Joyful tears and small disappointments

First, on a personal note: newborn + toddler + other medical concerns = very little sleep, and thus, little time/desire/coherence with which to blog.

My husband and I watched the election results come in, along with one of our closest friends. We allowed our son to stay up and watch the results with us. (By the way - hearing a 2-year old say "Barack Obama for Pres-ent" is very cute.)

Every time a state was called for Obama, there was a lot of cheering and, honestly, perhaps a frightening amount of dancing in our home. When Pennsylvania was called, the cheering was very loud. When Ohio was called, there was much rejoicing. We then waited eagerly for the polls to close on the West Coast, knowing that the race would be called for Obama shortly thereafter.

A flood of phone calls, back and forth, between our friends and family ensued. I came close to crying in my happiness and relief, but pride made me hold back in front of our friend. Of course, he reads this blog, so it doesn't do me any good now. However, when I started this blog, I promised myself I would be honest and open on it, so, there's the truth.

When my dad started school, he wasn't allowed to attend school with white children. He didn't believe until Tuesday night that he would live to see a black man elected President of the United States. I'm so grateful that he has.

From a national perspective, I'm thrilled with the outcome of this election. From a local perspective, I am somewhat disappointed.

On a personal level, a friend of mine was running for the Minnesota House of Representatives, and he lost his race. I'm so disappointed for him, and I know that he would have made a fine Representative. I hope that he decides to run again in 2 years; hopefully, I will have more time and physical energy with which to help him at that point.

Melissa Hortman, the Democratic incumbent in my local House race, easily won her bid for re-election. I am very pleased about this, but honestly, I'm a little shocked. Just based on the sheer aggressiveness of her opponent's campaign (and the nasty PACs aligned with him), I assumed she would be in trouble. I'm very glad that I was wrong.

I am disappointed that both Madia and Tinklenberg lost their bids for election in CD3 and CD6, respectively. While Michele Bachmann's paranoid red-scare comments helped Tinklenberg in fundraising and in gaining the DCCC's interest in his race, I worry that the new focus on the CD6 race took away the DCCC's focus on the CD3 race. Paulsen's campaign (and organizations on his behalf) ran some very hard-hitting campaign ads painting Madia as a liar obsessed with raising everyone's taxes. I saw very little response from the Madia campaign. I believe this may have cost him the race. Ramstad's representation of this district has been that of a relative Republican moderate, otherwise known as the "Whatever - just please don't raise my taxes" Republican.

Ah, and the race for Senate between Coleman and Franken. As things stand as of now, Coleman is leading Franken by 236 votes out of 2,422,848 votes cast (for those two - about 15% voted for Barkley, and about 1% voted for another third-party candidate.) Coleman's lead has been shrinking day-by-day as more results come in - and this is before a state-mandated recount. Coleman has shown incredible nerve in claiming that he hopes Franken will request that no recount happens, supposedly in an effort to save taxpayers' money.

Um....Norm....no one believes that absolute bullshit you're spewing. I'd say save it for someone stupid enough to believe that, but I'm not sure anyone like that exists.

The Amendment to the Minnesota Constitution designating funding for the outdoors and for the arts passed with about 59% of the vote. I voted against this amendment, mainly on the principles that 1) budgets shouldn't be Constitutionally determined, and 2) putting together the outdoors and the arts smacks of annoyingly-obvious special interests interference. However, all things considered, I'm not that disappointed that the amendment passed.