What can I say about the election?  The candidate I (reluctantly) voted for in the Presidential race won.  The majority of the people of California then turned away from his message of change and hope and voted to make me an official second-class citizen of my native state. Overall, I think the United States did well, and California will eventually recover from this stain on its reputation as a social and cultural leader.

Happy?  Not really.  Moving on though.  As I posted elsewhere before the election, it had become apparent that Proposition 8 wasn't going to end debate on marriage equality on November 4.  I'm convinced the battle will continue, both in California and elsewhere, and marriage equality will eventually win out.  

I will admit to a fit of schadenfreude giggles at seeing that Alaska re-elected convicted Republican Senator Ted Stevens to office.  Call it a guilty pleasure it you will, but it felt good.

On that note, I'll leave you with some other thoughts on the recent electoral results: Kyle Cummings, Michael McAllister, and Joe Crawford. All three are unique Californians that add plenty to the diversity of opinion (and styles) on the internet and are well worth a few minutes of your time.

Matthew Dowd, who led President Bush's campaign for reelection in 2004, recently told the New York Times that "The only things that are going to change the equation of the election are the four debates." This is due to the plethora of partisan and biased media sources that the public is confronted with every day. As Dowd pointed out, "The average person has 90 channels. They get all the dot-coms. They all get a newspaper. There is so much flow of information that they just begin to discount it all."

And for that, we can breathe a sigh of relief, although I fear that Dowd might give the average person too much credit in saying the media will be depreciated. But if the most influential factor in this election will be the candidates' own voices - through debates and interviews - then I hope the moderators and interviewers will break with the improprieties of the past several months and truly give both sides an even playing field.