So a lot of mixed feelings for me last night and this morning. First, the good.

• Obama wins presidency. Thank god. Lots of people celebrate, others cringe in irrational fear and call America dead. The rest of the civilized world pats us on the back for not being complete idiots for the first time in a pathetically long time. 
• Kay Hagan won the Senate seat in North Carolina against Elizabeth Dole. In case you didn’t know, the Dole/Hagan race has been close for quite some time. Dole decided it was a good idea to scare voters into winning with her insanely sleazy ad that insinuated Hagan was “godless.” Writing about the many reasons this ad pissed me off would take all day, so I’ll just say I’m pretty happy about Dole loosing by a good margin. 

Now the not so good.

• Pretty much every proposition set out against gay rights looks like they went the wrong way. Gays are now having rights taken away from them instead of given. Extremely dissapointing. Grow up, America. Some people who have wieners like wieners. It isn’t going away. Deal with it and realize that gays aren’t about to destroy the fabric of the country. 
• All my local guys pretty much lost, which I guess I expected, since I live in Texas, but it would have been nice to see one or two of them make it.
• For some reason (okay for quite a few reasons) I really wanted to see Al Franken win the Senate seat in Minnesota. Instead he lost it by 570 votes in a race that totalled about three million ballots. They’re going at a recount, but I’m not holding my breath. 
• Ted Stevens from Alaska keeps his Senate seat. What the hell? Is there some kind of retard virus going around in Alaska or something? Did they not hear that Ted Stevens is a convicted felon? So conservative states would never vote for an atheist or agnostic, no matter how qualified, but we now have proof that they’ll vote for a convicted criminal who will end up incarcirated during his term. What’s that organization that wants to have Alaska seceed from the Union again? Where do I sign the petition to get this to happen? The world gives you a collective slap on the back of the head and calls you an idiot, Alaska. The only thing I can think is that Stevens talked Alaskans into believing that prison is like a series of tubes and is easily escapable.

I’m happy about the presidential election. Really. But I do think the selection of the progressive candidate is (on the whole) less an endorsment of the ideals he ran on and more a rejection of what everyone saw as a third term for Bush, as supported by the voting down of so many progressive propositions. The really important thing, obviously, is what happens when Obama takes office and the supporting House and Senate get seated. If Obama and the Democrats can continue to win the hearts and minds of Americans while getting progressive legislation passed and the Republican party struggles to pick up the pieces, we should see some great things happen. However if the Republicans get their collective act together, throw the right buzzwords out there and Obama stumbles a little, we’ll probably be see the pendulam swing back to “caveman land” faster than I like to think about.