http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/5/13351/5326/393/654565Sums up why I'm not beating myself up, though I am certainly mad:
1) It was close, and history and demographics are on our side.
2)
No on 8 was, frankly, incompetent. They brought a knife to a NUKE fight.
Yes on 8 used every dirty lying trick in the book, and No on 8 just sort of asked people to please be nice, if it's not too much trouble. By the time
No on 8 woke up to what was happening, they'd already squandered a 20-point advantage. As Obama showed, it's not enough to be right - you also have to be ruthless. Next time will be different from the start.
3) In addition to being incompetent,
No on 8 completely failed to seek out or use any of its high-profile endorsements. Why didn't Schwarzenegger cut an ad? Why didn't Obama? Why didn't any of the hundreds of celebrities who opposed this?
4) I
am mad. Lots of people are mad. I only realized how close this was and started fighting a few weeks before the election. Unfortunately, a lot of Californians are being surprised by
Yes on 8's success for the first time this morning. So they're mad, too, and they'll join the fight.
5) An Obama victory means a more progressive direction for America, the mainstreaming of LGBT opinions into the national discourse, and more liberal judges and justices if this gets challenged in court. All of these will be advantages the next time it's challenges.
So yeah. It sucks, and it's a setback, but it's a temporary one. The thing which makes me maddest is that we have to wait until 2010 for our first rematch.