It's over. Thank the gods and goddesses, the election is over. 1998 was one of the less appealing electoral seasons in memory (don't we say this every year?), but it did have some pleasant surprises and some clearly resonant messages amongst the nausea. While we saw one of the most reluctant, unenthusiastic landslides in memory (Murray over Smith, proving again that radical Christians really can get 41% of the vote in Washington state, but no more than that), other races were more interesting, and instructive. Some of the lessons:

1) I-200 voters weren't confused. White people in Washington state clearly understood that they do not want government programs addressing institutionalized racism. They remind us yet again--as if history needs to bat us about the head and shoulders a few more times--that people who see themselves as steadfastly against (inter)personal racism still don't see the need to address its structural roots. If we're all just nice to each other, racism will go away. I-200 passed not because of the Rush Limbaughs of the world, but because of the Nice People liberals who don't see what the problem could be--but who do have a brother-in-law who got cheated out by "reverse discrimination" once.

2) The libertarian streak exhibited by voters extended way past disgust with the persecution of Bill Clinton's sexual misdeeds. Abortion limits failed and medical marijuana passed even in many conservative rural counties. This runs hard up against the state's interest in curtailing liberties--notably the pot initiatives, which passed in five states. The feds have given every indication they will--as they already did in Arizona and California--make every effort to thwart the will of the voters as part of the utterly morally corrupt War on Drugs. Their obstinacy, in the face of the terminally ill (and the evening news shots of the terminally ill being dragged off by goon squads), tells us all we ever needed to know about the real, and dangerous, anti-liberty agenda of the drug war.

3) The state Democrats won the state senate and came shockingly close to taking the state house in Olympia. This puts pressure as never before on Gary Locke to do something he hasn't bothered to do in his first two years as governor: lead. Thus far he's been content to cut deals with reactionary Republicans, giving the cold shoulder to his own party's activists and base. Now, they're gonna want some action. Within the stifling confines of the I-601 spending cap, the atrocious transportation levy just approved, and the inevitable passing of the current boom times, Locke is going to have to demonstrate that he can get the state government to shift spending priorities to help meet the needs of some of the people it's been pissing on in recent years. No more stadiums, property tax cuts, or Asian trade junkets: it's time to fund schools, create health care access and fix the safety net. No more excuses.

4) Also on the bubble as never before in recent years are city officials--of all of urban western Washington, but especially in Seattle's mayor and council offices. For years--nearly a decade, through the Years Of Norm and the fiscal conservativism and rural Republicanism that swept Olympia--city officials have explained away state funding cuts for urban needs as due to those damned (fill in the blank)s. There's now a former King County Executive as governor, a slick business-friendly mayor who likes to cut deals, a Seattle Democrat leading the party in Olympia, and a whole Senate full of majority party Democrats with safe seats and powerful amounts of seniority. If Seattle and Tacoma continue to get short-shrifted in state funding priorities, some hard questions will be due.

5) The sort of non-ideological populism represented (on our good days) by ETS! is clearly on the rise. A former pro wrestler and radio talk show host ran on a third party ticket as a populist, and won, in Minnesota's governor race. Maine's independent governor also won re-election. The inroads made by third party candidates across the country, and the disgust expressed by voters and exit poll interviewees with the two big parties, give hope as never before in a generation that the time is ripe for alternative voices and parties. In Seattle, so far, the Greens and Labor Party haven't run candidates--but they say they will in 1999. It's time.