We're a blue state

Amy and I had work to do tonight, but to no one's surprise, it got put aside so we could watch election returns. It was pretty clear to me once Pennsylvania was called that Obama was probably going to win, and once Ohio went, it was over, for all intents and purposes. And yet, especially for Amy, it wasn't going to be over until we'd seen what happened with Florida.

Florida, as I'm sure most locals know, wasn't officially called until after Obama had been named the President-elect, so the fact that we did our part seemed a little anti-climactic, but it still feels good to know that we helped elect the first African-American president in our history, and that we elected a Democrat.

It was a touching moment for me as well, because this was the first election my daughter took place in. She lives in Mississippi, and she left her college early this morning to drive home so she could vote for the first time in her life. She cast her first vote ever for Barack Obama. She called me tonight at about 11:30 to tell me that, even though Obama hadn't won her state, her entire freshman dorm had emptied out into the quad, screaming and yelling and celebrating. The campus police had to come out to make sure they didn't get out of hand. And I envy her a bit, because while it has taken me 4 presidential elections to get a winner, she got it on her first try.

Our victory for Obama in Florida is tempered a little by our loss on Amendment 2. That one makes me sick, because it would have only taken 40% of voters to kill that purely hateful amendment, and we couldn't get that much. That bothers me, and I hope that there's eventually a response on the federal level that makes this whole thing moot, and gives our LGBT members of our society the full recognition they deserve.

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