The results were not entirely unexpected. But the margins and the uniformity of last night’s election results tell an important story going into 2012. Across the country, Republican overreach coming out of the 2010 election was decisively rejected by voters in multiple states.
In Ohio, Gov. John Kasich’s signature anti-union legislation was rejected by an almost 2-1 margin. That’s a big win for the labor movement and will put in place a deep anti-Republican undercurrent next November. Kasich will be an albatross around the neck of the Republican nominee and there’s organization on the ground that will be an important force too. Read More
We’ll be tracking the returns in Ohio and Mississippi tonight here at TPM.
In Ohio, there’s the big battle over collective bargaining for state employees where voters look poised to repeal Senate Bill 5, which stripped many of those rights from workers. It’s a contest with national implications for both parties. More background here.
In Mississippi, voters decide on the “personhood” amendment which would define life as beginning at the moment of fertilization.
You can see all the results on the TPM Scoreboard.
Which was the best Cain-ism of the day?
Was it declaring that he belongs on Mt. Rushmore?
Or was it his claim that men get sexually harassed, too?
Or maybe it was the destined to be immortal “I don’t even know who this lady is!”
Late Update: A late entrant making a strong push: “I’m not an expert on how the brain works.”
The conservatie media backlash against Herman Cain accuser Sharon Bialek is something to behold. Take a look.
A reader sent us a newspaper ad in Maine that opposes a same-day voter registration proposal on the grounds that gays are for it. We looked into it, and you’ll never guess who is behind the ad.
Reacting to the latest in the Herman Cain melodrama today, Rush Limbaugh lamented that political correctness ‘has now spread to behavior — not just speech.”
I think that’s probably awesome enough to speak for itself. But this is just a very funny thing to say. The issue with ‘political correctness’, to the extent it’s reasonable, and I think some of it is, is that speech is a protected thing in our society. So there’s a necessary tension necessarily at play. But I think we’ve always been pretty down with the idea that you can’t just take any action you want, right? I don’t like you. So I bonk you on the head. But don’t come at me with your anti-bonking ‘political correctness’! Trying to control who I am, man!
Law professor by day, TPM reader by night:
I think what’s important about Seven-Sky is not so much that there are now two appellate opinions by conservative judges that uphold the Affordable Care Act as that the opinion is so well crafted.