Reflections on results (minus the big one)

I’ll get to that in a separate post.

I am, still, tired, worn out, zonked. A lot went down. And, frankly, not all of it happily. But having gone through all my choices for the ballot, I figure a catchall post noting what the results were can’t hurt.

First and foremost — Prop 8 passed, narrowly but not razor-thin. I am outraged if not surprised, but also convinced this was a rear-guard action at best, as the tide of history changes. A friend put it best in a private note, with his version of my ‘you couldn’t even have imagined something like this being an issue in the recent past’ take:

Yet there’s a part of me which is still pleased and amazed the issue has even limited viability that it does. Less than ten years ago it was nothing more than a few gayocons and a few rebels with lawyers being reasonable and demanding the impossible. It’s not revolutionary speed but it’s not baby steps, either–that’s fucking fast.

True indeed. We will see what happens next — as I said elsewhere, gains are often conditional and asynchronous.

Regarding the rest of the propositions — the results are here, and it’s a reasonable grab-bag. 2 passing was good, 3 I think unneeded in the end but still passed. 4, thankfully, went down, as did 5 and 6. 7 and 10 both bit the dust as well — I did vote for 10 but I can’t say I’m all worried about that. 9 passed, which is overkill on the matter but oh well. 11 is passing by a hair, which I think will be very problematic when implemented in two years time. 12 is coasting, unsurprisingly.

That leaves 1A, and while my support for it was conditional given it was a bond issue, the passage of it as well as Measure R up in LA, which required a 2/3 vote that just made it over that limit, shows what I hope will be a new and conscious engagement on what will prove to be important steps in mass transit in the 21st century. Essentially these moves are green lights to take things further, but they needed to be done in some form or another, and I look forward to the next developments.

Turning to the results as posted via the OCvote.com site — on the federal and state representative front, no surprises, regrettably — Rohrbacher held off Cook in CA-46 for Congress quite easily in the end, while Harman and Tran will return to Sacramento (though Tran’s margin was honestly much closer than I would have expected, which might be a sign for a future candidate). Essentially, a reconfirmation of the status quo.

On the county level, Measure J passed overwhelmingly, unfortunate but again no surprise, while Carrillo happily trounced Marsh for the Superior Court spot. In the Coast Community College District races, Patterson and Prinsky won handily — very good to hear especially in Prinsky’s case — while Hornbuckle beat Pirch in the one seat I was essentially neutral about.

That leaves the Costa Mesa races — in the Sanitation District contests, Ferryman got the top votes while Perry just beat Worthington. Would have been nice if Ferryman and Worthington’s places were swapped, but oh well. As for the City Council, Foley held on but regrettably, if all too unsurprisingly, Monahan and Bever are back. More thoughts about many of these races over at A Bubbling Cauldron.

So that just leaves, as mentioned, the big one. More on that tonight — if I’m not totally wiped out.

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