So, wow, quite an election, eh? And my god, when was the last time we had a political day this good? If the results from Virginia hold and Webb really is the new senator, I'll feel even better about the whole thing.
My favorite bit of irony from this election season is the story of Nick Lampson, who is the last candidate I worked for before we left Texas. Back when Tom DeLay was still 'The Hammer', back when his reach extended all the way from DC down into the Texas Lege, he drove the gerrymandering in the early 2000s that remapped Texas's congressional districts. One of the Democratic incumbents who lost his seat under the new political map was Nick Lampson, and in fact, part of his former district was absorbed into DeLay's - they basically split up the heavily Democratic areas (like Galveston, a city that's been traditionally black and Democratic) and divvied them between a number of Houston suburban areas that were more heavily Republican. Of course, as we all know, Tom DeLay's fortunes have changed dramatically since then, and guess who just won his old seat? Yep, Nick Lampson is back in Congress. Of course, he got there in part because he ran against a Republican write-in, and who knows how long he'll hold the seat, but I still find the whole thing very satisfying.
I'm a little bummed that it looks like Darcy Burner,
chromodynamics's policrush of the season, won't be coming to Washington.
The race hasn't been called yet (and what the hell is going ON over there on the west coast, by the way, that only 58% of the precincts have reported in?), but it doesn't look good. And I'm completely worried, frustrated,
angry at all the anti-gay-marriage initiatives that passed, and frankly, don't want to think about what it means about us as a party and as a country that the country saw fit to give Democrats back both houses of Congress, a number of governorships, and a good number of state legislative houses and yet that same country still wants to deny marriage to gays and lesbians. It makes me wonder on what grounds we're winning - who's changing?
ETA: And on a totally frivolous fandom note: See,
I think that the idea of Rodney McKay on X is really kinda scary, mostly because this is not a psyche I see doing a great job riding out a crash, PLUS I think he'd find a way to end the experience in anaphalactic shock, but look at
this darling rolling Rodney. How cute is he?