I have nothing intelligent to say about the election results, more feelings.

I heard the news this morning that the Democrats had taken the house pretty handedly, and that the Senate is still undecided but close. Democrats lead the majority of the states now. I went to bed last night not really sure where I wanted everything to end up. I'm tired of the GOP, but we haven't had a very prominent Democratic party in so long, that I didn't know what to expect and I was a bit apprehensive.

This morning I found myself a little relieved. I am glad that the Senate is close however. I want there to be a solid political struggle. Partisan polemics will soon need to go out the window to get anything done. I fear however that such a close race now will mean for incredible animosity between parties in the next election because each party will want to gain more control.

As for the California governor, I can't say I like Arnold, but Angelides did nothing for me. His rhetoric was sluggish and it did little to win me over, and certainly did not win too many over in this state. Arnie's approval rating took a huge blow with his special elections, but I feel he stepped it up and went pretty bi-partisan over the last year. His speech focused on doing things differently, undivided, but with differences was pretty encouraging for a moderate like myself.

I wish there was a prevalent third party. It is depressing to choose between rocks and hard places. I have no confidence in either party because they have such little competition. Bring in a third or fourth to take some of the fire and money out of these politicians. Give us at least one, if not two parties that will shake up the whole world of politicking so that issues can actually mean something to the constituency. With added prominent parties, there will likely be more integrity, less partisan voting and a return to the people. Republicans who want a small government should be excited about this venture, and Democrats who apparently want to empower the people should also welcome such a proposition...but both parties are more interested in self-preservation.

One more thought after these elections...I find myself agreeing with my Republican friend that we need to leave room to empower the local governments and people. We depart philosophy in that I think that local economies need to be bolstered as well. If we want to give back the power to the people, in ways they feel they can actually hold some responsibility, then we should give back legislation and the economy to the locals. (One potentially bad result of such a proposition comes with the small, bigoted towns that do anything they can to make "outsiders" unwelcome).

Lots of rambling, but that's all I got.

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