Plaidophile

President: Even the counties where McCain (unsurprisingly) won, it was only by a (surprisingly) tiny tiny margin.

Prop 1 (improving the transit infrastructure by putting a high-speed light rail link betwteen San Francisco and Los Angeles): Unsurprisingly, most of the state can't see past their nose. For the most part, just the affected people in the SFO/LAX corridor voted for it, while everyone else couldn't understand the network effect of what happens when the most overburdened highway infrastructure is no longer overburdened (decrease in fuel consumption and thus lower gas prices, lower emissions, etc.)

It's very interesting that Prop 2 (giving chickens room to stretch) passed pretty much everywhere, and even in the farming-heavy counties it only barely lost. I was against this proposition as a matter of principle simply because I felt it was poorly-considered and would lead to more problems, but my friend Mark thinks it's a good thing that the factory-farming burden will ship out-of-state, since it will speed along its unsustainability. I'm not sore about this one passing, in any case, since I personally prefer to spend more to get better-tasting eggs to begin with. (I'm just mostly concerned how this will affect food prices for the already-struggling.)

Prop 3 (remodeling the children's hospitals): I was actually against this since it seemed a bit frivolous, but I'm not surprised it passed.

Prop 4 (the evil, badly-written abortion one): The distribution of votes is entirely unsurprising, and its failure was cutting it a bit close but I'm glad it failed nonetheless.

Prop 5 (improving drug rehab programs for nonviolent offenders): Not surprising it failed, not at all surprising that the only places it passed were San Francisco, Oakland, and Santa Cruz. Expect those individual cities' referendum votes to include similar measures in the future (although for all intents and purposes that's already the unstated policy in San Francisco and Santa Cruz anyway).

Prop 6 (something to do with criminal justice reform): Everyone unaminously was all "WTF?" and voted it down.

Prop 7 (a very poorly-written thing about renewable energy): Same as 6.

Prop 8 (our infrastructure and health care and international standing are crumbling but let's spend $20 million to make sure dudes can't marry each other): meh

Prop 9 (victims' rights): I'm glad this one passed, as I was in support of the idea that the victims of a crime (or their family) should at least be peripherally involved with parole hearings for the perpetrator. I'm actually a bit surprised that the Liberal areas were against this. Weird.

Prop 10 (funding alternative fuels by giving yuppies rebates on expensive vehicles): Most of the state agrees with me, alternative fuels need to become sustainable on their own, not by subsidizing rich peoples' toys. No single county was in favor of this.

Prop 11 (redistricting): This one wasn't on my voting guide since it was one of those "I'm not sure" ones. Looks like nobody else was sure either - the vote is pretty much evenly split. (I voted no, just because it's safer to not change policy if it's not something you understand.)

Prop 12 (loans for veterans): This one was uniformly supported. I was weakly against it for the same reason as Prop 11. It's one of those ones where I'm okay with it passing even though it'll probably cause more long-term harm than good (expect to see a whole bunch of veterans being foreclosed upon in a few years, since this is all about helping veterans buy houses and farmland by making it easier for them to get loans).