Election junkies like myself have spent an inordinate amount of time on Nate Silver’s “538” election prediction site.
Silver is the guy who brought predictive statistical analysis to baseball, and he followed up with unusually canny correct predictions for the 2012 and 2014 elections.
His model shows, state by state, how it’s going and what the chances for victory are for the presidential candidates.
California stands unique over the entire country. It’s not just our enormous 50 electoral college votes, but most striking, our greater than 99.9 percent odds on voting for Hillary Clinton.
There are blue states and red states, and very blue states and very red states, but only one state gets a greater than 99.9 percent blue rating, and that’s our Great State of California.
I’m proud of who we are. After 18 months of Trump hurling insults, innuendos, nasty tweets, and outright lies at anybody and everyone in his way, it’s great that California responds unequivocally, “We’re better together.”
We’re inclusive, not divisive. We’re a polyglot culture and we’re happy about it.
We like the idea of taco carts on our corners and Persian food and Thai food and all the rest – in fact the Summit Seals host Wednesday night “taco trucks” and trucks and carts of all sorts right over by our pool!
Yes, California is, as Hillary quipped, “A basket of adorables.”
California love is trumping hate “bigly,” and over the past few years we seem to be getting better and better about it. Statewide, we overwhelmingly elected a highly intelligent but (now) very disciplined and collaborative governor.
We made a mature, non-emotional choice in Jerry Brown, and it’s paid off for us in spades. California is again the economic envy of the entire country, if not the whole world.
And check out the initiatives on your ballot this year. There’s a lot of love and inclusiveness and bridges instead of divisiveness and punishment and abandonment of our common bonds.
Finally, we’ll stop the hypocrisy of our state capital punishment system. It’s been pathetically costly, inhumane, and had made a mockery of the death sentences we’ve passed down.
Instead, California will do away with a fake death sentence. No more death row, no more endless appeals. Finally, there’s certainty for all involved.
And marijuana. Many or most folks in the state have tried it at one time or another. Many could have been “busted” and set up with a criminal record.
Many say it’s no worse than alcohol, which is promoted and sold to us at every corner and in every sports show (now even for free in hair salons!)
Some argue that marijuana has strong medical benefits, especially so for end-of-life pain. California is finally saying “No more undue harassment.”
We’re saying “More individual rights, not less.” Pot will likely be legal, will be appropriately regulated, so now we can all move on to more pressing concerns – like homelessness.
Compassionately, it appears Los Angeles is moving forward on homelessness with love and concern rather than loathing and disengagement. We’ve have a huge homeless problem for far too long.
It’s a problem for the homeless themselves and a problem for us more fortunate with the blight it imposes on our city’s quality of life.
With Los Angeles city’s Measure HHH we’ll build 10,000 units to bridge the housing gap to help homeless transition back to mainstream life. This is great first step forward, and it’s long overdue.
Countywide Measure A provides for increased and improved parks and green spaces throughout our city. This measure, which will surely pass, improves quality of life for those from all walks of life, perhaps most so our poorer kids and families.
And Measure M will set us on a path to get to work improving our much-neglected roads and highways. Again, an initiative that has Californians reaching across demographics for our common good.
We still love to hug our trees and save our oceans, and Prop 67 finally does that by banning single-use plastic bags that fill our dumps and litter our shores and oceans.
If it passes, Prop 67 is perhaps a small gesture compared to everything else we dump all around, but it shows where our hearts are.
Today we’ll learn this election was a great productive, progressive, inclusive election for Californians north and south. I’m confident today’s papers will show that California is not only the most productive, creative state, but it’s also the grown-up in the room with the kindest heart.
Congrats to all on a great election! Go, Cal!
Gary Horton is a Santa Clarita resident. This column was submitted before Tuesday election results were available.“Full Speed to Port!” appears Wednesdays in The Signal.
