Okay, so in this post you were supposed to be seeing a digital photograph of my vote for Paris Hilton, but the picture didn’t turn out. Lest it be said that I am incapable of holding my nose and voting for the lesser of two evils, I’d like everyone to know that I /did/ vote Democrat (specifically, for Tammy Baldwin) in the House race, in spite of being rather skeptical of how the Democrats handled the bailout.

Watching the election returns was a bit thrilling because it was such a landslide, at least electoral college-wise. At that moment, I noticed that there was one potential positive of an Obama win that I hadn’t noticed: it would be a strong incentive for politicians not to pull Palin-as-VP level nonsense the way McCain had. Then Obama got up and delivered his victory speech, starting off on a solidly egomaniacal note, and I remembered why I didn’t vote for him.

Now I’m sort of in wait-and-see what happens. Hell, maybe Michael Reynolds will be right and Obama will govern from the center. There’s also Will Wilkinson’s more cautious optimism: it’s good Obama won, but also good the Republicans can still filibuster in the Senate.

In other election news, prop 8 (the anti-gay marriage California referendum) passed, and gay rights activists are already gearing up more legal challenges. Apparently, California law has some genuine ambiguities in what you’re allowed to do with “amendments” vs. what you’re allowed to do with “revisions.” Legal issues aside, though, I say “can it.” If it were up to the younger generation–and one day it will be–gay marriage would pass in a landslide. These legal challenges mainly cost immediate backlash and long-term erosion of respect for the courts, which we need not just to create new rights, but enforce existing ones. None of that would have been true if prop 8 had failed, giving gay marriage democratic legitimacy, and part of the reason it passed is because of scuzzy tactics by it’s supporters, but it still passed. Alternative to more legal challenges: lobby the government to modify it’s standard forms so they read “Marital status: _Single _Married _Divorced _Marriage Dissolved by Ballot initiative.”)