I just found out that there are between 3 and 4 million provisional and absentee ballots left to be counted in the state of California.
I know one person who voted absentee and one person who voted provisional. Both voted against Prop 8. I'm guessing they're not the only ones.
The election may have been called for it today, but the reality is that Prop 8 is still in play.
That's inexcusable. But it doesn't mean the entire state of California failed us.
Our media campaign was nearly non-existent for all but the last three weeks of this election. The people making all the decisions for No on Prop 8's direction for all but the last three weeks of the campaign failed the state of California.
That we came so close in the face of overwhelming opposition to which we had almost no response until it was too late is amazing. It's sad, it's inept, and it's infuriating, but it's amazing.
Imagine by how much we could have won this if we had actually spent all summer fighting against it in the media?
So don't blame California. They did the best they could with the information they got. Don't blame the people working the campaign, because they gave everything they had. Don't blame the people who donated, because they gave when they were finally asked to give. Don't blame the Mormons, because they ran the better campaign and those are the campaigns that win.
Blame the system that allows civil rights to be put up to a majority vote by anyone with enough money to sponsor a ballot initiative and blame the people who ran No on Prop 8 into the ground from a 19 point lead to a 7 point loss before they were finally replaced with people who knew what they were doing.
Our state was there. Our community was there. It was our leadership who failed us when it counted.
But after reading all the Prop 8 eulogies on LJ this morning, I have to ask: have any of you turned on a television? Because mine is telling me that the vote is too close to call.
Shouldn't we wait to mourn until after we actually lost?
Why are so many suffering from what apparently is the final gasp of SODSS (Sudden Onset Democratic Surrender Syndrome) for the 2008 election?
I may not be ecstatic, but I'm waiting until the damn election is over before I get upset about the result.
Wow, do I love The Music Box! Gorgeous Coney Island-esque motif with the interior design, fantastic rooftop patio, smart balcony. Will look for reasons to go there in the future. Great crowd with which to watch the election coverage, among old friends and new. Had a great deal of fun.
McCain's concession speech:
If that had been the John McCain that Barack Obama was running against all along, it would have actually been a race. How stupid was he to sell his soul to his Republican owners?
The Governor from Nowhere who would be President Sarah Palin:
She was utterly destroyed before she walked out on that stage. Every single inch of her, as she fought back tears of utter humiliation, was screaming that she knew that everybody blamed her for losing it and she knew that they were right and she knew that no amount of time will make anybody forget that she is the biggest joke in American politics EVER. She not only cost them this election single-handedly, but she watched as her own popularity plummeted in Alaska and she faces a seemingly endless series of investigations and trials as she returns back to a home that is almost completely ashamed of her.
Prop 8:
Still too early to call, but I expect to wake up tomorrow to the final word. If the news isn't good, one way I have to think of it is that tonight we did get Obama. If we could only get one or the other, would we rather have hope for the future and marriage equality later, or marriage equality now in a country that was damned to hell? If we get both -- well, wouldn't that be nice? But even if/when we do, the bigots will still be back at us year after year. But the bigots just got a big ol' America-sized slap in their face tonight, so their days are numbered, no matter what.
Obama's acceptance speech:
Can we change the course of this country together by overcoming the Republican election fraud machine with our numbers? Yes we can.
I haven't felt this good in eight long years. I know that Cheney and Bush still have some time to destroy this country. I'm hoping that completely looting the Treasury was enough. Time will tell. And I know Obama isn't perfect -- he wasn't even my third choice for President, though I came to see he was the best candidate for the job -- but he isn't evil incarnate, either. So tonight, I'm happy.
I still wouldn't argue with waking up ecstatic tomorrow, though!
1. Stop talking about politics for a moment or two.
2. Post a reasonably-sized picture in your LJ, NOT under a cut tag, of something pleasant, such as an adorable kitten, or a fluffy white cloud, or a bottle of booze. Something that has NOTHING TO DO WITH POLITICS.
3. Include these instructions, and share the love.
This morning, there were hundreds of people and the wait was an hour. In the middle of Hollywood with the vast majority of the people undoubtedly voting almost identically. Hang in there, people in swing states!
While I was waiting in line, I saw and later chatted with the tall, young, chubby security guard from my studio who moonlights as a bikini-bottomed go-go dancer for the monthly bear night at the Hollywood non-scene bar, Faultline. I was doing my drowned-rat impersonation, having misjudged the humidity and neglecting to dry my hair before leaving the apartment (which means it was never going to dry on its own), so I was a little embarrassed to see anybody I knew. I needn't have worried, though, as it seems his excitement at seeing me was to have the chance to ask me to set him up with a friend of mine.
I'd say I'm always a bridesmaid, but I guess I'll have to wait until later tonight to see if California (and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Salt Lake City, Utah) has decided if I get to have even that much of a right.
But that's why I love Hollywood: our participatory democracy comes complete with college-aged go-go dancing security guards.
After weeks of the worst allergy season yet, I wake up early to go to the polls as close to their opening as possible with a headache that first started yesterday.
I cannot wait for this election to be over. I cannot imagine how I'll feel if either of the two things I care about the most don't turn out the way they have to in order for their to be any immediate hope for this country. I can imagine how I'll feel if both do, however!
So it's voting, work, then the LAGLC party at The Music Box @ Fonda, and then it's done. This is the most participatory I've ever been -- or that most people I've known have ever been -- in any election, and I'll miss that. Thanks to ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
bobaloo for all his incredible hard work and I'm proud of youpat_pending for all of yours.
In the words of Maureen McGovern, "There's got to be a morning after".
Here's hoping ours brings a better California and a better United States of America.
If you're voting for Prop 8 in California, there's something I want you to think about when you enter that voting booth or fill out your absentee ballot. I know you want to believe that you can think like a bigot and act like a bigot but not be known as a bigot. You're wrong.
By planning to vote to take away my fundamental human rights, you are saying that you think I'm less of a human being than you. You're wrong about that, too. I am not lesser than you.
In fact, I am better than you.
Why? Because if I could vote on your marriage, I wouldn't use the opportunity to strip you of your rights, try to ruin your life and write hate into the Constitution for the first time ever. I wouldn't do it even knowing what you think of me or what you would do to me with the same opportunity.
Because to put human rights up to a popular vote is obscene.
To vote against someone's rights is beneath contempt.
And I'm better than that.
So if you vote yes on Prop 8?
I'm better than you.
Now why do you suppose that an extremely athletic, apparently above-average healthy, strong enough to birth several children, early middle-aged adult with absolutely no public record of any health problems of any kind would refuse to release her medical records?
It's because her daughter Bristol is the mother of the infant that Palin is trying to pass off as her own child.
Sarah Palin isn't known for being smart, just ruthless. When they hatched this scheme, the Palins didn't know she'd be in the national spotlight in a very short period of time. And they sure didn't expect Bristol would get pregnant again, almost immediately after giving birth to her first child. What Sarah Palin has done -- pretending her grandchild is actually her child -- is standard operating procedure for generations of countless mothers of wild-child unwed mothers in small towns everywhere.
Only this time, what happened in Wasilla didn't stay in Wasilla. And she can't admit it now without adding to her reputation as a liar, adding to the hypocrisy of her stance on abstinence-only education, adding to the charges that if she can't run her family then how can she run the country, adding to the belief that she shows one face to the world while using deceipt and secrecy to keep the facts about her true life hidden from public view.
They had no choice but to deny the release of her medical records. But, by doing so, they've confirmed what everyone knew all along. Being evil is one thing, but being incompetent at being evil is pretty bad. If you can't even be good at being evil, what good are you?
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
profkampf for reminding us all that today is the last day to register to vote in California. Even if you're already registered, Republicans have been working their usual election fraud tactics for months now, removing eligible voters from the rosters all across the country. So, even if you're already registered, you must check your registration now in order to make sure you're still eligible to vote. You can also find out where your polling place is when you do it, so you can plan to get there bright and early on November 4 to cast your vote for keeping marriage equality legal.
All of this can be done with one-stop shopping at LAVote.net. So what are you waiting for, as my mother might say, an engraved invitation? Do it now!
And all this was revealed only after every broadcast network scrambled to give him credibility by putting him on their morning shows.
Well, the mainstream media may have initially failed us on this one, but there's at least one fact-finding organization that's detemined to get to the bottom of things:
You'll see one picture from last night's debate a million times today and a million times again for the rest of your life.
That's not enough times. Here's one more:
Last week, seasonal allergy symptoms started creeping into my life and mixed with irregular sleeping patterns to make me a tiny bit loopy. On Friday, however, they hit me full force. I'm on my medication, but I need to get something in the headache family to help with the pain.
In the meantime, nearly my entire weekend was completely erased. A full calendar of fun and community service and whatever just never happened because I was trapped at home as a living zombie. I did have a great lunch with Roy at the Brite Spot in Echo Park early Saturday afternoon (we haven't been there forever because the place hasn't been the same since Julio left it -- and we were horrified to find a "B" in the window -- but I got to say the turkey dinner tasted better than ever), and that's when I started to crash hard. After that, my weekend ceased to exist.
Feeling much better today. The allergies (which I never had before I moved here to paradise) get worse every year. I had an excellent allergy season last year, though, after a rocky start, so here's hoping the same holds true this year.
And then I get to do this all over again in February and March! If it's not blowing in the air, it's being forced by rainfall up out of the ground -- so it only happens during my favorite weather of the year and it all makes me sick! I love LA!
And John McCain FINALLY decides that inciting racial hatred of homicidal proportions is not the price he's willing to pay for the slimmest of chances to get into the White House -- and his supporters hate him for it.
She's exposed as just another corrupt Republican liar, and the people he spent a week telling lies to now despise him for making them look stupid. Trust me -- I know these people. I come from these people. These people will let you do absolutely anything to them as long as you make them feel important. They'll vote against their own best interests their entire lives if you can make them believe you're listening to them. The second you make them feel stupid, however, the absolute very second you make them feel stupid, they will turn on you forever and they will never forgive you.
McCain/Palin just lost the undecideds and their own base all in one day.
The only question is: has McCain regained enough of his humanity to end his own evil ways and to use his power to stop any more Republican evil through Election Day?
Help put this effective, hard-hitting ad on the air or we may actually lose our fight to keep California's Constitution hate-free. Please donate to NoOnProp8 today. Don't wake up on November 5 wishing you had done more.
This is everything future generations need to know about this period in our nation's history. Everyone is rightfully skewered, but, of course, President Palin comes off worst of all, because, of course, that's exactly what she is: the worst of all. Tina Fey, however, is a genius.
Hmmm... we seem to be experiencing VRWC technical difficulties. Please follow this link to the video:
http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/v
You know how Palin is supposed to "win" tomorrow night's debate because expectations for her are so low? Yeah, we know that never works -- Bush was wired for his debates with Kerry but managed to came across like a lobotomized monkey anyway, which means he still did better than expected and yet he lost those debates. But Sarah Palin has brought us so much joy this election season, let's play along with her on this, too, shall we?
The debate is really not a debate. It's really going to be only a series of questions for which the candidates will have 90 seconds to answer. This means that all Sarah has to do is memorize enough 90 second soundbites on enough topics to have the entire debate covered.
Sarah may be an utter failure as a public servant, but she was one kick-ass smalltown, middle-of-nowhere, frozen wasteland, meth-capital-of-Alaska, local tv station sports reporter -- not to mention a failed beauty queen -- so she may have the brainpower of a wolf that's been freshly slaughtered by a religious lunatic in a helicopter, but she can memorize and she can recite.
Which means that Sarah is totally going to win this debate!
So let everybody you know in on this fact: Sarah Palin has the VP debate in the bag. She's going to walk away with it. Because it's going to be just like a beauty pageant question and answer section, except beauty queens don't know what questions they're going to be asked. She pretty much does. And her handlers have already drilled her on all the answers. She doesn't have to think about a thing, only recite her scripted, rehearsed, memorized lines.
And you know what? It doesn't matter. When she does her trained animal act routine on the tee-vee tomorrow night, it won't change a thing.
Because everyone knows her now.
So be sure to tell all your family and friends not to miss Sarah Palin walk away with the debate tomorrow, as she most certainly will. It'll be fun watching her put on her faux-folksy act and mouth other peoples' words and thoughts as if they were her own. And, if nothing else, it'll be one of our last chances to see her before she disappears from the national stage forever on November 5.
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