Yay for Obama!

I’m psyched that the voter turnout too was historic — with more than 82% of LA County voters casting ballots. Hopefully they’ll show up to future election days too!

The really bad news for California is that Prop 8 — which takes away the right of gays to marry — passed. I’m even more ashamed that the majority of voters in LA County (50.4%) voted for this measure.

But back to the good news: For transit advocates, Prop A1 — the high-speed rail bond measure, and Measure R — the half-cent sales tax increase to help build the Subway to the Sea and other transit projects — both passed! The fact that the first of the transit projects still won’t open for a few years does not dampen my enthusiasm.

Animal lovers and eco-foodies too are elated, since Prop 2 — which calls for more humane treatment of farm animals — passed with a huge margin.

I’m psyched that Prop 4 — which would’ve required minors to get parental permission before getting an abortion — was defeated for the third time! I hope it never comes back.

Both the pseudo-environmental initiatives I opposed, Prop 7 and Prop 10, were defeated too :)

In Santa Monica, Measure T was defeated by almost a 6% margin! In fact, every Santa Monica item went the way I voted — yay! — except, as expected, all the Santa Monica City Council incumbents were reelected (I’d voted for replacing Herb Katz with Linda Piera-Avila).

The LA Times has more details on how all the Cali propositions fared. Not sure how to waste time on the web now that the elections over? Start with Slate’s list of Election Day’s Nine Worst Press Releases, which are pretty hilar. Here’s my guide on how NOT to pitch a story. The best bad pitch I’ve received since then started with these words: “Hi Unknown.”

Image via barackobama.com

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