Chasing the Wind

I only stayed up till midnight last night watching the returns. It was sort of like watching a baseball game, except there were no pitchers or batters or a baseball field. Ok, it wasn’t at all like a baseball game except for the numbers going up on a scoreboard. I headed to bed when it looked like George Bush was likely to win Ohio.

All my horses were winners. Bush is planning on making a victory speech later today, giving John Kerry a chance to concede first. There are 200,000 provisional ballots in Ohio and Kerry has to win 170,000 of them to win. If he does, I want to look at those provisional ballots a little closer.

Kerry gave it a good run; I know now why he had a reputation for come-from-behind victories. He’s a Monday morning quarterback and is able to fine tune his message every day to whatever the people want. I think he’s been doing it his whole life, from playing war hero in Vietnam and then throwing his medals away. In this election, he fine tuned his position on Iraq so well I don’t know what his plan is. But this election was less about Kerry than it was about Bush; the Democrats would have done just as well with one of those Hindu blood sucking monkeys.

Tom Daschle lost his seat for Senator. The extra seat this gives the Republicans is inconsequential. Removing the biggest Senate obstacle to *anything* happening was important. Daschle engineered fillibusters to anything Bush wanted, forcing the Senate to vote 60-40 to pass anything. South Dakota, primarily a Republican state, decided they had had enough of Daschle, too.

Locally, the citizen’s referendum Proposition 2 passed which caps the growth in homeowner property taxes. About time; I’m paying $500 a month in property taxes now. Mayor Bill White tried to derail the issue with Proposition 1 which gives him a lot more flexibility. They both passed, and I believe the Mayor thinks he can pick which Proposition he wants. It doesn’t work like that – they *both* passed, so both are in effect now.

Gay marriage was outlawed in 11 states last night, including Oregon where gays and lesbians had their highest hopes. I expect court battles for years over that, but the people and the legislatures have voted; they don’t want gay marriages. Leftist judges mandating gay marriages will have a tougher time justifying their decision now.

Whew. The battle has been won for another 4 years. “Yesterday was George Bush is Re-Elected!” is the malaprop for the day. 🙂