Opinion: The day after
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Aside from our post-mortem editorials on Bush, Schwarzenegger and the new Democratic Congress, and also our Garry South column on why the Angelides campaign went so horribly wrong ... what are some of the other local reactions? Let’s check in:
* Joseph Mailander, who columnized for us against Measure H, celebrates with a blast of blogger triumphalism:
But really, the big winner this morning in town is: THE ANGELENO BLOGOSPHERE. (And how’s that for self-promotion?) If you doubt it—check out what kind of morning the fishwraps are having. The Angeleno blogosphere was worked on R, but it worked H all on its own. With R, the blogosphere obligingly ferried the message of others, but with H, the blogosphere took its own message to readers both in cyberspace and print, and became a key component of the message itself. The LA blogosphere is worth two to five points an election. That’s not much, but it’s two-to-five more than broadcast pundits and print-only scribes are worth. Tune into Shirley Bebitch if you must -- it might be relaxing, it might be safe, because she never says anything real on the air, anyway -- but bloggers educate, activate, and disseminate, and all that counts in close elections.
* ‘Councilman John’ over at Mayor Sam dissects a disappointing evening for local Democrats, concluding:
So why did you lose locally Democrats? Because you deserved to.
* Gay Republican USC fanatic BoiFromTroy sees a path for the national GOP in the Golden State:
Looking at how the new Congress can move the nation forward, not backward, I suggest looking to what Governor Schwarzenegger and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez have done over the last year in California.
* At LAvoice.org, Mack Reed has some advice for Eric Garcetti and City Hall:
Make good on your promise that three-term incumbents can be effective rather than entrenched, that they can accomplish more if their second term is a middle term followed by a third. Ignore the lobbyists who benefit from your ill-labeled ‘reforms.’
* The Washington Monthly’s Kevin Drum pooh-poohs the notion of the president playing nice with the Democrats:
Bush’s actions over the next few months will almost certainly be as combative as always. He just doesn’t have anything else in him.
* Local conservative talk-show host Hugh Hewitt, who had apparently predicted the Republicans +3 in the House, starts the blame game:
The post-mortems are accumulating, but I think the obvious has to be stated: John McCain and his colleagues in the Gang of 14 cost the GOP its Senate majority while the conduct of a handful of corrupt House members gave that body’s leadership the Democrats.
* The Huffington Post group weblog is mostly a Mardi-gras-style celebration zone (with headlines like ‘Paul Wolfowitz also needs to resign!’ and ‘Sailing on a Deep Sea of Blue’), but Jayne Lyn Stahl sounds a sour note about the Left Coast:
As the governor has amply demonstrated his enthusiasm for using the National Guard to patrol the border between California and Mexico, despite the Feinstein victory in the Senate race, and the ascent of Nancy Pelosi to Speaker of the House, one can’t help but think that we, in California, are still in Ronald Reagan country while the rest of the world is watching Bill Maher.