I predict that the wingnut line of attack against increasing revenues will center around “them damn welfare-foodstamp-moochin-off-the-system-good-for nothings.” In fact, such memes are already floating, and it hasn’t even been 24 hours yet.

Very sad about demise of Prop 37 (GMO labeling). Hopefully that can get passed at another time.

Very glad that Prop 30 passed, despite Gov Moonbeam’s very inept & lackluster campaigning on it. About time! I can hear my CA Republican friends teeth gnashing from here. Well, you want to live in this great state of CA, so cough up.

Also VERY glad & relieved that Prop 32 (anti-Union) went down to defeat!

Glad about Prop 36 & getting rid of that ridiculous 3 Strikes Law. That was something passed years ago by punitive conservatives who basically wanted an unfunded mandate to punish law-breakers. I’m all for people doing the time for their crimes, but 3 Strikes never made any sense. The Justice Community hated it. Well done.

Sorry about Prop 34 (repealing the death penalty) failing – try again. I think citizens need more education on this one, just like 3 Strikes, and they might just go for it on another vote. IMO, 3 Strikes got repealed bc of educating citizens about the ridiculous costs involved in over-incarcerating small-time offenders. Same is true for Death Penalty: it’s overly costly & really is NOT a deterrent for other offenders.

Thanks for your update. Interesting night in CA.

It remains to be seen what our Dems will do with their Super-Majority in the lege but at least they have to do something and they can’t blame the Rs. Pete Stark lost and maybe that’s a good thing.

Hopefully Jerry won’t pull an Obama and refuse to advance the democratic agenda while controlling both houses.

Those memes never stopped during the whole campaign, so it’s not like they “started” again. Just more of the same old, same old…

The Tea Party has been so heavily propogandized that they are not tracking in anything remotely close to reality any more. They cling and grasp to these memes cuz it’s all they have. Very sad. Probably will get worse before it (hopefully maybe some day) ever gets even marginally better.

Yeah. I’m with you on that one. Let’s see.

Yippee-ai-oh-ai-ay: Dan Lungren went DOWN to DEFEAT!!!!!!!!

This is truly GOOD news!

Allegedly lost to Ami Bera by a mere 184 votes! woot. A mega-conservative asshole US Rep. Couldn’ta happened to a better loser!

We need to ignore them. Give them NO cred.

Did ya read about Lungren’s defeat! Yippeeeeeee!

What the Cons call “demographic winter” has arrived. The rise of the Latino population — and more importantly, their decision to employ a similar electoral strategy to that of African-Americans — is probably going to end all hopes of Republicans getting the White House anytime soon. That’s why they fought so hard for voter restriction everywhere: When people vote, Republicans lose.

The big thing from now on will be the downballot issues and races.

Oh, and eat it raw, Sheldon Adelson!

I live in his district. The effort that went into his defeat was HUGE! People actually got tired of getting information. I had someone yell at me on Sunday. But it worked. And Ami Bera is a wonderful man. A true progressive.

Of course the memes never stopped, but I’m suggesting that the wingnuts will now turn the volume up to eleven.

As regards the teabaggers, I’m guessing the GOP Brass, Murdoch, Rove, etal are already brainstorming about how to stuff them bag into the nervous hospital from whence they emerged several years back.

Thanks! That was one I really hoped for.

Didn’t Rove flip out last night on Fox?

Given their volume and stridency, I find it difficult to ignore them. What I try to do, instead, is refocus them on who was responsible for wrecking the economy in the first place: Namely, Wall Street. After all, that’s how the teabagger movement started in the first place, before it was summarily coopted and derailed by powerful monied interests.

Break up the monster banks. T’was ever thus.

Hopefully. I heard that Megyn Kelly had some sort of on-air meltdown when “Fox” called the race for Obama. I haven’t looked into it as yet, however.

That’s why they fought so hard for voter restriction everywhere

That effort will continue, I’m guessing.

Allen West LOST! Makes me want to dance.

Yeah. I happened to see a just a *few* of Lungren’s “anti-Bera” ads on tv, and while very very slick, they were pretty scurilous.

I vote in SoCal, but I live part-time in Lungren’s district, so I had some real interest in that race. Glad to see Mr. Bera win!

This makes me really happy! I would only be happier if my rep from SoCal had gone down in flames: Darryl Issa. A more thieving creep may not exist. Sadly no one was really running against him, although I certainly didn’t vote for Issa. ptoui!

Yeah on this score: happy days are here again! yay

Have they called Florida yet? Must have hanging chads again.

No doubt.

I truly & honestly have some concern about at least one sibling, who honestly seems to be off the deep end.

And sadly, imo, Obama has been way too conservative for my liking; so many of his policies are in lock-step with GW BushCo. They have not been “damaged” at all by ObamaCo, other than they ways all of us have been by the shredding of the Constitution & the loss of so many civil rights. But my rightwing family members don’t give a crap about that shit; they like it!

We were raised by very non-racist parents & grandparents, and it grieves me to witness how deeply racist my sibling has become… and how it’s unhinged her. It’s a terrible thing. Not good.

Hmm. Maybe we should conduct a push for online voter registration in FL, where we’ve already GOT more registered Dems than Republicans but the Party of Fear has the place so miserably gerrymandered.

The other huge impediment to progressivism here is that so-called liberals, especially the elderly, do not want to pay taxes. Changing demographics may change this, too.

You come up here sometimes? We should talk. mccurnin design at gmail dot com

Got it. Will do.

Yes, Obama won by .5%, it appears despite voter suppression and intimidation. Rick Scott is next in our sights.

Thanks. Am happy to hear that the Rs wasted so much money therel

I heard one of the pundits on National Propoganda Radio talking “around” this issue last night. Basically said – in different words – that the Southern Strategy is no longer working bc it’s only reaching a diminishing base of older whites.

Someone claimed that Rove looked like he wanted to jump off a ledge last night on Fox TV. I don’t know; I don’t have a tv, so didnt’ see it. But if so, Rove may have to come to grips that Lee Atwater’s nasty legacy may have finally gasped out its last gasp (hopefully & thankfully if so).

KKKarl may have to put in his thinking cap & come up with a different strategy. And what’s Glenn gonna do for an encore? chumps.

Good luck getting rid of “Dread” Scott!

this is kind of huge, really, considering that the California “sage-brush” rebels gave birth to the whole conservative movement and Ronald Reagan himself. If its dead than its another piece of signifigant evidence that the conservative era is dead…if anyone needed evidence beyond last nights election results. Much as i have distrusted Howard Fineman as a villager hes the only one that seemed to be interpreting the elections correctly..a massive and permanent idealogical shift

Just read Lungren and Bono plus her hubby Conny Mack lost. Heh

I hope so, but… deep pockets iz deep pockets… time will tell.

DD is right universe is changing.

Probably will get worse before it (hopefully maybe some day) ever gets even marginally better.

That’s how I see it, too. We have an analogous situation here in Quebec with the separatists (they now call themselves ‘sovereignists’), who form about 20 percent of the electorate and something like 35 percent of the French-canadian electorate. They came close to winning in 1995 (through vote suppression), but the polls show something like two-thirds of the population would vote no on a sovereignty question, and probably more if the question were worded like the one for Scotland. But they still keep imagining scenarios in which they could win. It is part of their identity. The same is true of the Republican Right. Their personal identity is tied up in their ideology, and they are unlikely to drop it. It is simply too life-threatening.

Jane should organize a lottery on who gets called this weekend to the Sunday talk shows. Axelrod obviously and Plouffe maybe, but what are they going to do with all those aging and embarrassing Thug-heads? Does John McCain’s opinion on anything matter any more? (Did it ever matter?). Maybe they’ll haul out Joe Lieberman. This election is going to shake up the talking head circuit for a while until the MOTU figure out how to game the results.< (if they haven't already).

oh the “fiscal cliff” “defict hawk” corner have been the first and loudest complainers over last nights results. They arent going to dry up and blow away, there is far far and away too much money at stake in the privatising of Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid for that to happen. They still have to be given the beating they are begging for but WE are in the mainstream, not them.

Yippee-ai-oh-ai-ay: Mary Bono Mack went DOWN to DEFEAT!!!!!!!!

This is truly GOOD news for me, because I live in that district – and the flip side is even better, because Raul Ruiz is WONDERFUL!

thank you for that detail about Prop 32, that and Prop 30 will make a big difference for family of mine in Cali who teach in public schools and attend college in the public UC system. Real glad for that. It’s the beginning of taking back our money from the plutocrats.

very smart, you are. very good point about Reagan. I was in Santa Monica for part of 1978 when the fight was mainly about protecting rent control, all of us hippies recognized that the Prop 13 juggernaut was unstoppable. Took 34 years to stop it. Might take that long to undo the damage.

The problem with Prop 13 is that the big corporations *never* get their properties reassessed. When they buy/sell property, they make it look like there was no sale. Look at the story of One Market Plaza in SF.

didn’t check your link yet, but it’s an interesting parallel to WaPo’s discovery of a similar developer racket in DC: they arranged for the tax office to hire a known commercial real estate appraisal fixer, who proceeded to give them buzzcuts on their appraisals exceeding $2.6 Billion in a single year, which cost DC over $45 million in tax revenues in a single year. The fixer was, wait for it …., fired from the same job in Atlanta where he had … yes, fixed commercial property appraisals to give developers haircuts on their taxes. Right under everyone’s noses.

DC finally fired our particular asshole, but we are stuck for the moment with the same CFO who hired the asshole, and the same Mayor who promised his developer cronies they would get paid off if they stuck with him during his federal criminal investigation travails.

Finally a democratic utopia!
Now we can pass everything we want!!! Here’s are 15 ideas
1) Pass Gay marriage
2) Repeal Prop 13
3) legalize marijuana
4) Repeal 3 strikes
5) Repeal the death penalty
6) Increase tax rates on upper incomes
7) voter registration should come as part of a California ID
8) Close all the military bases in California
9) Tax “defense” corporations at a higher rate
10) Invest in green energy
11) outlaw oil drilling off shore, and on shore
12) outlaw plastic bags and the manufacture of plastic bags.
13) require all employers to provide a minimum of 4 weeks vacation time.
14) lower retirement age to 59
15) Provide free tuition for Cal State universities if you have the grades.

Looks like there could be a recount in FL. Also, although the (lousy) state election site said 100% of votes had been counted a few hours ago, the totals had changed when I went back several minutes ago. Obama’s lead seems to be holding up, and not much changed, but less than half of one percent automatically triggers a recount. Not much difference in the grand scheme, but I would like to see Rick Scott repudiated.

Millennials 20% of the electorate. Old Whites 17%. Also bodes well for the future

a massive and permanent idealogical shift

That’s what pundits were proclaiming in 2008. It lasted exactly two years.

Actually, by my appraisal, it lasted exactly as long as it took to appoint Geithner and Summers.

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. This is what we are going to get for all our hard work re-electing Obama

1. Social Security 69; Medicare 67
2. Keystone green light
3. Drill baby drill: Arctic, wetlands, tar sands, oil shale. We are the Saudi Arabia of trash oil and we are going to pump every dirty barrel
4. More drones. Domestic drone surveillance
5. Expansion of the Global War on Terror to more Horn of Africa countries
6. Regulated Internet
7. Jamie Dimon as Sec. of the Treasury
8. More deportations of the group, HIspanics, that saved his re-election
9. More deregulation: business competitiveness over consumer safety every time
10. Lower corporate tax rate for companies who pay almost nothing as is
11.Bi-partisanshit: Boehner, McConnell, Cantor circle jerk
12. Heavy Manners for Colorado and Washington daring to legalize the seven leaf plant
13. Nuclear over Renewable as the “alternative” to petroleum

Remember why prop 13 was iniatied? Old people were being priced out their homes becasue of property taxes.

They have to wait for the mail in votes, may be 10 days or more.

It wasn’t Obama who refused. It was Ben Nelson and his ilk. Please not to assume that Democrats nation-wide are in lock-step, as Republicans are forced to be.

That was indeed the enabling (and as we can see, persistent) lie. A law capping (or deferring) real estate taxes on owner-occupied residential property would have been ample for that purpose, but that was never really the purpose.

If the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers’ Association has given a flying fuck about the impoverished elderly since 1978, they have hidden it well.

It’s a bummer about 37, but it’s pretty awesome that aside from that, all the rich people who dumped money in California(the Mungers, the shadow Koch/Rove groups) didn’t get their way.

Don’t get too excited. Obama only won by one percentage point. I wouldn’t call that a blowout. I would call that a pretty unconvincing win that shows how much Republicans have to alienate moderate voters just so Democrats can eke out a modest victory.

Indeed, one of the greatest political achievements since Prop 13 locked us into the 2/3 rule, crippling the state and the nation in the process.

Schools money, rebuilding, remodeling, adding, more teachers, more construction jobs, more jobs that go along with growth like this.

More growth, more jobs, more tax revenues . . . I wondered how this was possible, this super majority . . . thanks Mr. Dayen for the online reg explanation . . . never would have guessed it.

Big wow, tho, when I read this upon wakening today.

Future just got a LOT brighter for we the people of CA.

And as CA goes, so goes the nation. Perhaps we will be the econ boost and jobs creators this nation so desperately needs and has NOT gotten from our Erected Offals in Washington.

Yes, I’m sure you’re right. After that, the same sort of thing was done here in Michigan and it provided much needed relief. Local political leaders, who often take their marching orders from public employee unions, are restricted as to how much they can raise a homeowner’s taxes. And thank goodness, because without it they would raise them very, very high.

Shoto: ‘I predict that the wingnut line of attack against increasing revenues will center around “them damn welfare-foodstamp-moochin-off-the-system-good-for nothings.”’

Yup. This morning I checked in over at Yahoo Finance to see what the crazies who reside there were yammering about (since they seem to be bellwethers for that sort of thing), and yes indeedy, it was all about people getting freebies from the gub’mint as the motivation for voting D.

One even went so far as to mention specifically that a particular skin color was highly, positively correlated with being a serial moocher. And of course there was the predictable “this is the end of America,” etc., etc.

Ding, dong the witch is dead

Geezus, maybe now we can finally start to look to the future

But if Obama had done what you think he should have done, Romney would be president, and Republicans would control both chambers of Congress, and you would be blaming Obama for failing to impose a military dictatorship.

The voters didn’t move toward Romney away from Obama because Romney was more leftist than Obama, and the Tea Party didn’t win 50 seats in the House by promising to hike corporate taxes to 70%, taxes on the rich to 90%, dismantle 75% of the military and just abandon all foreign bases, nationalize all the big banks and corporations, single payer, and lower the retirement age to 55.

And you certainly did nothing to defeat the Tea Party 50 in Congress – you seem to understand political strategy better than Obama, so why didn’t you put 50 radical progressives in to replace them? When it comes to getting out the vote to elect your guys, you have the same opportunity Obama had circa 2002.

Prop 13 did not stop taxes being raised, it stopped the reassesment of a property until it was sold. So you could live in a million dollar property and only paying tax on it as if it was worth the 100k you paid for it 20 years ago. In California in the 70s property values were rising so fast tax rates were actually going down but the value of the property was going up faster so the taxes went up. What would work better is to limit the growth of spending and reduce the property tax as the value goes up so you don’t have a false valuation on the property.