| 11.06.08|
Grading My Political Predictions: Does B + D = C?
When I posted my predictions earlier this week for the election I almost aced the easy part—candidates—and barely hung onto a D in the hard part—Propositions. Once again California voters completely confuse me with their choices and decisions as there appears to be no linear logic or consistency to why we vote the way we vote.
Candidates in our area was fairly easy, I missed on the BIG ONE in part because I did not trust the polls that were so wrong the previous two elections would somehow find a way to be right on this one. While McCain made it close in many of the battleground states, in the end he could not overcome the two biggest factors that titled this election with the independents and undecided’s who went with Obama: the Wall Street melt down in late September and early October and the $650 million Obama was able to raise by not agreeing to the campaign spending limits. In Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia, Missouri, Colorado and a few other states, Obama outspent McCain three, four—even up to six to one—in television ads.
Congratulations to President-Elect Obama, it is my deepest hope that he governs as he ran, which is to say more to the center than his history of being on the far left. The concern a great many of us have of course is that once in office with the backing, probably encouragement, of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, that the legislative and executive leaderships jerk the country hard to the left. Obama and the Democrats might want to be careful of such a shift however, for a reminder they need only look to the first mid-term elections of the Clinton Administration.
In the coming days and weeks, we will get to know a whole bunch of people most of us have never heard of before as they are mentioned for Cabinet positions and senior administration posts. Since October, the Bush Administration has been working on their side of the transition process to ensure as smooth a passing of power as possible in January. Once again while the Democrats are celebrating and many Republicans are hanging their heads, America as a country celebrates as we smoothly transition from one President to another for the 43rd time.
Big picture for the Republicans is that they had this coming and the fact that the electoral map on Tuesday was not colored like Reagan in 1984 has as much to do with the Democrats having historical problems with Presidential candidates as it did with the character of John McCain. But this election was lost several years ago by the Republicans in the House and Senate, mainly the Senate, when they departed the party principals and began an unprecedented spending spree with our tax dollars. Failing to take the upper ground and push through legislation to curb government spending and growth the Republicans allowed the Democrats to paint them as the big government spenders—and they were right. With the Congressional majority moving to the Democrats in 2006 the stage was set for the Republicans to lose the White House in 2008. Of course having several members of the party arrested and indicted did not help either. It will be interesting to see who, if anyone, is able to unite the Congressional Republicans into a cohesive group that is able to adhere to the principals of smaller government and allowing Americans to keep more of their money and Washington to take less; this was the situation when Newt Gingrich created the “Contract With America” and Republicans took the majority in the House in 1994 during the Clinton Administration.
Back to my predictions, it was not hard to predict that the local Democrats would sweep every local race, I was a little surprised that Gabriella Holt in her race against Bonnie Lowenthal for Assembly was not a little closer—but again it is hard to beat, or come close I guess, to a Lowenthal on a ballot in this city. As predicted the closest contest was Dana Rohrabacher’s re-election bid against Debbie Cook. Rohrabacher, as of this writing—pre-dawn on Thursday, so if my number is off by a tenth of percent save the comments—barely has 50% of the votes cast, Cook appears to have been hurt by a Green Party candidate on the ticket who one can assume drew support from the Democrat Cook.
The proposition results gave me a “D” grade on my predictions. I really have no idea what Californians think when they start punching their InkAVotes. Jolting left and right on the political spectrum the proposition process is a bit ridiculous in California—especially when so many of the issues end up in court and back on the ballot again in two or four years. For the record I was wrong on my predictions for Props 1a, 2, 4, 9, 12 and Measure I; I was correct on my predictions for props 3, 5,6,7,8,10,11, and Measure K. I did not predict on Measure R but I would have been wrong, I would have guessed that Los Angeles Country voters, already paying the highest sales tax in the state would not want to add to that. Thank goodness we are on the Orange County border because for a 1% savings to drive a mile or two it adds up over the course of a year.
Proposition 8 passed, thereby creating new court challenges for not only the proposition itself but also for those same sex couples who were married between the California Supreme Court decision in the Spring and Tuesday’s election. What is their status? Only the courts will tell us, leading to appeals and more court decisions. Proposition 8 passed for a number of reasons—one I mentioned on Tuesday, many voters were upset that the California Supreme Court overturned their ballots, or the ballots of their fellow Californians, cast on Prop 22 that banned same sex marriages. As I mentioned I heard more than a few people who support gay marriage state this was why they were voting for Prop 8. Another factor may have been some voter confusion, did a “yes” vote mean “yes” to gay marriage? Third, I have heard more than a few “experts” on the post-game analysis say that the large black voter turnout for Obama hurt the Prop 8 foes as the majority of the black community is against gay marriage, one opined the same is true of the Hispanic voter turnout. So the mixed feelings so many locally had for the Obama victory and the Prop 8 victory may have resulted from the demographics of the election turnout.
So voters decided not to allow gays to have the same rights as non-gays in respect to marriage. They did feel however that pigs and chickens and cows should have the right to roam free and thus passed Proposition 2, overwhelmingly. The animal rights activists amaze me, look at the website comment sections and how many and how vitriolic the comments are when any animal rights issue is brought up. This is a state where a woman taking a walk was mauled by a mountain lion who was captured and put down. The mountain lion had cubs, the woman had children; the special funds set up after the incident saw about ten to fifteen times the number of donations to help the animal’s offspring rather than the human being’s offspring. So we will have supposedly happier chickens and pigs, but less of them as those who provide us our bacon and eggs for breakfast begin to migrate outside California’s borders for cheaper costs. And in a year or two as the farms shut down in California and more and more of our food is imported people will complain about the cost of food.
So more rights for chickens and no more rights for some humans. Let’s add to the list of the latter the rights of parents. Evidently in the average Californian’s eyes we need to make sure the farmer is taking care of his livestock, but we do not our gay neighbors who have lived together for ten years to be married and we do not want the parents of the fifteen-year-old girl across the street to know if she has a major medical procedure; Californians voted against Prop 4 and removed some of my rights as a parent. Too bad my girls are not livestock, then the majority of our citizens would care about them a bit more perhaps.
It was no surprise that Measure K was passed overwhelmingly. Long Beach citizens know a good product when they see one and the Long Beach Unified School District is a very good product. Sure, there are some issues from time to time and campus to campus, as there is with any large organization dependant on financial survival from fiscally inept “bosses” five hundred miles away, but overall LBUSD delivers a great product and we all benefit. Measure K was needed and I am very glad the voters agreed.
Mayor Bob Foster worked his tail off to raise money and get out the vote in favor of Measure I. Had the vote to pass needed to be a simple majority the measure would have passed and funds would have been available for infrastructure repair. Instead the bar was at two-thirds of the votes to pass and the measure fell short. What does this mean? It means now that the issue is on the table in a very, very big way our city council members must deal with it. Over 114,000 citizens in Long Beach voiced their opinion on the issue, so it is on their radars and it will be one of the top issues in the 2010 election cycle, if not the top issue. For those who worked to defeat Measure I, I would like to see them stay involved and continue to move the issue forward. The greatest problem that I see with the next step is that infrastructure repair now becomes the typical political and legislative boondoggle when hundreds of millions of dollars are being spent by the government. Every little crack and every issue will have someone attempting to cram their “deal” into any proposal. My advice is to start at the end and work backwards. Create the vision for what a major infrastructure improvement project will look like when completed. Get as many groups, neighborhoods and constituents as possible to sign off on that finished vision. Then work backwards into what needs to happen, how much needs to be spent, who is involved to make it happen.
This of course would be somewhat unique in our democratic style of government. We as voters swing wildly from side to side from election to election. Seemingly indiscriminate in what taxes we pass on ourselves and what burdens we place on others. All the while elected officials vision is on the election cycle and their supporters. I challenge our City Government to have a workable, financially prudent and expeditious plan to fix our deteriorating and build needed infrastructure that will be serviceable for many decades into the future.
Well done Long Beach on the huge voter turnout. I hope for many first time voters it was not their last time voting. I further hope that the responsibility of voting is taken seriously and before pulling a lever or Inking-A-Vote that you read, listen and debate the issues.
Your thoughts welcome, click here to email me or on “Leave A Comment” below for public response.
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Bill Garlin said:
Appreciate the explanation and details. MMuch better, though not shorter, than slinging about emotionally laden terms. As for our judges, funny how they are only labeled "activist judges" and usually not in a positive way, when they do something a particular group - liberal or conservative, doesn't agree with...Last I checked, they are part of a balance of powers in this country, a system of government smartly set-up by our forefathers to make sure that no one branch (legislative, executive or judicial) gets too carried away in the messy process that is democracy.
Dennis said:
Bill: Will start with the redistribution system of giving tax "credits" to those who do not pay taxes--I'll call it welfare. Pelosi is already talking of $500 checks every January for those working paying no taxes. We can then move into Barney Frank's statement last week of cutting at least 25% from the military budget. Then press ahead to union card check, "fairness doctrine", increasing death tax, confirmation of judges who feel public opinion and European opinion more important than Constitution when making judicial decisions. Those would generally be considered a jerk to the left (I will be you to it: some think I am a jerk on the right). I do agree with you on the ease with which the CA Constitution is changed by voters, as well how it is interpretted by judges, with such seeming ease. Thanks for your comments and reading My Front Porch
Haiku Frank said:
Dennis overtrusts
Investors' Business Daily:
Pennsylvania wrong.
Dougie Frankenfeld said:
McCain proved pundits
Were wrong about predictions;
Instead, a landslide.
Bill Garlin said:
What exactly is "...jerking the country hard to to the left?" This term carries a lot of baggage, mostly negative to mean socialism or worse. Please better explain what this means exactly when it comes to governing and/or changes that may have an effect on us.
As for the passage of Prop. 8, I find it hard to believe we can change the constitution of the state of California with a majority vote. Is the constitution of our state any less important than that of the United States? There such things have to pass Congress first, then go on to be approved by the states. It was easier to pass the amendment to our state constitution than it was to pass a bond measure to repair out city's infrastructure. Something's not right there...
Bob Schilling said:
I certainly agree that the voters seemed to be of at least two minds on the Propositions this time. I'm honestly a bit shocked that so many people voted to raise their taxes during a recession. And I worry about the prospects that Prop 1A will produce what it has promised.
I think the arguments against Prop 2 were in the class of the "short handled hoe." Some years ago, California required its growers to supply long-handed hoes to field workers to reduce the amount of stoop labor. Growers gravely announced the end of California agriculture as we know it. That, of course, was poppycock, and I suspect the predictions of egg production gloom in California are similar.
The conversations I heard around Prop 4 weren't as concerned with parental rights as they were with the protection of young women from abusive parents. I assumed from the Proposition itself that parents don't have this right now.
The passage of Prop 8 saddens me. On the other hand, I think that its margin of passage was smaller than that of Prop 22, so maybe we're moving, however slowly, in the right direction. In the meantime, let's go back to the Civil Union statutes and get as close as we can to equality on that front. As for the courts overturning the Will Of The People, they had to do that on voting rights, segregation, and mixed race marriages. In retrospect, those don't seem so bad now, and they were just as unpopular at the time.
I think the most important long-term change we made as citizens in 2008 may not be the election of Barack Obama -- though that's surely significant. I think it may be the passage -- or what I hope with be the passage -- of Prop 11. I'm firmly convinced that more competitive districts will produce a legislature that is more responsive to all Californians. We'll see if my hopes are realized in fact -- but at least this year there's reason for hope.
John B. said:
Dennis and Christina: A point of clarification if I may: Prop 4s failure did not remove any existing parental rights. Parents havent enjoyed the right of notification concerning their minors abortion since 1997, sadly. Parents had the right of notification stripped from them in 1953 and although we tried, through legislation, to have that restored in 1987, legal challenges ultimately prevented that law from being enacted. Prop 4 represented societys latest attempt to balance the needs of caring parents with the valid concerns of abused minors. With Prop 4s defeat we see just one more in a lengthening list of instances wherein parents are expected to bear legal responsibility for their minor children without being afforded the reasonable rights necessary to meet those responsibilities. Caring parents and other adult family members lose because they are deprived of the opportunity to counsel their minor child or family member. The minors lose because they are deprived of oft-needed counsel and guidance from caring parents and family members or, absent those, from the Juvenile Court. Nothing in Prop 4 prevented abortions; that was never its intent. Its a shame that more voters didnt appreciate that.
Dennis said:
Is not giving the right the same as taking one away? Interesting question, let's discuss under the parameters of Prop 4 and Prop 8. As a parent I have the right to consent to and approve all my children's decisions as they are minors and legally are not able to make such decisions. Oh, unless they want an abortion. Prop 4's defeat takes away my rights as a parent as much as Prop 8 takes away the rights of gays to marry. It specifies and act by which my rights as a parent are not valid or recognized. I very much want to see the polling on those who voted against Prop 4 to see how many who opposed were a) parents and b) parents of daughters.
Christina said:
P.S. Also for the record, the passing of Prop 4 does not take away a parental right that is already in existence - rather, it fails to grant a new parental right that does not currently exist.
Christina said:
For the record, Prop 2 does not afford animals the luxury of "roaming free"; rather, it insures that they will have enough room in their cages to turn around.
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