California's Contrary Drummer

It was a night of tides... A night of the ebbs and flows of human social and political affairs... A night of change on a grand scale... It was the kind of night that many Americans will long remember, debate and, later, reminisce about.

Painted with the broadest brush, the theme of last night was this:

The Republican Party which, up until 2006, held a majority in both the legislative and executive branches of our national government made a decisive and highly vocal protest against the policies and ideals of the recently-installed Democratic Administration with a veritable avalanche of popular votes that thusly gained for it a majority of the executive and legislative seats that were up for grabs in the election.

Democratic Speaker of the House since the last turning of the power-party worm which took place during the height of the most recent "Progressive Depression" of the latter portion of the Bush Administration in 2006, Nancy Pelosi, is now to be deposed in favor of a Republican Majority; however, the reverberations of election night's powerplay are being felt all over the nation on every level, local and national, of the electoral spectrum.

EXCEPT, that is, in my home of California.

We Californians are used to marching to a completely different drummer than the rest of the Union. After all, our great state has been a virtual sanctuary of Liberal individualism since the days of the Gold Rush -- culminating in the "Great Hippy Migration" of the 1960's, the issues of Gay Rights and same-sex marriage and the movement to decriminalize marijuana.

"...For those who come to San Francisco,
be sure to wear some flowers in your hair.
If you come to San Francisco,
you're gonna meet some gentle people there..."

And, once again, it would seem, in points scored for sheer contrariness if nothing else, my beloved Golden State did not disappoint. For, last night, as the rest of the Progressive-nation lamented the recent turn of political events, we of Liberal California were awash in a wave in of congratulatory confetti.

In what was, in the opinion of this unashamed and unabashed, self-confessed Liberal, the most heart-warming and deserved victory of election night, former California Governor, Democrat Jerry Brown once again donned the laurel wreath of our state's highest office. This particular Democratic gain is admittedly close to my own heart, for it was in the days of my youth in the mid-1970s that a population grown weary of the elitist and uncharitable policies of former Governor Ronald "Pull Yourself Up by Your Bootstraps [That Is, If You Can Still Afford Boots After My Administration]" Reagan voted into office a guy who, rather than live in the opulence of the hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of Reagan-constructed Governor's Mansion, kept his $400/month bachelor-pad in downtown Sacramento and declined Reagan-preferred limousine rides in favor of driving his own glacial-blue, '74 Plymouth Satellite (no options) around town.

In those years, Jerry Brown (whom Conservative nay-sayers dubbed "Governor Moonbeam" for his alleged relationship with singer Linda Ronstadt -- an extremely PETTY, ungracious and undeserved bit of rhetoric, IMHO) won me over lock, stock and philosophic barrel by appointing advisers like the United Farm Workers Union's then-President, the Gandhi-like, Cesar Chavez.

Since that time, I have always (with an accompanying admiring smile) referred to him affectionately as "Mah MAN JER-reeeee!"

For me personally, Jerry Brown is the Alpha and Omega of California politics and politicians and I find it only fitting that he should be both the youngest person ever elected to California's governorship AND the oldest...

And California's swim against the political tide of this night did not end with its race for governor, either...

Last night, Californians dealt another setback to Conservatism in the form of the overwhelming re-election of Senator Barbara Boxer.

I find the cyclic nature of California politics almost "Zen-like", for, back when Jerry Brown last claimed the same object of last night's victory, Barbara Boxer was merely  a young aide-de-camp to Rep. John L. Burton who is presently California's Democratic Party Chair and Jerry Brown's campaign manager.

And no homage to the night's distinctly politically-Progressive victories here in California could be complete without a large nod to the imminently-anticipated election to the office of Lt. Governor of the frankly-Liberal, physically attractive, well-dressed and well-spoken (now to be "former", I would suppose) Mayor of San Francisco, Gavin Newsom.

Gavin literally learned the trade at the knee of Jerry Brown and other longtime Progressive California politicians like: (Another former SF mayor) the flamboyant Willie Brown; the unrelentingly Liberal, former SF City Supervisor, Quentin Kopp; and (at the risk of sounding nearly unbelievably redundant) Rep. John L. Burton.

The political sentiment of Gavin's past public pronouncement regarding California Proposition 8 ("same-sex marriage" bill) of "...it's going to happen, whether you like it or not...", while decidedly unpopular in Conservative quarters, was spoken like a true adherent to the United States Constitution.

Whether the Right Wing agrees or disagrees with legal endorsement of same-sex marriage will make little difference to the eventual record of American history because, in the final analysis, discrimination against any class or segment of our population based upon a state (or "states") of being not merely dictated by personal preferences alone constitutes a violation of The Constitution's most basic principles relating to civil rights. Just as previous, blatantly-subjective laws designed to uphold a particular segment of the population's opinions of morality were doomed (eventually) to failure when examined under the revealing light of the Bill of Rights (e.g., racially "mixed" marriage, school segregation, etc.), so must recent attempts to legislate discrimination against same-sex civil unions be similarly (eventually) doomed.

Gavin had it right. There can really BE no other conclusion to the issue as far as Constitutional Law is concerned and I applaud his public candor in expressing it.

Then there is the almost surreal serendipity of the recent San Francisco Giants' World Series win (the first such victory since the franchise moved to the West Coast from New York in the 1950s) -- ANOTHER seemingly oddly-timed cause for Progressively-oriented California to celebrate last night in the midst of the nation's Conservatives' elation -- but, hey, to me it's just another riff in the vast repertoire of California's contrary drummer...