It's not as contentious an issue as marriage equality, but the good guys (and gals) won the battle for an anti-discrimination policy in Kalamazoo, MI.

Final vote tallies:
YES: 7671
NO: 4731

I haven't crunched the turnout numbers, but at a glance it looks to be around 10-15% higher than normal in an odd-year election. For details, please dig:

http://www.electionmagic.com/results/mi/ K39results/K3900104007.htm

Update [2009-11-4 18:49:10 by lucky monkey]: Turnout in Kalamazoo was 12,572 -- 148% of cast ballots in 2007, which was 8,489. This translates to approximately 23% of the total number of registered voters (55,351) for 2009. Turnout in 2007 was approximately 16.6% (out of 50,969 registered voters).

Thirty-two times.

That's how many times the presumptive Republican nominee used the word "change" in his speech (twenty-two before he was interrupted to announce Obama had passed the delegate threshold). Many of those instances were in the context of voicing Obama's catch-phrase: Change You Can Believe In. Whatever else we see in the months ahead, this will be remembered as one of the worst political speeches in recent memory.

Repeating your opponent's message--even to denounce it--is political suicide. People do not vote for someone who's message is "I don't like what that guy says." Candidates who define the debate, and the terms of it, are candidates who win elections.

It was just after midnight on January 20, 2004, I think.

For the past eight and a half months, I'd been spending most of my free time working with Kalamazoo for Dean, a volunteer organization that gestated through MeetUp and whose purpose was to deliver the county--and beyond--for the feisty Governor from Vermont. I'd attended house parties and was soon to hold one myself. I designed literature and posters for events. I donated money for the first time to a national campaign. I wore a Dean for America button wherever I went, and always carried two or three extra so if some cashier at the grocery store asked me about the button or Dean himself, I could offer them the very button I was wearing and then immediately replace it once I was around the corner.

In short, I was a full-on, self-proclaimed "Deaniac."

It was a done-deal, we all thought. Dean had the money, the momentum, and the manpower. He was the guy with the endorsements, including my hero, Al Gore. It was all over but the shoutin'.