Some good news in down-ballot races

It was truly gratifying to see that some truly awful characters lost their races for Congress yesterday.

Richard (‘a child of rape is a gift from god’) Mourdock lost 50-44% his race for the US senate in Indiana, as did Todd (‘women have magical bodies that automatically prevent rape pregnancies’) Akin by a whopping 55-39% margin in Missouri. These were the two Republicans who started out being favorites to win and then during the campaign propounded their weird and reprehensible views on rape. Their polls started diving and they never recovered, not only destroying the Republican party’s high hopes of getting a majority in the senate, but actually increasing the size of the Democratic caucus by two to 55. You can bet that the party will try and school future candidates on how to speak about rape but it may not help. These people are true believers in what they say, and will chafe at hiding what they feel is their god’s will. Their religious nuttery will leak out in one form or another. [Read more…]

How did the religious vote?

Before the election, there was much speculation about how evangelicals would feel about voting for a Mormon. Having contraception become a key issue also made predicting the religious vote hard.

But despite the Catholic church hierarchy pretty much declaring war on the Obama candidacy, exit polls show Catholics broke for Obama 50-48%, pretty much the same as the rest of the electorate. [Read more…]

Some very good election news on social issues

There were some major advances on social issues on election night.

It looks like all three referenda in favor of same-sex marriage passed in Maryland (~53-48%), Maine (~53-47%), and Washington (~52-48%) with the constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage losing in Minnesota (~51-48). After 32 straight ballot defeats, this was the first time any ballot initiative approving of same-sex marriage has passed in any state and such a clean sweep in all four states represents a huge advance for equal rights for gays. Furthermore, Tammy Baldwin was elected US senator in Wisconsin making her the first openly gay person to serve in that body. [Read more…]

Some post-election reflections

President Barack Obama easily won re-election, as was expected by the members of the reality-based community of statisticians based on the poll averages. His final electoral vote total will be either 303 or 332 depending on Florida. All those pundits who sneered at the statisticians and listened to their ‘gut’ which told them that Mitt Romney was going to win would do well to remember Carl Sagan’s response when he was asked what his gut feeling was about an issue for which there was no convincing evidence either way. He replied, “I try not to think with my gut.” If you want an exhaustive list of pundit predictions for the election, see here. Of course, one of the benefits of being a modern pundit is that there is no price to be paid whatsoever for not just being totally wrong but for being stupidly wrong by ignoring data. [Read more…]

OK, America, you can start ignoring Ohio again

As is my custom, I voted before coming in to work. There was quite a crowd but the polling place was well organized and efficient. The ballot was long, what with judges and referenda that had to be decided. Our precinct uses optical scanning machines so the ballot has those bubbles that have to be filled in to indicate your vote. Since I am the kind of person who likes to fill in the little ovals very neatly, staying carefully within the lines, that took some time but I was still out in about 20 minutes. [Read more…]