The governor and legislators are going back to normal today with their posturing and pretenses as if voters hadn't just slapped them in the face and kicked them in the groin over their pathetic ballot propositions.

In LA, the City Council will operate in its business-as-usual mode as it steals $27 million more from the Department of Water and Power's electricity revenue while pretending the $120 million hit LA is expected to feel from the state ballot propositions defeat isn't really going to happen.

Poor Jack Weiss, the political machine's favorite gopher, lost badly despite the mayor's and Police Chief Bill Bratton's increasingly irrelevant efforts to defeat outsider Carmen "Nuch" Trutanich, who chatted with KABC's Doug McIntyre this morning.

Even more stunning was the victory of the smart and capable Tina Park who knocked off LA Community College Board incumbent Angela Reddock.

Community activist David "Ty" Vahedi came within 300 votes of beating professional politician and machine-backed candidate Paul Koretz on election day with the outcome still uncertain with many absentee and provisional ballots still to be counted.

Democracy lives in LA, finally.

Just as the defeat of Measure B in March signaled a groundswell of grassroots support for change, the results of Tuesday's election shows the depth of discontent with our politicians is growing.

The public is fed up and waking up.

The political machine is oblivious even as it creaks and breaks down. It lives off of special interest money and smear politics of consultants like Ace Smith.

The council adopts the failed mayor's fictitious budget with just a few quibbles, whines but goes along with a blank check for hiring more cops the city can't afford and gears up to mask the financial catastrophe with cash buyouts, enhanced retirement benefits and furloughs and pay hike deferrals -- not layoffs and pay cuts like businesses all over the country have been forced to impose.

The big battles are yet to come but momentum is on the people's side.

And the bills are already coming due as the state's elected officials learned today when a state commission declared they must share the pain of the fiscal crisis and slashed their pay by 18 percent pay.