Meanwhile, in Cali... A Lesson Is Learned

It was interesting watching last night's results here in Orange County. Simultaneously as results started to trickle in Nevada, the polls were closing in California. And as I woke up this morning, I had not just one, but two states worth of election data to mine through!

And really, it's interesting to compare and contrast what happened.

- A major miracle occurred in California last night when Propositions (Props) 16 & 17 were defeated. These were nothing more than a naked corporate power play, and it was nice to see both go down despite the opposition being heavily outspent by the corporate backers (PG&E for 16, Mercury Insurance for 17).

- Meanwhile back in Nevada, many of those same corporate interests were celebrating their purchase of the Nevada GOoP Senate nomination as Obtuse Sharron Angle rode her way to victory over the remains of Suzy Lowdown's laughably discredited campaign.

- Well, these powerful corporate interests still have a strong hold in the California GOoP, where they chose "EBay Megabucks" Meg Whitman for Gube and Carly "Failorina'd Hewlett Packard to the ground" Fiorina for Senate.

- And there wasn't much drama on the Democratic side in either state. California had a few more competitive statewide races downballot, but everyone knew Barbara Boxer would capture the Senate nomination as Jerry Brown cruised his way into the Gubernatorial nomination... Not too much different from Harry & Rory Reid waltzing though their respective primaries here.

Still, I see a recurring theme overall... One that may really be telling for November. Robert Cruickshank blurted it out at Calitics:

As we go into the fall campaign season, the arc of this election is now clear: it is a battle between corporate wealth and populist democracy. Our victory in Prop 16 and Prop 17 show how we can win that battle. Time to build and organize to win again in November.

They succeeded in California in defeating Props 16 & 17, and hopefully they'll do it again in telling "Megabucks Whitman" and "Carly Failorina" where to take their big corporate bucks. And hopefully, we can do the same here in Nevada with Obtuse Sharron Angle and Brian "Which Way" Sandoval. Perhaps GOoP primary voters want to buy into the "laissez faire mystique", but most of us can't afford to. People in Las Vegas need jobs. People in Reno need to save their homes from foreclosure. People in Nye County don't need the nuclear industry destroying their communities by building a massive dump at Yucca Mountain. People in Henderson don't need greedy gravel suppliers polluting our communities with their nearby gravel pit.

And what real solutions have Angle and Sandoval offered? None. And why should they? Their corporate masters want something different. (Hint: They're looking after their bottom lines, NOT our best interest.) Hopefully in the coming weeks and months, Nevadans will see more clearly just who's really on our side and who are just corporate pawns.