That was an interesting day yesterday

Very interesting. The fallout today even more so. No point in making this a unified piece, so some scattered ruminations:

• First and foremost, my own voting — which, as I’d mentioned, was just for the California propositions. As it stands, all results (aside from 91, which literally nobody supported) ended up being the opposite of what I voted for. Ah well, but such is a democracy, and honestly aside from 92 I wasn’t deeply invested in a win or loss, and even in 92’s case I’m disappointed but not heartbroken. I actually like the fact that while so many people were understandably going into feverish overdrive with their local and state campaigns for me it was just registering my formal thoughts on some measures I looked at with a calmly reflective eye, then walking about a hundred yards or so back to my complex. Hurrah for simplicities.
• And the current Democratic front runner is…uh…:
  

  In a surprise twist after a chaotic Super Tuesday, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) passed Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) in network tallies of the number of delegates the candidates racked up last night.

  The Obama camp projects topping Clinton by nine delegates, 845 to 836.

  NBC News, which is projecting delegates based on the Democratic Party’s complex formula, figures Obama will wind up with 840 to 849 delegates, versus 829 to 838 for Clinton.

  Point being, Obama fans shouldn’t be crushed and Clinton fans shouldn’t rest on their laurels. Combine that with the upcoming caucuses and primaries — not to mention the wonderful bizarreness of the superdelegates — and I’m all for the sheer Byzantine skullduggery over the next few months.

• As for the GOP race, where to begin. Here’s the thing: anyone worried about a GOP victory somehow being a sure thing — even if Clinton proves to be the nominee, about which more in a bit — hasn’t spent time trawling through the sites where the right wing kvetches. And they’re doing more than kvetching now. Check out these three posts, ranging from the high-profile to the individual, and more specifically the comments attached to them as well:

  Hot Air: “As long as he’s got still got bank, Huck goes forward and Mitt probably goes nowhere.
  So let’s say he does drop out, leaving us with the race we’ve all dreamed of.”

  Polipundit: “If this is a McCain – Huckabee Republican Party, I want nothing to do with it. I’m re-registering as an independent tomorrow, and I’ll vote for Hillary or Obama over either one of those guys.”

  BabaluBlog: “You became buddies with Russ Feingold, Ted Kennedy, Hillary Clinton, Joe Lieberman. You, sir, are not a conservative. You, sir, do not know the meaning of the word.”

  The exchanges in the comments in particular are telling — very telling. Civil war and a fracturing of the party, no, but discontent and impotent anger, plenty. The amount of despairing ‘it doesn’t matter, we’re going to lose no matter what’ comments are reflective of the wider trends that lead me to think that November, while hardly a foregone conclusion, is looking promising. When even Fred Barnes mentions, as he’s apparently done on TV this morning, that the country is turning towards a more liberal stance, the jig is likely up.

• This doesn’t mean that plenty of right-leaning commentators aren’t even now trying to mend fences and strategize as they can — some are, rapidly. Mark Levin’s an ungracious blowhard at the best of times, but he’s already posted this morning advancing a sensible argument in the circumstances: work on protecting GOP seats in the House rather than not voting at all. Levin also thinks McCain is toast in November no matter what. In contrast, Hugh Hewitt has again demonstrated his true colors — cut losses, suck up to the potential victor and pretend he hadn’t said anything prior to his current post. Some of the comments in response, noting his rather intemperate thoughts on one Senator McCain up until now, are highly entertaining. Still, Hewitt’s identified a key point — he or she who controls the White House controls the Supreme Court appointments, and those stakes ARE high. But right now I’m willing to bet on the upside. Which leads me to my almost-final point, an echo of previous ones:
• Right NOW I’m willing to bet on it. Now is not November. November is nine months away. A bunch of people just got pregnant last night — for all we know they were celebrating results a bit too enthusiastically — and their kids are all going to be born when the general election happens. Nine months previous to this Clinton was pretty much the guaranteed Democratic nominee, Giuliani left everyone in the dust, McCain was almost broke and Huckabee was this unknown-outside-of-Arkansas guy who played rock and roll when not preaching.

  Patently obvious points all. But consider this — the three presumptive front-runners, one GOP, two Democratic, are all currently serving United States Senators. Big votes are coming down the pike on a variety of points, while all sorts of unexpected jolts are possible. A Supreme Court justice dies or retires this year. Iraq suddenly erupts again. The economy takes a massive hit. A new Katrina?

  Playing the long game is the only one to play. And as a voter I can’t play it and neither can the entirety of my state anymore, because:

• We’re out:
  

  …it is at best questionable whether California will be a contested state in the general election.

  Democrats, easy winners of the last four presidential elections here, laugh off the suggestion that the state will be seriously contested come fall.

  “If the Democratic nominee has to spend a dime in California, we’re going to lose the election,” said Ben Austin, a Democratic strategist backing Barack Obama.

  Even Republicans say that for California to be, in November, the focus it has been in February would require a confluence of events: John McCain as the nominee, character as the defining issue and a decision that the cost of running a campaign here is worth the exceptional expense it would take.

  “To an objective observer, the trend is not the GOP’s friend in California,” said Don Sipple, a Republican veteran of national and statewide campaigns.

  Said confluence of events, meanwhile, rules out a lot of other factors, some of which I suggested above. I highly doubt they will all break the GOP’s way.

  And so in practical terms it’s done. Said it before — no gubernatorial election. No Senate elections. My local representative to Congress is a popular GOP lock. So to return to my initial point, for both the June and November elections I’ll be thinking about state and local measures, local races and candidates, things I literally have to live with day to day. So should you — that’s the whole point of being a participatory voter in this system, imperfect as it is.

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