ELECTION DAY 2012

Okay, it may not have been as hard to get the Democratic vote in Miami-Dade and Broward counties as I thought it would be--both are about 67% for Obama.  But I'm really glad I worked for the campaign, because if Romney won I would have hated to think I did nothing.

As I discuss the races below, please remember that I consider myself liberal socially and conservative fiscally. As a physician I am now more interested in evaluating the Affordable Care Act.  One of the consequences which might have been anticipated is that the Act requires companies with over 50 full-time employees to provide health insurance.  Some are coping by cutting the number of hours of their workers to less than 30 hours a week, thereby counting them as part-time rather than full--time. 

That's not new.  At the very beginning of my practice my bookkeeper classified our employees as independent 1099 contractors. That meant that we didn't have to pay payroll taxes, Social Security and Medicare for them. I didn't know this was going on until the IRS started sending us letters.  As I recall this was resolved without a whole lot of fuss.

I am amazed at the diversity of candidate wins in Bexar county, Texas, and the US. 
We have a conservative Republican sheriff with military experience--a woman who experienced family violence.

We have Democratic State legislator Lloyd Doggett, 66, winning a new seat after Republicans messed with his district in gerrymandering--but now he's representing both liberal Austin and conservative San Antonio.

We have the first Hispanic US Senator--Ted Cruz, a very conservative Republican--replacing a woman with similar views, the retiring Kay Bailey Hutchison.(House majority is Democrat)

and a liberal Democratic Hispanic US Representative, Joaquin Castro, twin brother of Julian Castro, SA's mayor. (House as a whole is conservative)

Democratic State Representative Pete Gallegos, winning his seat again.

Republican State Senator--an ER doctor--Donna Campbell.

In the US we have a Democratic majority Senate and Republican House of Representatives--a split that's not going to help Obama pass his bills--note that our own region has the opposite party splits.

Lesbian Senator Tammy Baldwin, first openly gay Senator

I like what she said in her speech--"If you're not in the room the conversation is about you. If you're in the room the conversation is with you." an interesting observation.

Dem.Claire McCaskill defeating the louse Rep.Todd Akin ("legitimate rape") for US Senate race. Republicans all over the board tried to get Akin to drop out. But McCaskill was glad he stayed in the race because he was easier to beat that any other Republican who could have replaced him.

Democratic Joe Donnelly beats Richard Mourdock ("Pregnancy after rape is something God intended") for US Senate

--But that's not really such a benefit because Donnelly is just a whisker less conservative than Mourdock. Donnelly is damn lucky he kept his mouth shut because he has beliefs very similar to Mourdock's.

I know I'm all over the map here between local and US races in both House and Senate--but so are the legislators. It's going to be an interesting ride.  And again I am amused in a way by the conservative Republican women. As I've been noting, the original suffragettes more or less assumed that when women got the vote they would fall along liberal lines. As more and more women get into the legislatures we see that was not accurate.  I always thought that we would reach true equality when we had women in politics who were just as incompetent, ignorant, and venal as the men. ( Not at all saying that these women are.  I was thinking more on the lines of Sarah Palin.)