Obama Victory 2012

My husband and I sat and watched the election results slowly come in last night. I had started the night not overly optimistic, having heard for weeks news of voter disenfranchisement, thousands and thousands of voters discovering they’d been placed on inactive lists (and not being allowed to vote), Republicans in Ohio purging well over 300,000 voters in the state off the rolls just ahead of the election, the news of Romney family investments (in a very round about way) in Ohio’s electronic voting machines through it's interest in H.I.G. Capital, phone calls to voters election day informing them the election had been rescheduled for the next day…the republicans shenanigans went on and on. I was SO worried the Republicans would steal this election, they had vested SO much money and resources into making sure they would take control of the White House.

At the same time I was watching the Presidential elections play out I had another eye on my computer, with an ear plug in one ear, as I watched a live feed from Pot TV (B.C., Canada) as they tracked incoming status of three other extremely important measures on the Oregon, Washington and Colorado ballot having to do with the legalization of recreational marijuana! The results of one or more of these measures would make history, as far as the long standing drug war in this country.

I cannot tell you the level of excitement and euphoria as Colorado’s results came in …PASSED! Recreational cannabis, purchasing, using and growing, are now legal in Colorado. I couldn’t believe my eyes and ears! The first step in the end of drug prohibition! Stunning news! This is how prohibition of liquor ended, one state at a time. Half an hour later we learned the results from Washington State –PASSED! I couldn’t help but consider the hypocrisy, the insanity, that within a years time my son would be released from prison, and return to a state where he was convicted of selling cannabis, punished for breaking federal laws with 12 ½ years of prison. It was disappointing to learn late that night the Oregon measure failed. But I am buoyed with optimism now, that the evil and draconian laws that fill our prisons with hundreds of thousands of our citizens, that came into being in my lifetime, will end in my lifetime.

All of a sudden the tv screen exploded into wild applause and palpable excitement…Ohio’s electoral college results had just come in, giving the sitting President his victory! Obama would go on to win the Popular vote as well. Rod and I were overjoyed! We felt as if we had been pulled back from the precipice, our relief at knowing the plutocrats had not been successful in buying this election, was enormous!

For all the right reasons the Republican Party did not win this election. For all the right reasons the Democrats did. By and large Rod and I are independants, we remain just left of center, and have been sorely disappointed in some of Obamas governing, not enacting a single payer option to the ACA, not ending the Bush Tax cuts, for example, but the thought of putting back in to power the very party that was by and large fully responsible for bringing about our country’s economic Armageddon, seemed pure insanity….by definition (to quote Albert Einstein), repeating the same thing and expecting different results.

So what does this Democratic win mean to me, personally? Well aside from the fact I believe in Obama’s economic policies far more than I do the Republicans, it means the extremists that would criminalize abortion, that would take away a womans right to choose, the right to make decisions that pertain to her and her alone regarding her own body, as well as a right to equal pay, nondiscrimination in the workplace, well, they will have to wait another 4 years to try again to steal that right from us.

And so we move forward. It remains to be seen if there will be cooperation between the parties, both claim to reach across the isle, I have seen more of that from the Democrats these past 4 years, while the Republicans claim it’s the Democrats who will not compromise. All one has to do is google to see the lack of truth in that!