First the bad news …

TYG heard something in the house last night or thought she did so she woke me up and we spent several minutes searching for it (happily, a false alarm). This left me unable to get back to sleep for a couple of hours. Coupled with my usual sleep disruptions from switching back or forth to daylight savings time, I’m too tired now to get any ehows written. I look at “non qualified retirement plan” and my brain responds as if it were “glk sptzl glaaa,” a sure sign I’m wasting my time.
So before I shift to other writing projects, I figured I’d blog some. Specifically about the good news, which is a resounding victory last night.
If you read my political posts or my And columns, you know there’s lots of things I don’t like about the Obama administration: Drone warfare, assassinations, failure to prosecute torture, warrantless eavesdropping, the war on whistleblowers (too tired to find links though—sorry). But I don’t think any of these things would have been improved under a Romney administration.
A lot of things would be worse. Obama supports gay marriage—it’s not passionate, but ending Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and not defending DOMA are not small things. Nor is requiring insurers pay for birth control trivial, particularly compared to the outright hate for birth control and abortion on the right and the general hostility to women’s rights.
•Obamacare isn’t as radical a change as I’d have liked, but it does provide millions of people with coverage who don’t have it now. That’s no small thing either.
•While I don’t expect Obama to appoint liberal firebrands (based on his two choices no way that’s going to happen, even with a Democratic-dominated Senate), he’s unlikely to appoint anyone as bad as I’d expect from Romney either.
•Likewise, for all his apparent willingness to make a deal on Social Security and tax cuts, he’s not as fanatical about tax cuts for billionaires and no safety net for anyone else as Romney/Ryan.
And of course, if Romney had run, a large part of the Democratic Party would conclude not that they lost not because they were insufficiently liberal but they weren’t conservative enough (they’ve been doing this since the Reagan years). And that women’s rights were vote losers. This would not go anywhere good. Instead, we know have strong liberals (Alan Greyson and new candidates Tammy Duckworth and Elizabeth Warren) in office. Seeing openly left-wing candidates wing can’t hurt.
Conversely, Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock both got trounced at the polls. That’s a very good thing. As I’ve said before, they’re not unique in their views—this is hardly a cut-off-the-head-and-the-body-dies solution. But showing that the majority, even in relatively conservative states, find their views repulsive discourages more people from making them talking points, which shifts debate back to the left. That’s better than having “God wanted that woman raped” accepted as a reasonable position in public debate.
Passing three ballot measures supporting gay marriage is a wonderful thing too. It will not silence anti’s, despite their claim they want the voters to decide such things(they lie!). But in the long run, the arc of the universe is tending toward justice.
On a personal, selfish level, not having Romney and Ryan in office is a very good thing. Bush II’s policies trashed the economy; I suspect Romney would be worse as the Repubs have shifted right since 2008 (W, remember, actually bragged about getting poor people off the income tax rolls). As a freelancer, a good economy means more clients, more potential jobs, more markets for fiction … I don’t expect a miracle turn-around or anything close, but I definitely feel a little more secure.
I shall now attempt to get some work done.