Election Results: Obama 349 / McCain 163, Senate +5 Democrats (now 56/40), House +20 Democrats (now 252/173). McCain got 47% of the popular vote (Bush I 38% in 1992, Dole 41% in 1996). We're still a center-right country: only 22% in exit polling said they were "liberals," while 34% self-identified as "conservatives."
400-408 – Ron Prentice, chairman of protectmarriage.com and the winning Yes on 8 campaign! There were 72,000 individual gifts to the Yes on 8 campaign, totaling over $30 million. The opposition spent $40 million. Now, California becomes the 30 of 50 states to defend traditional marriage
• ADF Alliance Alert (11/5/08) Three legal challenges to Prop 8 already filed or promised.
• LAT (11/5/08) 70% of African Americans backed Prop. 8, exit poll finds.
A lot of Obama/Yes-on-8 voters? The Associated Press exit polls show that African Americans and Latinos backed Proposition 8 in good numbers. Details here from AP:
California's black and Latino voters, who turned out in droves for Barack Obama, also provided key support in favor of the state's same-sex marriage ban. Seven in 10 black voters backed a successful ballot measure to overturn the California Supreme Court's May decision allowing same-sex marriage, according to exit polls for The Associated Press.
More than half of Latino voters supported Proposition 8, while whites were split. Religious groups led the tightly organized campaign for the measure, and religious voters were decisive in getting it passed. Of the seven in 10 voters who described themselves as Christian, two-thirds backed the initiative. Married voters and voters with children strongly supported Proposition 8. Unmarried voters were heavily opposed.
413-423 – What does the election of Barack Obama mean to you, especially those of you who are African-American?
428-437 – Four years from now, will we be looking at real improvements in the inner city? Will it no longer be the case that half of all urban freshmen never graduate high school, or that half of all Hispanic and three-quarters of all African-American children are born out of wedlock? Will the crime rate decrease? Will minority college enrollment and graduation be up? Or, sadly, will we look back and merely see there had been more spending? Let's hope success will not be defined in how much we spend, but in how many kids graduate high school.
443-452 – Ron Prentice, chairman of protectmarriage.com and the winning Yes on 8 campaign! There were 72,000 individual gifts to the Yes on 8 campaign, totaling over $30 million. The opposition spent $40 million. Now, California becomes the 30th of 50 states to defend traditional marriage.
458-508 – My comments on last night.
• Last night, conservatism didn't lose, the failing Republican party did. When conservative issues were on the ballot, they largely won (i.e., marriage won). Even Obama campaigned as a conservative in order to win: tax cuts, middle-class tax breaks, fiscal discipline, strong national defense, a hardline on terrorists in Pakistan, an individual right to own guns, lowering the abortion rate, keep free trade, allow people to keep their health-care plans, etc. It was a huge failure of the media to allow Obama to say conservative things repeatedly without challenging him on it, or asking him to explain them, and all the while knowing full well that neither his record nor his party support conservative principles. Obama has promised "hope and change," my fear is that he and the Left that runs the Democratic congress will attempt to deliver socialism. There are still fundamental differences: conservatives believe government is the problem, liberals believe it is the solution; conservatives believe "smarter spending" is always better than "more spending," and in this they will always resist the advances of the Left.
• All of the new voters Obama has brought into the election, especially those who have been apolitical in the past, who are now looking for "hope and change," will hopefully now be paying attention to the actual policies that will be advanced by Obama, Reid, and Pelosi. Do they work? Do they make any improvements? This is going to be a wonderful opportunity to persuade more Americans of the failure of liberalism, as they too begin to see how liberalism almost always perpetuates rather than solves problems.
• Mark Steyn had the line of the election, that we've come a long way from "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country," to "Ask not what your country can do for you, DEMAND it."
512-523 – Your reflections on the election of your next president?
528-538 – Your reflections on the election of your next president?
544-554 – Your reflections on the election of your next president? [Jill from Sherman Oaks]
556 – (:90) Mike Campbell with Pell Air, reports that space heaters can cost more than a brand new heating unit for your home! He's offering a free estimate of anyone's broken heater as well as a brand new heating system for as low as $80.00 per month. Call him now on his cell phone at (310) 600-4701.
558-608 – Ron Prentice, chairman of protectmarriage.com and the winning Yes on 8 campaign! There were 72,000 individual gifts to the Yes on 8 campaign, totaling over $30 million. The opposition spent $40 million. Now, California becomes the 30th of 50 states to defend traditional marriage.
612-623 – Your reflections on the election of your next president?
628- Don't miss our upcoming KKLA Kingdom Building Seminar, Tuesday Nov. 11 from 9:30am to 2:30pm (lunch is provided), at the Crowne Plaza Resort Anaheim (12021 Harbor Blvd, Garden Grove). The event is free to pastors, administrators, and church leaders, but seating is limited. Reserve your seat at (888) 321-2469 or online at kkla.com.
628-638 – Your reflections on the election of your next president?
644-655 – Your reflections on the election of your next president?
• Andrew C. McCarthy (11/5/08) The Possibilities of President Obama: In historic victory, he reaches out to the loyal opposition.
• NRO Symposium (11/5/08) How the GOP Got Here: Understanding and recriminating.
• Shelby Steele (11/5/08) Obama's post-racial promise: Barack Obama seduced whites with a vision of their racial innocence precisely to coerce them into acting out of a racial motivation.
• Fox News (11/05/08) Barack Obama's Victory Speech.
• Dick Morris (11/5/08) Obama: Conservator In Chief.
• NRO (11/5/08) Editorial.
• Byron York (11/5/08) What Sank McCain: Could anything have prevented this defeat?
• John Derbyshire (11/5/08) Eight Wasted Years: And the ratchet slips free.
• David Kahane @ The NRO Corner (11/4/08) Why O Why O Why [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
From our David Kahane's amanuensis:
1) We got this the old-fashioned way: we earned it. The other side took the fight to us, and we never took the fight to the other side, except coyly and obliquely. That's not a mistake we should make the next time. "Honorable campaigns" are for losers. Next time, call 'em as they really are, not as you wish to see 'em.
2) Where was Bush? Once again, and right to the bitter end, he let his passion for "loyalty" supersede what was strategically right for the party, not to mention what was best for the country. I think his reputation has nowhere to go but down; yes, he got one big thing right, but he got everything else wrong. Enough of this family in our country's politics!
3) Good riddance to Liddy Dole, the woman who gave us the national drinking age of 21 and a host of sozzled underage college students. She won't be missed.
4) Hillary comes out smelling like a rose, plus unbloodied. She and Bill are already scoping out 2012.
5) Time to clean house. McCain should have been president in 2000, not in 2008. No more "it's my turn" for the last loser. We need to be looking for our candidates in the ranks of returning war vets — think Eisenhower in '52 as the model — and let the Dem's shifty lawyers run the country for a couple of years. Then hit them across the board with people who know how to lead. Gen. Petraeus might be a good place to start. Lots of junior officers, too.
6) You know what? McCain never did sell himself as a leader. He sold himself as a maverick.
7) One upside: McCain/Feingold is now dead, as is public financing. Talk about being hoist with your own petard!
8) That Gang of 14 thing really worked out well, didn't it? Say good-bye to the courts. And we were so close...
9) Joe Lieberman was worse than useless. When he could have made a difference, he didn't cross the aisle to caucus with the Republicans. Now, it doesn't matter. Thanks, Joe.
10) Age matters. McCain ran an "honorable campaign" because he never really understood in his heart that the other guy had no intention of doing so; he didn't "get" Obama's generation, or Axelrod's.. Obama would lie about public financing, "oppose" gay marriage but also oppose Prop. 8 and never see it as morally contradictory. The world that McCain understood and operated in is vanishing, and tonight is visible evidence.
11) Unlike the Democrats, let's show some class in defeat. That doesn't mean lie down and roll over: it means fighting for what we believe in, doubly so now. But their sneering childishness is not for us; and now that they've won, they won't be able to control it even in victory. This is an unlovely party filled with unlovely people, as America's about to find out once the Obama pixie dust wears off.
12) Understand, once and for all, that the old media is part of the Democratic Party now. Ignore it. Never send Michele Bachmann onto Hardball again. Never send Sarah to play nice with Katie. We need to develop and create our own work-arounds — Fox, talk radio, NRO, etc. — and use them. Don't play by their rules: make our own. // 11/04 10:09 PM
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