post election day thoughts

It looks like Bush has beaten Kerry, as of Kerry's concession speech this morning. Here's hoping no liberal Supreme Court justices kick the bucket in the next four years. Otherwise, Roe vs. Wade may be the stuff of history books.

According to some political analysts, the difference was the Bush did a good job of getting his core constituency, the religious right, to go out and vote. As a result, the higher turnout wasn't as good for Kerry as people had predicted.

Overall, nationwide voter turnout was just under 60%, which is the highest percentage turnout since Kennedy beat Nixon. Very cool, but we can still do better. I will continue to beat my dead horse about Taiwan's 80% voter turnout.

Ohio didn't close their polls until almost midnight, even though they were scheduled to close at 8pm, because the lines were up to four hours long. It's ridiculous that people have to wait that long, but I think it's awesome that the voting precincts refused to close until everyone got their chance.

For the first time, San Francisco used an instant runoff method to elect their City Supervisors. I'm a big fan of this method, since it really helps out third party candidates, and also seems like the most fair way of counting votes. Basically, everyone ranks one candidate as his/her first choice, another candidate as his/her second choice, and so on. The voter can stop ranking at any time; he/she isn't forced to rank all the candidates. Afterwards, all the first place votes are counted, and if no candidate has a majority, the lowest vote-getter is eliminated, and his/her votes are allocated to the other candidates according to the second place rankings. This continues until one candidate has a majority of the votes. The primary complaint against this method is that it's confusing. I'll conceed that lots of voters are morons, but can they really not even understand ranking their choices?

Governor Schwarzenegger is certainly making his mark on California politics. According to the polls, Proposition 66, which would have restricted the three strikes law, is likely to fail. It was showing strong support up until last week, when Arnold voiced his opposition. Granted, it also could have been the last minute ad blitz that made the difference.

Dan Gillmor says:

People say there are two Americas. I think there are at least three.

One is Bush's America: an amalgam of the extreme Christian "conservatives," corporate interests and the builders of the burgeoning national-security state.

Another is the Democratic "left": wedded to the old, discredited politics in a time that demands creative thinking.

I suspect there's a third America: members of an increasingly radical middle that will become more obvious in the next few years, tolerant of those who are different and aware that the big problems of our times are being ignored -- or made worse -- by those in power today.

That third America needs a candidate. Or, maybe, a new party.

Yes. I want my new party.