The Good: Obama, Obama, Obama. Not just a win, but a mandate. Popular vote was 52-46 (I was spot on!), and while the electoral margins have yet to be fully determined, Obama won not just the electoral college, but a majority of states. That's big. When Obama says "I want to do this" people have to pay attention.
The Bad: The senate results are honestly a bit disappointing. The Democrats were going to take the Senate going into last night. That was never seriously in question. I thought that the groundswell would push the close races towards the Democratic candidates. Really it didn't. There are several elections that are going to recounts, but in each the Republican candidate holds a slight edge. In Georgia, Chambliss has a significant lead, but he is JUST short of the 50% needed to avoid a runoff with Democratic challenger Martin (he's short about 5,000 votes). It's likely Chambilss will win a runoff, but Martin will have the advantage of having the full attention and support (and financial support) of President-elect Obama.
Merkley is currently behind Smith in Oregon by about 11,000 votes. All results are not in yet, but with 72% reporting I am honestly surprised that Merkley is that far behind. Obama has a margin over McCain of 150,000! Gordon Smith is far from the most conservative member of the Senate, but it's still kind of surprising that he's been able to pull around 100,000 Obama voters onto his side.
In Alaska, convicted felon Ted Stevens is up by around 3,000 votes over Mark Begich. They're still counting the absentee ballots. The fact that this is still close is kind of strange. Harry Reid has said that Stevens will be subject to ejection by the ethics committee even if he did win.
And in the ultimate heart breaker, Franken is behind by less than a thousand votes to Norm Coleman in Minnesota. Jerk of the day goes to Dean Barkley. Guess who got 15% of the vote? Dean Barkley. Way to go jerkface. By the way, Minnesota, unlike Georgia, does not require an absolute majority for victory. By law Minnesota will have a full recount of all votes. It's so close that they probably won't have certified results for another week or so.
The Ugly: Prop 8 passed in California. That's really disappointing, not just for obvious policy reasons but also because McCain only got about 3.7 million votes in California. 5.3 Million Californians voted to ban gay marriage. So while America is busy patting itself on the back for being so great and inclusive by electing Obama, keep in mind that lots of these open minded folk aren't really interested in equality for everyone just yet.
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