On election night, I came back from rehearsal (for "The Education of Mister Scrooge," by the Front Range Theatre Company ) and checked Douglas County's website. I saw that Amendments 60/61 and Proposition 101 were going down overwhelmingly. Given Douglas County's conservative bent, I figured that was decisive, and went to bed. As it happens, of course, the measures were defeated in every single county in the state by close to 70%. There were lots of reasons for that defeat. Among them was the good work done by many librarians on their own personal time. Aspen Walker, a librarian who happens to work as my assistant, made a major contribution in her Bad3Bad4Libraries effort. The defeat of the measures was good in many ways. Yet I woke up mildly depressed. A few days later, I realized why. I've been involved in three elections in four years (2007 and 2008 for the library, and in opposition to the Bad 3 this year). The first two lost. The success of this one did ...