Rough Day for Progressives

Tuesday was a very bad day for progressives -- not just in San Francisco, or the United States, but throughout the world. Things couldn't have gone much worse for us. Obviously Bush's victory was the major blow. I'm not even ready to talk about that one yet.

On top of that, we watched as a man of questionable mental capacity retained his Senate seat in Kentucky. We watched as South Carolina voters elected a man, Jim DeMint, who wants to scuttle the IRS and institute a 23% sales tax. A man who believes that homosexuals should not be allowed to teach in our schools -- and when pressed on this view, said he would have said the same of single women who are pregnant and living with their boyfriends. We watched as Oklahoma voted in Tom Coburn, who once told a supporter that lesbianism is so rampant in Southeast Oklahoma schools that they only let one girl go to the bathroom at a time. This is the same man who supports the death penalty for those who perform abortions (which would be tricky since he used to perform abortions himself). Coburn came out against a TV airing of Schindler's List calling it 'an all-time low' for TV, citing its full frontal nudity, violence and profanity. Don't even get me started about Tom DeLay who was reupped despite being the subject of ethics investigations into charges of fraud and obstruction of justice. And up in Alaska, the voters were said to be outraged by the blatant nepotism perpetrated in 2002 when now Governor Frank Murkowski chose his own daughter, Lisa, to take over his newly vacant Senate seat. But yesterday, she too was allowed to stay in Washington.

It was almost too much to bear with Bush looking more and more likely to be reelected. And at the same time, 11 states (out of 11) voted to ban same-sex marriage, denying basic rights to millions of Americans. In California, we had the added pleasure of watching Arnold Schwartzenegger celebrate not only the Bush victory, but the failure of Proposition 66 that would have reformed the very troublesome three strikes law in California that has hundreds if not thousands of people in prison for decades for petty offenses. After Tuesday, we have limited a citizen's right to sue corporations in California, we have perpetuated the onslaught against our privacy by establishing a DNA database for criminals, and we have let large employers continue to withhold health insurance from their employees in the interest of profits. Even in San Francisco, we failed to pass affordable housing bonds, denied noncitizens the right to have a say in their children's education but did manage to once again up the benefits for families of police and firefighters killed in the line of duty.

Tom Daschle lost his reeelction bid, the first time this has happened to a minority leader in decades. Bottom-feederMel Martinez beat Betty Castor in Florida.

There were very few bright spots on Tuesday. I can count the victories on one hand. Democrat Ken Salazar beat the disgracefully underinformed Pete Coors for a Senate seat in Colorado. Russ Feingold (the only Senator to vote against the Patriot Act) retained his seat. Democrat rising star Barack Obama beat crackpot Alan Keyes handily as expected. But Republicans expanded their majority in both the House and Senate. It is likely with the Bush victory that they will tip the Supreme Court a little more to the right.

Yep, things went very, very badly. I don't feel the normal bitterness of the losing side. Instead I feel a sadness. Because yesterday we all lost.