Public Eye

If the steak of elections is the actual vote, then maybe the sizzle is the talking about it afterward.

As all good marketers know, sometimes the sizzle is better, or at least easier to sell.

In any case, after staying up until midnight Tuesday with friends and family drinking wine and eating good food and hooting at the news on CNN, I spent a good portion of the morning reading the papers and listening to all the analysts gathered on NPR, especially on Larry Mantle's post-election "AirTalk" on KPCC.

Two pundity points from Larry's guests were most interesting to me. One was when always sharp California GOP expert Dan Schnur was asked if he thought Hillary would really pick Barack, or Barack pick Hillary, as her or his choice for Veep, given that Democrats are clearly so closely divided and clearly like both of them. Trying not to be sneaky or disengenuous -- nothing in it for him to make the right call, as he pointed out -- he said he really doubted it. America's clearly ready for the sea change of having either a woman or an African-American president. Schnur doesn't think the country's ready for both at the same time. More likely some Southern white male former governor type. Er -- the Huckster, as Rush Limbaugh calls him? Sorry -- I meant to write the obvious choice, William Jefferson Clinton.

But some other pundit whose name I didn't catch had the most interesting news of the morning. He said the election Tuesday marked the first time more Californians under 30 voted than Californians over 65. There is some dispute over this -- I found a Democratic claim that this actually happened for the first time in 2004. Whichever. It's happening, and it can only be good news that Millenials are voting more than their Gen X predecessors. Good news in theory, at least. Who knows what it means for us graybeards.

Took the first Up & Moving walk with the mayor around Brookside earlier in the morning -- or part of it, as was taking our daughter to school when it started. Despite my recent uncharitability toward the telephone tax called Measure D, Bill Bogaard, Steve Madison and Sid Tyler all managed to avoid pushing me into oncoming traffic. The tax certainly enjoyed quite the success with most voters. We can only hope City Hall spends Pasadenans' money well.