Looking at the reelection of Senator Ma’am from a purely partisan point of view, it is not entirely a bad thing for Republicans. To be sure, had my gal Carly won, she would certainly have become an effective advocate for the Golden State in her party’s caucus.  And now the largest state will have to rely entirely a 77-year old former Mayor of San Francisco to get things done in the Senate.

Given how ineffective Mrs. Boxer was in a filibuster- and near filibuster-proof Democratic Senate, imagine how inconsequential she will be in a Senate with fewer Democrats, an increasing number of whom are now becoming wary of associating themselves with the party’s left wing.  Many fault the career politician for preventing the Senate from moving forward on a climate-change bill entrusted to the Environment and Public Works Committee which she chairs.

With fewer Democrats on her committee and with new and energetic Republican freshmen replacing retiring Sens. George Voinovich and Kit Bond, Ranking Republican Member James Inhofe will make this the committee where big-government environmental legislation goes to die.  He’s not going to have much trouble outmaneuvering the ideological chairman.

Oh, she’ll still get to be called Senator, but she won’t be able to use that title for anything but her own edification.  Oh, and according the San Francisco Chronicle, “delivering partisan shots.”  But, that’s pretty much what she’s been using it for for the last 18 years anyway.

Expect her, even in a Democratic Senate, to be in the minority on many votes.

NB:  Tweaked the post to fix some mistakes and improve its flow.

California sits on the brink of a fiscal crisis, with some warning that the state may be forced to declare bankruptcy.  At the same time, even the Democratic Governor-elect recognizes that tax cuts are not a winning issue.  On the home page of his web-site, his campaign suggests the he favors lower taxes, “Under Jerry Brown Californians saw their tax burden reduced by more than $16 Billion.”

He really didn’t have much of a choice in the matter.  In June of 1978 (just about the mid-point of his gubernatorial tenure), Californians (by a nearly 2-to-1 margin) voted for the tax-cutting Prop 13.  That said, Jerry Brown recognized the spirit of that popular proposition is still alive in the (once-)Golden State; he didn’t campaign on tax hikes.

That means that to balance the state’s budget, he going to have to call for austerity measures and make major cuts in state spending, yet in his victory speech (alas the “Embedding [for this video was] disabled by request“), he seemed to be quite literally in another world.  He talked about “creativity” and “imagination” and building for the future as if we didn’t have to first address the mistakes of the past twelve years, created first by a Democratic governor (his understudy Gray Davis) eager to placate the public employee unions and a spendthrift legislature, then by a pusillanimous* Republican governor and spendthrift legislature.

He talked about overcoming divisions and ending polarization, yet failed to acknowledge his opponent (save to say she won 90% of the Republican vote).  If he were sincere, he would have done as most gracious victors do and praise her for running a spirited campaign and salute her commitment to fixing the problems of the state they both love.

Instead, he reminded us that he still carries, “this missionary zeal to transform the world.”  What, Michelle Malkin asks, “was he smoking?”  Before you change the world, first you’ve got to fix the problems in your own house.  And California has some big ones.  In his victory speech, the governor-reelect seemed blissfully unaware of them. (more…)

She gets it:

The meaning of the 2010 election was rebuke, reject, and repeal. We rebuked Washington’s power grab, rejected this unwanted “fundamental transformation of America,” and began the process to repeal the dangerous policies inflicted on us. But this theme will only complement the theme of 2012, which is renew, revive, and restore. In 2012, we need to renew our optimistic, pioneering spirit, revive our free-market system, and restore constitutional limits and our standing in the world as the abiding beacon of freedom.

Emphasis added.  (Via Commentary Contentions.)

In analyzing the gay vote in the 2010 elections (that Bruce blogged about here), the Washington Post’s Jonathan Capehart almost sort of gets it:

If you want more data that gay men and lesbians are pretty much just like everyone else — worried about the economy, freaked out about the direction of the country and perhaps ticked at the slow pace of change with regard to their civil rights — get a load of this exit poll result.

Well, not entirely.  I’m still trying to figure out what he means about civil rights.  If the issue were civil rights, we already have them.

Of course, I was being sarcastic in the first sentence in the previous paragraph; I know what he means, but if we understand the term before it was politicized, well gay people have long had those rights.  Government, as Thomas Jefferson understood, does not give us rights.  It is our Creator who endows us with them.

Government, however, can take them away.  And governments, at least here in the United States, have not prevented us from living in civil society, assembling free, speaking out publicly and voting.  Yes, I know that many gay activists are upset that Congress has not acted on certain legislation near and dear to their hearts — and two bills I believe they should act on, but those bills are CRINO (Civil Rights In Name Only).

That said, it’s nice to see the mainstream media, albeit only in one of their blogs, start paying attention to the fact that gay people have the same concerns as other Americans.   Capehart notes that some (probably including himself) might find the 31% of the gay vote Republicans drew as “amazing, especially when you consider that way too many people think being gay and voting Democratic are one in the same.”

But, it’s only amazing to those who live in a Beltway cocoon and/or learn about gay people from the press releases and public statements of HRC and other such groups — as well as their echo chamber in newspapers like his. (more…)

It just hit me that Wisconsin’s Paul Ryan will soon chair the House Budget Committee.  Paul Ryan, the smart, principled (and yes, fetching) Congressman committed to small government, chairing the Budget Committee!

No wonder he didn’t run for Senate.

When I read lefty gay blogs and communicate with gay bloggers and politically aware gay friends, I often hear a different critique on Joe Solmonese than the one I offered last night.

Their basic argument is that the HRC chief, instead of playing offensive on gay issues is playing defense for the Obama Administration and congressional Democrats.  ”Too often,” Stephen H. Miller writes on the Independent Gay Forum’s Culture Watch, “Solmonese has seemed more interested in defending the Obama administration to HRC’s gay donors rather than in playing hardball.”

I wonder if the Senate would have moved on DADT repeal had Solmonese called Harry Reid in May after the House voted on repeal and demanded that he move forward immediately on a vote or risk a loss of HRC support of Democrats in the fall elections.  Surely, he has contacts in the Senate Leader’s office.  Such ultimatum might have worked wonders on the then-vulnerable incumbent.

And while HRC may still have contacts in the offices of the Senate Democratic leadership, Miller says “lines of communication with the GOP . . . appear to be nil”:

Even leaving aside the group’s failed one-party strategy, the people running HRC, as Blatt notes, don’t speak the language of “liberty”; their template for politics is one of “rights.” They live in a different world from the party that now controls the House.

So, now we see two basic criteria HRC’s board should consider in picking a new leader, first, someone who can talk Tea Party Republican and, second, someone willing to play hardball with Senate Democrats.

One of your soon-to-be colleagues shows how to fix the problems of a state facing fiscal meltdown and in thrall to public employee unions:

When Governor Christie set his sights on reducing the size of government and the debt in the Garden State, he is keeping that promise.

The governor announced that beginning January, he’ll cut 1,200 state jobs saving New Jersey taxpayers $8.8 million. The job cuts will include layoffs and attrition.

The first thing we do is fire the bureaucrats.  That may cause a temporary uptick in state unemployment, but with fewer bureaucrats meddling in the marketplace, private employers will be less wary of expanding their operations, thus better able to create jobs.

. . . he will deliver the keynote address at the GOP’s 2012 convention which will, after all, be held in the state he will soon represent in the United States Senate.

(Just a prediction.)

Bill Clinton, I am told, does not readily forgive slights.  Perennial political gadfly Jerry Brown failed to endorse the Arkansas Democrat when the latter won the party’s 1992 presidential nomination and remained critical of his fellow partisan during the latter’s two terms as the nation’s chief executive.

So, why then did the spouse of the Secretary of State endorse Jerry Brown at a time when his campaign for California’s chief executive was flagging?  Clinton wouldn’t have helped out a man who didn’t help him unless he had a good reason.

Ever the savvy politician, the former president was keeping his eye on the big picture.  By helping Brown, he was helping Hillary.  Now, the incoming governor of the (once-)Golden State, the nation’s largest and now “bluest”, is beholden to the Clintons.  Should Hillary challenge Obama for their party’s nomination in 2012, Brown won’t be endorsing the incumbent president for reelection when the candidates are competing for California.

Bill Clinton wouldn’t have gone out of his way to help Jerry Brown if Hillary wasn’t planning on challenging Obama.

California, Kimberly Dvorak reminded us last month, “has the third highest state income tax in the nation and the 9.55 percent tax bracket starts at $46,349 for people filing as individuals.”  You read that right, the highest tax bracket kicks in for individuals earning under $50,000.  No wonder 3,000 high wage earners are leaving the state every week, meaning less less revenue for our state’s coffers.

That brings me to R.S. McCain’s reference to a past California governor who kept the Golden State glistening:

As Ronald Reagan used to say, “No poor man ever gave me a job.” Whether as employers, consumers or investors, “the rich” are essential to economic growth and a policy of punishing wealth will therefore have the effect of discouraging investment and employment.

The demonization of the rich is, however, so essential to the liberal worldview that no matter how often their confiscatory schemes produce bad results, they never learn.

The new governor coming to Sacramento may have promised not to raise taxes without voter approval, but his campaign demonized his opponent for wanting to cut taxes.  He has no plan to reduce the growth-stifling tax structure of our state, a structure which punishes wealth, discouraging productive residents of the (once-)Golden State from staying here.

No wonder they choose residence and create opportunities in neighboring jurisdictions.

Don’t let anyone (yes, I mean you — Obamazombies) tell you that the losses in NV and CA were the story on Tuesday night.

THIS was the story on Tuesday and beyond.

On November 2, 2010, the Republican Party made its largest gains in the House of Representatives since 1948 and, I have been told credibly, the largest single day gains of any political party in local, state, and federal races combined in more than 100 years.

19 state legislative bodies ultimately flipped to the GOP. Of the 18 states that will gain or lose seats in Congress for the next decade, the GOP controls 12 of the 18 Governor’s Mansions. The Democrats have been wiped out except among coastal elites and majority-minority districts. The GOP, long said to not be able to make inroads in New England, now controls the Maine Governor’s Mansion, the Maine legislature, the New Hampshire Legislature, a New Hampshire Senate seat, and several congressional seats.

And that is just the tip of the iceberg.

The reign of King Barack I is severely damaged thanks to We, The People.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

This is the kind of data I’ve been waiting to see…

According to CNN, 31% of self-identified gay voters supported Republican candidates for the U.S. House. This number is a dramatic increase from the 19% GOP House candidates won among gay voters in 2008. “Exit polling makes it clear gay voters played an important role in bringing conservative leadership to Congress,” said Jimmy LaSalvia, Executive Director of GOProud, the only national organization representing gay conservatives and their allies. “It also proves something we have been saying for months now – that the Tea Party’s message of limiting government is something that appeals to many gay Americans.”

That my friends, is a huge shift.  It also marks a high water mark of self-identified gays voting for GOP as I believe McCain got 27% in 2008 and Bush got 24% in 2004 (don’t quote me on those numbers, I’m using my memory).

How will the professional Gay Leftists handle the fact that one-third of the gays & lesbians in America vote conservative?   For example, will they back off of their position of abortions-for-all when genetic advances are leading to the days of selective aborting gays & lesbians before they are born?

And that’s just one issue where the Gay Progressive radicals are on the wrong side of 60% of America and 30% of gays & lesbian Americans.  What does this say about gay America’s eroding support of President Obama?

Will anything change among the Gay Street crowd?  Doubtful.  They are bought & paid for by the Democrats and George Soros-funded organizations.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Welcome Instapundit readers!!  While you’re visiting, you may want to check some of our posts on California politics and our thoughts on how Tea Party ideas resonate with gay people!

Perhaps the best thing about the unhappy Barney Frank’s victory on Tuesday was that, to borrow an expression, we will have Barney Frank to kick around for two more years.

As you all must know by now, that career politician was reelected to a sixteenth term on Tuesday, with the lowest percentage of the vote of any incumbent Massachusetts House Democrat this year.  He won with 54% of the vote, his lowest showing since his first election in 1980.  But, that self-righteous partisan did not take his victory gracefully.

I couldn’t watch the whole thing.  He seemed, as Michael Graham put it, “outraged that he had to run a race at all”, even calling Republican campaigns “beneath the dignity of a democracy”.  ”This”, Graham adds, “from a guy who ran millions of dollars in attack ads, repeatedly insulted Bielat, and shouted down his own constituents.”

“In this train wreck of a victory speech,” Ed Morrissey observes, “Frank spent more time attacking the media and his opponent, Sean Bielat, than most losing candidates do in conceding their races.”  Glenn Reynolds thinks Barney “is actually hurt that he had to take it, not just dish it out this time around. But the Tea Party movement has not yet begun to dish . . .”

Glenn encourages us to mock self-righteous politicians like Barney, “don’t treat them with the respect they — wrongly — feel is their due. They’re not used to being challenged. Keep it up, and odds are they’ll either quit, or embarrass themselves fatally.” Well, that’s just what we’ve been doing her at GayPatriot, mocking the mean-spirited man from Massachusetts.

And we’re not going to let up. (more…)

In Iowa, voters “removed three justices who participated in a ruling last year that made the state the first in the Midwest” to recognize same-sex marriages. While the governor appoints the justices in the Hawkeye State, they “have to stand for periodic retention votes, a system known as merit selection.”

It seems voters approve judges a matter of course, but this time, a coalition of outside advocacy groups pushed for their removal because of their vote on same-sex marriage:

The outcome of the election was heralded both as a statewide repudiation of same-sex marriage and as a national demonstration that conservatives who have long complained about “legislators in robes” are able to effectively target and remove judges who issue unpopular decisions.

Leaders of the recall campaign said the results should be a warning to judges elsewhere.

“I think it will send a message across the country that the power resides with the people,” said Bob Vander Plaats, an unsuccessful Republican candidate for governor who led the campaign. “It’s we the people, not we the courts.”

“The risk of leapfrogging — or ignoring — public opinion on controversial issues was brought into sharp relief Tuesday,” New York Times writer A.G. Sulzberger observes, “when voters chose to remove all three justices who were on the ballot seeking new terms.”

“They are,” my former fellow Virginia Law Federalist Todd Zywicki writes, “the first Justices who failed to be retained since 1962, when the current system was implemented.”  Todd offers a good discussion of voters’ use of the power of retention, so just read the whole thing.  We could have avoided all this mess if judges deferred such matters to legislators who must answer to the people in biennial elections.

Todd’s post via Glenn Reynolds who offers, “I’m in favor of gay marriage, but I think it’s better that it happen legislatively. On the other hand, had these justices been retained it would have been democratic sanction for the decision. That’s a virtue of elected supreme courts.” (more…)

So, they keep telling us that Republicans are the white men’s party.  Well, please tell that to Representatives-elect Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and Allen West, both African-American Republicans, elected from the South.

And then there are the Republican Governors.  Brian Sandoval will soon become Nevada’s first Hispanic Governor.  This Latino will be joined in the Republican Governors’ Association by a truly wise Latina, New Mexico’s Governor-elect Susana Martinez.  When she replaces incumbent Bill Richardson, the only Hispanic governors will be Republican.

Mrs. Martinez will not the only woman taking over as chief executive of a state.  She’ll be joined by Oklahoma’s Mary Fallin and South Carolina’s Nikki Haley, both also Republicans.  Together with Jan Brewer, elected to her first full term in Arizona, there will soon be four female Republican governors — compared to two Democratic women helming states (Washington’s Christine Gregoire and North Carolina’s Bev Perdue).

Oh and Mrs. Haley joins Louisiana’s Bobby Jindal as one of only two American governors of Indian extraction.  He is also a Republican.

Kind of defeats the narrative now, doesn’t?

Writing about the future of the (once-)Golden State, Victor Davis Hanson opines, “Public money in California running out is, in fact, a solution of sorts“:

The philosophy that led the state to the highest tax rates in the country, along with the near-worst schools, largest deficits, and most crumbling infrastructure, was reaffirmed. Now California’s state government will have to deal with the reality that if the highest-tax state in the union raises taxes still higher, it will lose even more high earners than the current 3,000 who leave each week. A Republican Congress is not likely to bail out a bankrupt California.

“The problem with socialism,” Lady Thathcer once quipped, “is that eventually you run out of other people’s money”.

Seems like Jerry Brown’s going to learn that soon enough.

In 2004, U.S. Senator Blanche Lincoln won reelection in Arkansas with 54% of the vote while George W. Bush was carrying the state.  On  Tuesday, she didn’t even break 40% of the vote.  Arkansas elected 3 Democrats and 1 Republican to the 111th Congress.  Last night, it elected 3 Republicans and 1 Democrat.

Mark Pryor, the state’s incoming senior Senator is certainly paying attention to those numbers.  But, at least he’s not up for reelection until 2014.

Now, while he has less to worry about in 2012, his colleagues Herb Kohl, Debbie Stabenow, Jim Webb, Jon Tester, Kent Conrad, Sherrod Brown, Bob Casey, Ben Nelson, Bill Nelson, Claire McCaskill and to a lesser extent Jeff Bingaman, Maria Cantwell, Amy Klobuchar as well as Robert Menendez were paying attention to the returns in their states.  None save perhaps Kohl’s Wisconsin, Stabenow’s Michigan, Webb’s Virginia and Brown’s Ohio swung as decisively against the Democrats as did Lincoln’s Arkansas, but these Senators know that the American people are now paying attention.

Not to mention Joe Manchin who was elected to fill out the term of the late Robert Byrd.  He will also face the voters next fall.  He campaigned against many of the centerpieces of his party’s agenda.  He may caucus with the Democrats, but he’s certainly not going to vote with them.

In short, Harry Reid, though he won a victory most sweet to his party (and most bitter to ours), won’t be able to count of the loyalty of eleven, possibly fifteen, members of his caucus in the 112th Congress. (more…)

One thing is clear after reading HRC’s Post-Election Lament; Analysis: if the organization is serious about advocating for gay and lesbian Americans in our nation’s capital, it needs new leadership.  Its leaders just don’t get the issues which helped elect Republicans across the country.  It is time for Joe Solmonese to step down and to be replaced by someone who knows how to “talk Republican”, given that Republicans will soon control one house of Congress.

Solmonese’s background is in left-wing partisan (Democratic) advocacy.  Before coming to HRC, he worked for EMILY’s List, an outfit which defines itself as “a community of progressive Americans dedicated to electing pro-choice Democratic women“.

In its analysis, HRC almost got the meaning of the election:

Voter anxiety over economic affairs created a difficult environment for incumbents and swept conservative majorities into the U.S. House and state legislatures around the country. Thankfully this election was not characterized by as much wedge-issue demagoguery as we’ve seen in the past but make no mistake, these new leaders are no friends to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.

Yeah, the new leaders may not be friends (as they define friends) to the gay and lesbian community, but they’re surely not enemies.  HRC did get that the GOP swept to power by ignoring “wedge-issue demagoguery,” but its leaders missed the issue that really resonated across the country (save perhaps in California): that government has gotten too big and is spending too much.

People want government to leave us alone so we can solve our problems on our own.  And that’s a message which should be welcome to gay and lesbian individuals and should certainly not be anathema to the gay community.

If HRC had a leader who understood that message, then he would understand that the results while perhaps damaging to their notion of gay equality (whatever that means) could bode well, very well for the gay community.   Just as government shouldn’t interfere in the marketplace, so it shouldn’t meddle in our homes.   If it wants to have any influence in the 112th Congress, HRC’s leadership needs to tap into the freedom rhetoric that so resonated with the American people in yesterday’s balloting and lobby Congress not to enact laws which limit our liberty.

And to do that, they don’t necessarily need a Republican leader or one from the Tea Party movement, but one familiar with and respectful of the ideas which undergird it.  Joe Solmonese is not such a man.  And that’s why it’s time for him to go.

NB:  Tweaked the post to fix some sentences which didn’t read well.

First, thanks to everyone who joined our Election Night internet TV coverage.  It was a blast.  My office is now back to normal, sans big screen TV with Charlotte skyline.

Second, my deepest sympathies to our readers and supporters in California and Nevada.  This is what happens when public unions that receive public dollars to fund political campaigns corrupt our elections.  Ya gotta figure a way to stop that to solve your issues, I’m afraid.

Third, some 2008-era slogans come to mind:  “Elections have consequences”  “We Won”  “The Republican Party is nothing more than a regional party now”

Oh yeah?

2008

2010

Nuf said.

I reserve the right to gloat as much as Obama’s ego is large.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)