State & Local Politics

My grown son in California tells me that people there are saying the same-sex marriage proposition lost on Tuesday because of the increased numbers of African-American and Latino voters who turned out for Obama.

How's that for an unintended consequence of electing a liberal president?

It makes one wonder if the African-American community, which has generally been more conservative on "moral" issues, is going to speak with a great deal more confidence now. Could it be that, at long last, many black voters will no longer feel beholden to the party's (largely white) liberal wing?

Could Obama's election actually be the catalyst for moderating the social policies of the Democratic Party?

To all those watching tonight from beyond our shores, from parliaments and palaces, to those who are huddled around radios in the forgotten corners of the world ... a new dawn of American leadership is at hand.

– From Obama’s acceptance speech

Today, you can bask in the realization that there are billions of people around the planet who loathed our country last week but are now in awe of its capacity to rise above historic fears.

– Gail Collins, The New York Times

Obama’s victory on Tuesday was widely hailed around the planet. Headlines read “The First World President.” Actually Bill Clinton, who thought he was the first black president, thought he was the first world president as well. He wasn’t. Woodrow Wilson was the first; Roosevelt was one as well and so was Eisenhower. But the civilized world was a dead thing in shards back then with only America alive, tall and breathing. Read more...

In the days after yet another major defeat for Republicans, there will be a lot of soul-searching within the party's leadership and I, for one, am content in knowing that they will probably take away all the wrong lessons from this momentous occasion. I'm just pleased-as-punch to see social conservatives looking for every chance to get in front of the television cameras to gloat about how their party dropped the ball by ignoring traditional values. I can barely suppress a grin when they trot out the line that we're still a "center-right" country. Read more...

It was a great night and a tremendous victory for Barack Obama. But, as they say, you can’t win ’em all, and the night was not without its disappointments.

For me, the biggest disappointment was California’s passage of Proposition 8, which overturned a recent Supreme Court decision affirming same-sex marriage. Gay marriage bans also passed in Arizona and Florida.

Talk about irony. On the same day California voters overwhelmingly voted to make Barack Obama the nation’s first African-American president, they also voted to ban same-sex marriage, a measure Obama opposed. Read more...

Obama took this region by storm sometime around February — only eight months ago — around the time of the will.i.am video, which rhapsodized a very good speech he gave here in New Hampshire featuring the phrase, “Yes we can,” the night he lost to Hillary. Now with just a few days left, elation appears to be yielding to apprehension here in the north country of New England.



You see several opaque manifestations: They are not raising much money in the hills; there are not many signs; almost no one comes to the door except schoolchildren recruited by Obama-leaning and perhaps obsessed teachers — those who were timid at the beginning of the war on Iraq when they were needed to be brave, now feeling empowered. Read more...

I felt we were getting back to the McGovern effect during the first days of the fiscal crash when Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank (D) took the mike on Capital Hill. It was the I’m in charge moment for Frank, who has been waiting for as long as I can remember for his close-up. He’s been around my neighborhood half my life, as he represents the town where I grew up; smoking cigars and chattering on Boston’s all-night TV shows and generally offering up kooky amusements whenever the camera happened to turn in his direction; bon mots and insider jokes; references always coded to amuse our own kind and geared to tweak or offend the others, which was practically everybody west of Amherst.

So there he was, finally in the spotlight, telling the world, “My boyfriend says I need a haircut” and making references to Andy Kaufman, the “Saturday Night Live” comic who did Elvis impersonations better than Elvis, but whose time had come and gone 35 years ago. Read more...

When they look back, they might wonder what all the excitement was about in this presidential race and why no one was looking at the really important event that changed American history: Question One on the Massachusetts ballot, to be voted on Nov. 4, which kills the state income tax.

Political officials, business and union leaders and community organizers are so fixed on defeating Question One, The Associated Press reports, that few are talking about what they’ll do if voters eliminate 40 percent of Massachusetts revenues.

Gov. Deval Patrick, the Massachusetts prototype for Barack Obama, said, “I’m counting on the people of Massachusetts to see it for what it is and vote it down.” Read more...

At first I was astounded at the talk of Sarah Palin laying the groundwork for her own presidential run in the future. After all, if John McCain does lose, there is ample evidence part of the blame will rest on her and the seemingly impetuous, make that desperate, decision to choose her as his running mate. Polls show she evolved from sudden sensation into a drag on the ticket, widely perceived as a telegenic scatterbrain who was selected for a lot of wrong reasons.

The more I think about it, though, the more I am reminded that when it comes to politicians, we Americans have the collective memory of a gnat. To put it another way, Gov. Palin will have plenty of time for us to forget why it was she so enhanced the career of Tina Fey. Read more...

Ron Bonjean has an interesting opinion piece in the New York Post on the political future — win or lose — of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R).

Bonjean smartly points out steps for Palin to take to set herself up for a future run for president. Readers may gloss over words that address the future of the GOP (again, win or lose) — "If the Republican Party in Washington is wiped out, it will have to grapple with how to change and deal with the losses."

Such advice is normal in post-election post-mortems. That these analyses are occurring before Election Day demonstrates the angst of many in the party. Read more...

Two congressional races in the Houston area this fall could demonstrate how important, and overlooked, casting can be in a close election.

With a tough election ahead, Republicans were hoping a pickup of Tom DeLay's former seat in the 22nd district would put the party up one seat in Texas. That election isn't looking as straightforward as originally expected, and the GOP now has to worry about losing in the state's 7th district, a usually safe conservative seat represented by both George H.W. Bush and Bill Archer, and going down a seat in the state. How could this happen?

Even the most astute political prognosticators of the pundit class are sometimes unable to predict the events and attitudes that often set the stage for major upsets. And while clever strategies, such as the 1994 "Contract with America" that brought Republicans into power in the House after 40 years, and unforeseeable events, such as the numerous congressional scandals that shoved them back out of power in 2006, are behind the shifts in power, the importance of having the right candidates at the right time is what helps turn a tide into a tsunami. Read more...