting - which is certainly true. However, the turnout has been nothing like it has been in other states (like Florida). 66,000 people voted early here in LA County, and while it was brisk when I voted, it was hardly swamped. I suspect this is because California is so solidy Democratic that there is less of a push for people to get to the polls. Some are predicting a real record turnout in LA County (one office in the LA Times article predicts 3 million voters this year vs. 2 million in 2000). I doubt it. Among the people I have talked to over the last few weeks, it seems as if Californians are seeing this election as business as usual - at least vis-a-vis actually voting. Since the presidential election has essentially already be decided in California (and was basically decided before there was even any Democratic candidates), there are no “hot button” initiatives on the ballot this time, and the only congressional seat in play is in the Central Valley (thanks to gerrymandering) I think we will likely see a California turnout that is pretty similar to 2000. I had dinner with a friend of a friend who worked with Rock the Vote for many years and did Democratic GOTV campaigns before that (she’s from Arkansas and worked with Clinton) and she seemed to have the same opinion. P.S. During the short time I was voting, two, count them, two people tried to vote who had not registered or lived outside of LA. The woman at the polling place became upset with both of them and told me later that that had been happening all day. She suspected they were attempts at voter fraud, but I can not imagine there would be any point in attempting to commit voter fraud in California. After all, Kerry is already winning, so it would be redundent for Democrats to engage in voter fraud. And Kerry is winning by such a wide margin, it would be futile for Republicans to try and tip California. On the other hand, I do not believe the woman working the polling place was a volunteer (I believe they were county poll workers), so maybe she knows more than I do. Maybe there are independent “vote frauders” who have not thought through the futility of attempting this in CA. Stay Free Useful info from YahooOn the day of the election, Yahoo! has dropped some really useful info on their homepage. If you need to find your polling place, you can find it here. Find information on the the candidates’ positions or each state’s ballot information. And, of course, the all important blog roundup. Stay Free. November 01, 2004The fight in CaliforniaThis is considered a “blue state” and taken for granted that it will go for Kerry. Anecdotally, I live in Southern California and, outside of one Kerry billboard in my area, there hasn’t been much in the way of Kerry campaigning. Bush/Cheney supporters have shown more enthusiam. As I left work tonight, at the major intersection, Bush/Cheney supporters were waving signs, flags and cheering. They were a nice mix of genders, ages and races; I even spotted a couple of veterans. They were also getting a good reception from drivers who were honking and waving in response to the Bush supporters smiling spiritedness. In 2000, Gore carried California with 53% of the popular vote to Bush’s 42%. The Los Angeles Times (registration required) is running a polling map showing, very surprisingly, that Kerry leads in California only 49% to Bush’s 42% with 9% undecided. It may turn out, even while Kerry carries California, that the vote may be much closer than 2000 and ironically, much more of the popular vote may go to Bush. Barbara Boxer (Dem) is pretty well assured of re-election to the Senate. She leads Bill Jones (Rep) quite comfortably by 18-22 points. Mr. Jones is a well-respected public servant and has done the state of California proud during his tenure as CA’s secretary of state, but the man just is not a politician. The real fights to be seen in California tomorrow will be on the ballot propostions. This last week alone has seen a dramatic turn around in Proposition 66, which proposes to amend CA’s 3 strikes law. (You can read more about Prop 66 here on my weblog). Only a few weeks ago, Prop 66 was polling to pass by over 65%. Last Saturday a Field poll was released which covered the previous week when the No on 66 campaign released ads lead by Gov. Schwarzenegger hit the media. In the first four days Prop 66 lead 58% to 34%, in the last three which included the Wednesday airing of the Govenor’s ads, the margin had narrowed to 48% to 47%. Other propositions of interest will be 71 (embryonic stem cell research bond $3 billion)and 69 (DNA database for convicted felons). There are sixteen propositions on the ballot. I will endeavor to cover all of them over the next day. Growing Stem Cells and Three Strikes is Out?Sunday’s Field Poll shows growing support for Prop. 71 which would authorize state-funded stem cell research (Mel Gibson — against — vs Arnold — for): In its final pre-election survey, The Field Poll finds that voter support for Prop. 71 has grown to where 54% of likely voters now intend to vote Yes, while 37% are on the No side. Last August voter opinions on Prop. 71 were more evenly divided (45% Yes and 42% No). Saturday’s Field Poll shows growing opposition against Prop. 66 which would limit the Three Strikes Law: There is evidence of a late-breaking tide of “No” votes regarding Proposition 66, the initiative that would put limits on California’s “three strikes” criminal sentencing law. Kerry Owns the CoastFriday’s Field Poll shows Kerry comfortably cruisin’ on California’s Left Coast: Kerry commands huge leads over Bush in the state’s two largest population centers, Los Angeles County and the San Francisco Bay Area. However, in the Central Valley and in areas of Southern California outside of Los Angeles, majorities support Bush. Kerry 49-42. Interestingly, Kerry has not been over 50% since August. Meanwhile, Bill Jones has been singularly underwhelming against Boxer: In the U.S. Senate race, there has been no diminishment in the large double digit lead that incumbent Democrat Barbara Boxer has maintained over Republican Bill Jones throughout the year. Boxer currently leads Jones by nineteen points, 53% to 34%. |
Flyer I picked up this morning while getting coffee. That’s right, here in Hollywood we have so many celebrities laying around you can get four or five of them to show up at a rally to support a candidate who is guarnateed to win the state anyway.
The day actually starts nicely. I get #4 off to school, decide to run a couple of errands and get my blogging corner primed and ready for the day. That’s my cat, Feathers, under my desk. She’ll be 19 y/o in Feb. I let her sleep anywhere she wants, which usually means right under my feet when I’m at the computer.
While inside everyone was rather serious. Outside people were smiling. Leaving I spotted this young woman. She was laughing and having one of her sons take her picture while pointing at her “I voted” sticker on her shirt. Hey, I’m here to get some stories so I approach her and ask if this was the first time for her voting. She smiles, “No. This is just proof for some of my friends.” She tells me she has some online friends, some of the “liberal persuasian” who contend one cannot dicuss politics unless one votes. This is her proof. I tell her that I understand, I have both a blog (I give her the name) and I had taken the day off from work to do correspondence work for the online site, Command Post. Her eyes go wide, her jaw drops “You know Michele?” “I’ve commented on her blog and exchanged a few emails.” “Wait .. you’re that Darleen? I’m Yvonne!” At which point, never having meet in the flesh, we both realize we know each other from the comment section at 
One could hardly hope for a more beautiful day here. The backyard themometer reads 80, some snow clings to the surrounding mountains and the sky is a clear crisp blue. How could anyone be so pessimistic, so poisoned in attitude on a day like today?