I think we take these two voting blocs for granted AT OUR PERIL.

I hope the Dems fire up about this.

And they can give DEBBIE the heave-ho, too, while they're at it. I think we can well expect her not to care all that much, or pay that much attention, on the road ahead. She's been pretty damn tone-deaf, and has two midterm shellackings on her credit. Howard Dean anyone? He got us a midterm election back in 2006 that was FABULOUS, and gave us SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE PELOSI, too.

The WEST is BEST! California did us proud, too. And btw - Welcome to DU, Old Nick!

Jerry Brown RULES!!!! And Henry Waxman was replaced by another good Dem, Ted Lieu, who keeps that district BLUE!!! AND Sheila Kuehl kept Bobby Shriver out of the County Board of Supervisors, Thank God! Bobby Shriver fuckin' RUINED Santa Monica with overdevelopment. The entire Westside would wind up like that if he'd gotten in. He never saw a big developer he didn't LUV-LUV-LUV, and many of them gave him lots of money for his campaign. Glad and VERY relieved that they were shown the door. And HAH! Bobby Shriver is supposedly a loyal Dem. Go figure...

Anyway, glad you're here, Old Nick! And congratulations on being part of such a forward-looking and progressive city! Seattle ROCKS!!!!

And if you're stupid enough to believe mitch mcconnell...

"pledged to try and turn divided government into a force for good rather than gridlock on Wednesday," then you deserve what you get. The really bad part is - the rest of us DO NOT deserve it!!!

Yeah. Bummer. But it wasn't a total loss.

Props 1 & 2 made it. That was the State Water Quality/Supply/Treatment/Storage one (1), and the "Rainy-Day Fund" one (2) which we sure could use in tough times!!!!! All the more reason to keep voting for a DEMOCRATIC governor, because if you put a myopic cheapskate CON in there, he or she will look at that fund and say - "duh!!! Gummnt baaaaaaad, don't need no money for rainy day, get rid of it, too much big gummnt." Whereupon, GUARANTEED, there will soon follow: a disaster or some really horrible brush fires or mudslides or earthquake or some other unforeseen nightmare for which we will DESPERATELY NEED that rainy-day fund and it won't be there anymore. Instead, the CON will have squandered it by giving us all a buck-98 tax cut. Whoopeeee.

Prop 47 also passed - that allows for misdemeanor classification instead of felony for non-serious and non-violent drug and property offenses. Might help uncrowd our prisons a little. So we got three out of six. Better than nothing.

What we ALL have to do is MAKE SURE that And not just in California, either. The consistent long-range goal MUST be to secure the GOVERNOR slots, AND THE SECRETARY-of-STATE jobs for Democrats. Lock DEMS in there in as many of these as possible. That's the best way to protect against voter suppression. Regardless what the state legislature might do, and what a hopeless case it is, at least the Governor will be on OUR side, and will veto that shit. And you won't have assholes like katherine harris or ken blackwell or that kris kobach jerk in Kansas. AMAZING that both he and brownback survived. AMAZING. And JUST AWFUL!!!!!

The STOOOOpid is strong with this one, Luke.

Well, they ARE! But thankfully not to this one!

SO DAMN GLAD he didn't win. SO DAMN GLAD!!!!! I want to be represented! Only a Democrat can represent me because a CON doesn't like or support anything I believe in. So I won't be represented by any GOP politician, and I won't have a voice, and that is an intolerable situation to me.

Yep. I just posted in the California forum about some very pleasing election results.

My district stayed blue, too! THANK GOD! I'm a Henry Waxman woman, and he's retiring, dammit. But we have a great new replacement, State Senator Ted Lieu, who has now inherited Waxman's mantle. California did the Dems proud, Thank GOD! WE still lean forward out here!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10408285

Thank GOD!!! Henry Waxman's district remains bright BLUE!!!

WHEW!!!! Out of the bleak results nationwide, at least CA-30 didn't disappoint! Most of California didn't, for that matter.

SO relieved! The Great Mantle of the Great Waxman falls onto the shoulders of Ted Lieu. Very capable young state legislator who my son researched thoroughly when he was studying the primary ballot, and we had something like 27,115 Democrats running for the job. He came in second, in the primary, to the republi-CON elan carr. I was TERRIFIED about this! Even though there was a lot of vote splitting among all the Dems in the primary earlier this year, and that cut into the vote numbers, I was still scared. elan carr was ALL OVER TV with campaign commercials and in the last week, the tone of them got really mean. And the ratio of carr commercials to Ted Lieu commercials seemed to be something like 10-2. It was AWFUL!

Other good news I'm grateful and relieved to report: Sheila Kuehl beat Bobby Shriver for county supervisor district 3. THANK GOD!!!! I don't care if Bobby Shriver's a Dem. I don't care if he's a Kennedy. He never saw a big developer he didn't LUV-LUV-LUV.

He frickin' RUINED Santa Monica. He's been in Santa Monica city government, including serving as mayor, for years. During that time, Santa Monica has gone severely downhill. It used to be a charming, quaint, mellow little seaside community. Now, it's Midtown Manhattan. It is so crowded and congested and overdeveloped that I just don't even bother going down there anymore. I used to spend almost every weekend down there. Nice weather, movies, fun shopping and a large variety of restaurants. There was plenty to do, plenty to see, plenty of options and choices and places to go and to hang out, and great people-watching. Now you can barely move! The streets are still the same size as 30 or 40 years ago but now the overdevelopment all over the downtown area has overwhelmed them. They're poorly marked, there's too much traffic, too many pedestrians, too many cars, too many buses, too many bicyclists, the traffic signals aren't coordinated, it's freakin' NUTS!!!!! It's a MESS!!! And you can't find parking - unless you circle endlessly in these big parking structures that spot the downtown commercial district. And it grew really bad on HIS watch.

Irritatingly enough, we have empty store fronts ALL OVER the Westside. Empty office building suites. "For Lease" signs all over the place. And we've STILL got to build more???? Why can't we make use of the empty ones we already have????? From watching Shriver over the years here, where he was extensively involved in Santa Monica city government, it was clear to me that he was as deeply in bed with as many developers as possible. And when I saw this LA Times write-up about him, sure enough, it confirmed that a majority of his campaign funding came from big real estate interests and big developers. Funny enough, the Times story even mentioned rick caruso by name - a big-ass developer and major donor to Shriver's campaign. rick caruso is the same sleazy asshole who dick cheney came out here to see every so often, to shake down and rub elbows with some big-spenders and high-rollers and other CON-supporters.

SO GLAD Sheila Kuehl beat him - AND them, and quite handily, too. Unfortunately, Sandra Fluke did not prevail over Ben Allen as I personally would have preferred, but he too is a Dem, so that keeps the 26th State Senate district blue as well. And of course, we have the Dynamic Dem Duo, Jerry Brown and Gavin Newsom back in the saddle in Sacramento, too! Plus the Dems kept the Secretary of State job (IMPORTANT!!! THEY'RE THE ONES WHO START THE ACTUAL FUCKING WITH VOTER SUPPRESSION!!!!!!!!), Alex Padilla; for Controller, Democrat Betty Yee over that Ashley bimbo the GOP was pushing; Dem John Chiang for Treasurer; the fetching Dem Kamala Harris remains our Attorney General; Dem Dave Jones for Insurance Commish; Tom Torlakson for Schools Superintendent; and Goodwin Liu was rehired as an associate justice of the State Supreme Court. He should be elevated to an associate justice of the US Supreme Court, frankly. If I were president, I'd nominate him for sure!

So California's governmental infrastructure remains safely blue, THANK GOD!!! So not ALL the news from last night was horrible. Most of it, but not all.

Do we know if there's any effort to remove her or demand her resignation?

If there isn't, we should start one. WE should. WE ACTIVISTS. I don't feel like waiting for the usual suspects to do something sensible. WE should take it upon ourselves to do that. I'm gonna start agitating for it, that's for DAMN sure!

I'm not sure about that, either. At best, they're gullible and stupid.

And that would be the very best that could be said. They will be surprised, though, when they get a stomach full of what the CONS have in mind for them. There will STILL be gridlock. There will be massive and aggressive attempts to take away affordable health care, Social Security, and Medicare, AND more of women's rights and access even to the simplest birth control. They'll go back to chiseling veterans and Ebola researchers, 'cause the heat's off, now. AND they'll go after our budding marijuana rights, too. You just watch. There will STILL be time and taxpayers' money WASTED on persecuting and likely impeaching President Obama, and I suspect the Dems will NOT return the favor for all the obstruction we had to trip over for the past four years. I hope they do. I hope they take the filibuster to heart and USE it!!!!! Show yertle the turtle how it feels to be on the receiving end of that for a change.

But it all comes down to the VOTERS. And the voters were royally had this year, at the end of a koch-brothers-funded fork.