Politics - 2006 Midterm Elections

This is the first year that I actually claimed a party affiliation and voted in the primary as well as the general election and it feels a little weird calling myself a Democrat (even though I have pretty much always voted for Democrats anyway). In the past I always considered myself an independent voter. I vote on issues - reproductive rights, civil rights, environmental protection, stem cell research, same-sex marriage (though I really think that kind of falls under the banner of civil rights), balancing the budget again and eliminating the concept of deficit spending even if it means raising taxes, protecting and not privatizing social security, not going to war pre-emptively (i.e. getting the hell out of Iraq and Afghanistan as soon as possible and not doing anything like that ever again) - I think about all these things and more when I'm choosing a candidate to vote for. This year I finally realized that the Republican party is never going to agree with me on the issues I care about and while I may still vote for independent candidates sometimes I realized it might be interesting to declare a party affiliation and vote in the primary elections. So, I'm a Democrat now.

While the urge is strong to rejoice that the Democrats won back the majority in the House and may even win back the Senate majority as well (which was considered a long shot); as an "issues voter" I feel a little dejected at the results on some of the ballot measures. I'm happy that South Dakota's abortion ban failed but that happiness is diminished by the fact that they passed a ban on same sex marriage (by 78%) and their medical marijuana measure failed. South Carolina, Colorado, Idaho, Tennessee, Virginia and Wisconsin also passed measures banning same sex marriage. The parental notification (of abortion) measure may have failed in California, which is great, but they also failed to pass the funds for alternative energy measure. The news here in Washington state is more positive (at least with regard to ballot measures). Our estate tax (I920) and property rights (I933) measures failed and our energy resources measure (I937) passed. The personal property tax exemption increase passed (by an overwhelming majority) which I find a little disappointing but I'm used to being in the minority in thinking that taxes are a good thing and always voting to increase them (or to not decrease them) when those measures come up. The Burner/Reichert race is still too close to call but Reichert is in the lead. While it will be disappointing if Burner loses it won't exactly be unexpected (that district has always gone Republican) and it's clear that the Democrats have already won back the House majority so they don't need Burner to win for that.