So how'd that recall turn out?

[Dr_John]

This says a lot:

More Californians disapprove of the job performance of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger than any governor in modern state history including Gray Davis, who was ousted by Schwarzenegger in a popular uprising, according to a Field Poll released today.

Seventy-one percent of California voters surveyed said they disapprove of Schwarzenegger's handling of the job, while 23 percent approve. The low ratings are shared across all demographics including party affiliation, region of the state, age and race or ethnicity.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...IKDR.DTL&tsp=1

It wasn't that I was a supporter of Davis, but like Shane (I believe), I had real problems with a governor being recalled mid-term for no reason other than we really don't like him.

Nothing against Arnold - he visited where I work and gave a stump speech in our parking lot (much better than I thought it would be), which has been great for us. Just pointing out how ridiculous the recall was.

So next up we get to choose between Meg Whitman and Jerry Brown. Whitman is former CEO of eBay. Yeah, that should help a lot. Has always been too busy to vote, and is going to be an 'outsider' in Sacramento (hey, isn't that what Arnold said? How'd that work out?). Her TV ads come off as a high school class president campaign. Jerry Brown? I contend the best position for him is what he's doing now - state's AG. A preview of him handling a terrible position? Check out his performance as mayor of Oakland.

Sad.

[NXPlasmid]

yeah, just amazing the massive decline in the quality of the California political scene. super-minority clusterf*ck. you forgot to mention Carly's dynamite ads.... plas

PS my Dad met with Jerry Brown in the late seventies and said he was a complete idiot...

[Dr_John]

Whitman has already spent $46 million on campaign ads... for a primary, against an opponent which she leads by, what, 50 points? Unbelievable.

Meg can at least spin some crap about building eBay. Carly at HP? I can hardly wait for her to explain how what she did at HP qualifies her to be a senator. I suspect she'll disappear quickly.

[Dr_John]

And of course I'm wrong about Carly - apparent everyone loves her:

Good news for Carly Fiorina: The former HP CEO has pulled into a statistical tie with former South Bay Rep. Tom Campbell in the supertight GOP Senate primary race, with OC Assemblyman Chuck DeVore well behind, according to the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC to poli-geeks) poll just emancipated from its embargo.

The PPIC oracle brings more bad news for incumbent Sen. Barbara Boxer. Much like last week's Field Poll, Boxer continues to bleed voters, particularly independents, as she's in a dead heat with her GOP rivals, counting for the margin of error.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/...id=59864&tsp=1

[NXPlasmid]

Originally Posted by Dr_John

And of course I'm wrong about Carly - apparent everyone loves her:



http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/...id=59864&tsp=1

Well, I think come election time, Boxer will decimate either her or Campbell. the real question is Brown... Not a strong candidate IMO...

Hopefully, the teabaggers will bring lots of candidates to the elections in November and split the conservative vote between them and the Libritublican party.

[Scare]

The only thing I remember about Carly Fiorina was when she was on stage with Jobs about having HP-branded blue ipods.

[wiljam]

The short answer: we don't know. Now for the long answer. As I remember the recall wasn't about merely not liking Davis, it was about Davis blowing off his campaign promises with regards to taxes. I can sum up the answer with a saying an old general contractor friend of mine use to apply to many things. He'd say "Will, it's like shoring up a large concrete pour. You'll never know when you have too much shoring but you'll always know when you don't have enough". I don't know if we're better off or not, how could we know? I don't like Arnold but I don't know that Davis would have been better.

I think the recall was a great start in making an effort to hold our elected officials feet to the fire but like Charlie Wilson said, we always fuck up the end game. We should have tossed Arnold as well. I think Arnold started out with a lot of energy but after a couple of early shellackings by the opposing legislature, he just tried to save face and caved. You can't argue that California is getting the government that the voters have elected, and continue to re-elect. You don't like the government we have here in CA, stop electing the scumbags we have in the legislature. The problem there is we have a lot of liberals in the Bay Area and they like to see the democrats win--woohoo ra ra--great.

John, It's my opinion that you're vastly more intelligent than I am. I know you at least well enough to know this isn't the only thing on your political radar. If I didn't know that I would look at your question and think it was an incredibility narrow minded one because the problem we have in this country is a lot bigger than who's the governor of California.

Back in the hay-day of these forums we use to argue about politics. Actually the way I see it there was about three or four of us that use to try and drive back an onslaught of liberal agreement on the part of all of you guys. What happened in my humble opinion was my self and the others got tired of it and stopped. What was left--you guys all agreeing and all discussion faded. Looking back on it, those "discussions" weren't about what was right, they were about who was right. And while we--and the rest of the country--were arguing about trivial stuff like "oh my God, Bush is such an idiot" or "oh my God Clinton was the anti-Christ" they were both screwing us over. We no longer have a two party system, we have a one party system, it's called the money party. While we--the working suckers--are busy blaming the other side, they're loving every second of it because it takes the attention off the screwing we're getting.

There's just too many people asleep at the switch in the voting ranks. The politicians have done a great job of distracting the masses.

I could go on and on. However, I have work to do. I sure someone will come along and try to say I'm wrong and try and "discuss" the error in my thinking but really, save your fingers. Even though we still have the best government on the planet, it won't stay that way much longer if we don't wake up as a nation and stop squabbling over who's party is better. Just remember, they love a divided nation, it works the their advantage.

[NXPlasmid]

I am going to jump in here, with the solid admission that I am very liberal, however I also am a strong pragmatist and will start of by saying that I have a lot of respect for Arnie, who is a "centrist pragmatist" in some ways my counterpart on the right. I am also formulating as I go, in all of this there is a significant "elephant in the room" called the American standard of living. This IS being re-adjusted significantly lower than it was from say, the 1950s to around the 1980s, there have been a lot of clever tricks that have postponed most of the pain of this over the last 20 or so years or so, through bubbles (dot com, financial now), crafty accounting(enron, S+L crisis, LTCM) and cheap imports from South america, china, Vietnam India etc... The tricks are all played out, we will all make less money, we actually we have all been slowly making less money over the last 20 years, now the last biggest chunk of reduction is going to come in a big fat chunk. It will shock the shit out of everyone to see what is possible as the unemployment rate in the US stays in the 7-9% range over the next 5 years. ("no new taxes" will not fix this problem, loss of good manufacturing jobs caused it, not taxes)

So, in my opinion the jury is not out. Please bear in mind, I am going to try to only state facts (as I see them) not right or wrong or commentary on conservative vs liberal ideologies (some of it is unavoidable and I appologise in advance):

1) He failed to acheive ANY (well any significant ones) of the goals he proposed during the recall election.

2) the state is far worse off today (the same would probably be true with G.Davis)

why? The 2/3rds voting requirement for any major budget legislation, which leads superminority rule. You can see below(end of post) that the state is (and was) significantly democratic, my understanding of our "forefathers" was that we were supposed to be governed by the majority. As far as the budget has been concerned for the last 20 or so years the California budget process has been functioning in an anti-American, anti-democratic way, with the minority party having a disporportionate influence on the process and the Republican party is significantly in the minority here. (you can certainly argue that you think that is a good thing and that the California democratic party is fiscally irresponsible etc. etc. etc. but a super majority was never intended by the founders, and it is clear now why that is the case.)

3) No new taxes. No one with any sense of fiscal responsibility, who actually looks at the budget would agree to that. Pandering to public selfishness is a fools errand, starve the beast has lead to increase parking fees, increase traffic violation fees, increased sales taxes (California sales tax was 5% prior to prop 13), increased local taxes, increase camping and park usage fees. the list goes on and these fees will skyrocket over the next 3-5 years, accompianed by huge cuts in services. The current budget cannot be balanced without either raising taxes, borrowing the money (bonds, which has to be the most expensive and IMO dumbest way to get out debt (see Greece currently pls.) that there is, or making a dramatic cut to education, on the order of something like 20% (perhaps you think that is a good idea, personally I don't)

As I see it Arnie and those of us who live in the state, have been and are continueing to be screwed by the legacy of proposition 13 (you could easily remove the business side of the property tax roll back, and the 2/3rds requirement and still maintain the essence of what people really voted for when it was passed btw), and the superminority position of "no new taxes". You may think that is a great rallying cry, but I guess you don't have children in public schools, use the roads, police or fire departments, or think that having a judicial system is important... thats' my rant, I'll address specifics from your post in red.

Originally Posted by wiljam

The short answer: we don't know. Now for the long answer. As I remember the recall wasn't about merely not liking Davis, it was about Davis blowing off his campaign promises with regards to taxes. I can sum up the answer with a saying an old general contractor friend of mine use to apply to many things. He'd say "Will, it's like shoring up a large concrete pour. You'll never know when you have too much shoring but you'll always know when you don't have enough". I don't know if we're better off or not, how could we know? I don't like Arnold but I don't know that Davis would have been better. Almost everything in this paragraph is, in my opinion, partisan politics without much substance, Davis wasn't that bad, he was very middle of the road

I think the recall was a great start in making an effort to hold our elected officials feet to the fire but like Charlie Wilson said, we always fuck up the end game. We should have tossed Arnold as well. I think Arnold started out with a lot of energy but after a couple of early shellackings by the opposing legislature, he just tried to save face and caved. You can't argue that California is getting the government that the voters have elected, and continue to re-elect. You don't like the government we have here in CA, stop electing the scumbags we have in the legislature. The problem there is we have a lot of liberals in the Bay Area and they like to see the democrats win--woohoo ra ra--great. The democratic party IS the majority in the state (by population and elected representatives), whether YOU like it or not. They are ELECTED and should be allowed to govern as the majorty party, that is how it is supposed to work. The Republican party seems to think that minority rule is somehow justified for them, why?

John, It's my opinion that you're vastly more intelligent than I am. I know you at least well enough to know this isn't the only thing on your political radar. If I didn't know that I would look at your question and think it was an incredibility narrow minded one because the problem we have in this country is a lot bigger than who's the governor of California.

Back in the hay-day of these forums we use to argue about politics. Actually the way I see it there was about three or four of us that use to try and drive back an onslaught of liberal agreement on the part of all of you guys. What happened in my humble opinion was my self and the others got tired of it and stopped. What was left--you guys all agreeing and all discussion faded. Looking back on it, those "discussions" weren't about what was right, they were about who was right. And while we--and the rest of the country--were arguing about trivial stuff like "oh my God, Bush is such an idiot" or "oh my God Clinton was the anti-Christ" they were both screwing us over. We no longer have a two party system, we have a one party system, it's called the money party. While we--the working suckers--are busy blaming the other side, they're loving every second of it because it takes the attention off the screwing we're getting.

There's just too many people asleep at the switch in the voting ranks. The politicians have done a great job of distracting the masses.

I could go on and on. However, I have work to do. I sure someone will come along and try to say I'm wrong and try and "discuss" the error in my thinking but really, save your fingers. Even though we still have the best government on the planet, it won't stay that way much longer if we don't wake up as a nation and stop squabbling over who's party is better. Just remember, they love a divided nation, it works the their advantage.
So what are trying to say here, other than Bay Area liberals are.. democratic cheerleaders? I can tell you, there isn't anything in the tone of your post to suggest you would be willing to find a middle ground with liberals so I am not sure why you think the divided nation thing is bad. Based on your post, I would say that you are either Republican or libertarian, right leaning, and make less than 200,000 per year, all fine. You really don't like liberal or democrat(ic) politics, but as far as I can tell, you don't have facts to support that, but you didn't like what they have been doing in California. I am not trying to be critical, or antagonistic but you don't seem have any real evidence for your anger/discontent other than gut feeling and perhaps other people who feel the same way, over taxed, too much government, etc. etc. etc... Is "throw them all out" is a solution? Sounds more like chaos and an opportunity for interest groups to gain more power to me.

to be cont...

[NXPlasmid]

Cont....

I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with feeling that way, but I think you are being exploited by a conservative movement that has none of your interests in mind. For exampe: Pres. Reagan raised taxes after his first big tax cut, because he was actually a fiscal conservative in action, not in name. But to the broader point, if I am somewhat correct as to your income, then you only stand to pay more "taxes" and get less benefit from those taxes, than you would have done, if there was no supermajority requirement for passage of the budget, because you not only use most of those public services that taxes pay for, you will also pay a much higer percentage of your income to the "add-ons" like tickets and fees, and increased crime due to reduced police staff, loss of time dealing with understaffed government agencies etc... Of course, if you make over 500K a year and are single, well then party on, you will and have already benefitted handsomely, and I will say FU to you, but I suspect that isn't true. Honestly, the real message of the Republican party isn't "no new taxes" it's "fuck the poor", ok that's just my opinion.

oy! no hard feelings, just thoughts. Plas

PS. again, you seem to dislike the current division between liberal and conservative politics and ideology, but in your post you personally offer no "olive branch" or middle ground, which is pretty much my experience with most conservatives. Your idea of working together is us "liberals" seeing things your way.. finally. Honestly, the treatment of Barack Obama by the Republicans in congress is a perfect example. They pretty much treat him like the liberal devil. Well, let me tell you, as a liberal he's wayyyy to the right of me, and I'm not that liberal. If he isn't the middle ground, he certainly is close to it, but he gets NO cooperation from the right, none. That is disfunctional politics. Instead of pointing fingers at the Bay Area liberals, maybe you should consider finding common ground with them if you really think that the divided government is bad.

overused but appropriate:
If you aren't part of the solution...


Source:
http://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/jtf...rofilesJTF.pdf

PARTY AFFILIATION IS BECOMING STRONGER FOR DEMOCRATS, WEAKER FOR REPUBLICANS.
Today, 67% of Democratic and 57% of Republican likely voters say they are strongly affiliated with their respective political parties. Since 2004, the percentage of likely voters saying they are strongly affiliated with their party has increased 9 points for Democrats but declined 7 points for Republicans. Major party leanings among independents have changed little since 2004: 42% lean Democratic (41% in 2004), while 28% lean Republican (29% in 2004) and 30% say they don’t feel a close affiliation with either party (30% in 2004).

[Trajan]

Don't make me come out of retirement Wil!

[wiljam]

What... too quiet around here for you guys....LOL Where's that jack-ass from Modesto?

Oh and NX, I'll just cut out all the bickering and get to the end, I'm rubber and you're glue... In the end, that's all we're doing and I'm simply not going to waste my time trying to convince you. However, I do fully respect your opinion.

[NXPlasmid]

Originally Posted by wiljam

What... too quiet around here for you guys....LOL Where's that jack-ass from Modesto?

Oh and NX, I'll just cut out all the bickering and get to the end, I'm rubber and you're glue... In the end, that's all we're doing and I'm simply not going to waste my time trying to convince you. However, I do fully respect your opinion.

fine with me, my points are all making themselves, they don't really require verbalization to be true. Plas

[Shane]

Originally Posted by Dr_John

It wasn't that I was a supporter of Davis, but like Shane (I believe), I had real problems with a governor being recalled mid-term for no reason other than we really don't like him.

Its worse than that. It wasn't mid-term, he had just been RE-ELECTED.

He was re-elected in Nov. 2002.

The recall campaign STARTED almost immediately after the election. By July, 2003, they had their signatures.

Originally Posted by wiljam

The short answer: we don't know. Now for the long answer. As I remember the recall wasn't about merely not liking Davis, it was about Davis blowing off his campaign promises with regards to taxes.

Wil, sorry, but this is very far from the truth, which I won't fault you for as its now 7 years behind us. I had to do a good bit of reading to fill in the gaps in my memory.

So, what was it about, then? A power grab, a thwarting of democracy. It was pure political sour grapes bull shit.

So, we, the voters, had our chance to vote him out in Nov. 02. We didn't. What is there that possibly could've happened in a few short weeks to warrant the idea that all of a sudden he must be recalled? Nothing.

The recall effort was mainly bankrolled by 1 super-rich Republican Congressman, Darrell Issa.

The effort to recall Gray Davis began with Republicans Ted Costa, Mark Abernathy, and Howard Kaloogian, who filed their petition with the California Secretary of State and started gathering signatures. The effort was not taken seriously, until Rep. Darrell Issa, who hoped to run as a replacement candidate for governor, donated $2 million towards the effort. This infusion of money allowed Costa and Kaloogian to step up their efforts. Eventually, proponents gathered about 1.6 million signatures, of which 1,356,408 were certified as valid.

Issa and some other Republicans, in a way that is eerily similar to how the right complains about Obama now (we just elected him 1.5 years ago and they whined from day 1), didn't like the result and decided they had the money and so they'd use the super duper retarded California joke of a system to try to get the result they wanted.

Yeah, I know Wilson wasn't perfect and had problems. So does Arnie. So did Wilson, yet where's all the fake outrage?

The biggest thing Davis had going against him was the energy crisis when we deregulated power and Enron proceeded to sodomize CA because we(both parties were complicit although this is traditionally a conservative issue) deregulated power.

So, the irony here by embracing a conservative policy Davis largely opened the door to him being ousted by conservatives. Nicely done.

Sidenote: For an EXCELLENT look into how vile Enron was, I recommend The Smartest Guys in the Room. I believe you can "watch it now" on Netflix.

[Dr_John]

Its worse than that. It wasn't mid-term, he had just been RE-ELECTED.

Right. Poor choice of words on my part.

For an EXCELLENT look into how vile Enron was, I recommend The Smartest Guys in the Room.

And Davis makes a cameo of sorts in it.

Yep, parallels, yet no outrage for a recall.

So we have Issa bankroll a recall to put a Republican in place. Now we have Meg basically just outright buying her way there... she dumped another $20 million of her own money into her campaign. Amazing.

[NXPlasmid]

Originally Posted by Shane

Wil, sorry, but this is very far from the truth,

Shane,
Real capitalist Americans don't need to truth to see through your socialist retoric, they know they are right without needing the truth.

Plas

[NXPlasmid]

Originally Posted by Dr_John

So we have Issa bankroll a recall to put a Republican in place. Now we have Meg basically just outright buying her way there... she dumped another $20 million of her own money into her campaign. Amazing.

My understanding is that Whitman is going to install an "Elect now" button in the voting booth software next to her name, similar to the "Buy now" button on ebay, enabling real Americans to bypass the socialist voting system and put her in office immediately....

[Defendant]

From what I hear and read, California's economy could use every dollar she has to spend on her campaign.

[Dr_John]

My understanding is that Whitman is going to install an "Elect now" button in the voting booth software next to her name, similar to the "Buy now" button on ebay, enabling real Americans to bypass the socialist voting system and put her in office immediately....

As far as I'm concerned, the only thing she has going for her is she kind of looks like Ben Franklin. Or depending on the angle, maybe more like ; another movie star!

[NXPlasmid]

Originally Posted by Dr_John

As far as I'm concerned, the only thing she has going for her is she kind of looks like Ben Franklin. Or depending on the angle, maybe more like ; another movie star!

Oh someone should really photoshop her face into an image of Ben Franklin! that would be hilarious.