So I hear last night on the local news radio that Gray Davis did it again - the budget deficit (sp?) is in excess of $20 billion. Didn’t we have a fucking SURPLUS before this whole bullshit regarding the energy crisis? And what’s this about his accepting money from everybody and their grandma to get certain things (i.e. judgeships)?
So Gray Davis thinks its best to make cuts in education, increasing tuition and decreasing availability of classes at state universities YET he doesn’t even touch other programs like paying for SAT prep classes for kids who can’t afford it. JESUS TAP DANCING CHRIST! All these fucking bills get passed, increasing the budget some 37% (according to a person interviewed) and NOW he wants to make cuts in education!?
I swear, I don’t understand how people could have voted for him last month after that whole energy fiasco. Shit, I sure as hell didn’t vote for his robotic self but my vote is only one of many. It’s just all turning to shit and now Davis wants to raise taxes 'cuz he blames “lack of tax revenue” for the budget deficit.
I’m blaming the Greens. Seriously. Ralph Nader could have won the last California governer’s elelction if the Green party had put in half of the time and money that they spent on his doomed presidential election. The Democrat and Republican candidates were both fucknuggets, Davis being the crooked politician and the other guy being the crooked corporate CEO, it was the perfect opportunity for a legitamate third party candidate to swoop in and gain control of one of the most powerful states in the union.
So who do they run instead? Some nobody who can’t even bully his way into the debates. It just showed me that the third-parties don’t even WANT to win, they just want to ‘get their message heard’, and ‘sound important’, and wouldn’t know what to do with real power if it was handed to them on a silver platter.
The Greens and the Libertarians both do that and it drives me crazy. Why do they have to run their best people for unattainable offices? If they run their best people for attainable offices and win, then in a few years those people can build a name for themselves and THEN run for those higher offices.
In my case - here in Missouri - libertarian Mitch Moore runs for governor or US Senator or something every time there’s an election. If he’d run for state senator or some other smaller office, he could win, build a reputation, then actually WIN an election for governor or US Senator in a few years. He has a great reputation in the central Missouri area, but he’s just not known statewide. He needs to BUILD that reputation with a smaller office first.
It makes me nuts! They should ask me these things.
Ah, the 2002 California race for governor. The first time in my career as a registered voter when there wasn’t a lesser evil to vote for. That’s why I left “Governor” blank. Why don’t we have a “None of the Above” choice on our ballots? My guess is, because then nobody would ever vote for anybody else.
Ralph Nader couldn’t get elected if he ran unopposed.
This was the 1st year, I believe, where California had closed primary elections. Before, one could vote for any canidate in any primary race, regardless of party affiliation. Now, you can only vote in your registered party, or if you registered ‘declined to state’, you would be given a ballot for one, and only one, primary. Meaning I, who foolishly registered Green party in my youth and have not changed it, could not vote for a viable canidate in the primary races.
I suspect something fishy was going on. And I suspect Davis was behind it. Former LA mayor Richard Riordan ® ran in the primary republican election. I suspect that many democrats, Los Angelinos, and non-republican humans in general, would have voted for Riordan over Davis had they been allowed to cast such a vote. But alas, Davis got to run against Bill Simon (Chowderhead). Simon ran a campain so inept that Davis won it in a walk. (I wrote in Riordan).
So instead of the lesser of evils, we got the lesser of fools. It’s discouraging.
No offense intended, but: Jeez, have you got it backwards, spooje.
Davis ran ads during the primaries attacking Riordan’s conservative credentials, just to get the rank and file GOP riled up so that the weak son, Simon, would get the nod. Simon was and is basically unelectable, so Davis won the election right when Simon was nominated in the primaries.
Nothing fishy at all. Just smart tactics on the part of Davis.
FWIW, I have little love for Davis, but the CA GOP has been a floundering whimper in campaign tactics ever since Pete Wilson shot himself in the foot with Prop 187 several years ago. Since then the state hasn’t had a GOP-sympathic bone in it’s body. This could change, of course, but the hispanic folks haven’t forgotten 187 and the GOP yet, and they are a very important voting bloc in CA.
STOP BLAMING DAVIS FOR THE ENERGY CRISIS!!! He could not have known it was all a conspiracy by Enron and the Republican Cabal. (Dick Cheney, anyone?) And the bogus deregulation laws were passed long before he was governor.
That said, I would have voted for Riordan, if he were on the ballot…
Davis is not responsible for the energy crisis last year. I think most every Dem and Republican voted for that fine piece of legislation. He did sign some long term contracts for energy that have got us in a bad financial way but I think they may have renegotiated them downwards at this time. I also think that we have a large deficit in part due to the amount of tech companies that are dying and sinking. That being said the choices for Governor last election were the worst I can ever remember and I voted for a 3rd party candidate. It does seem as though we are going to get taxed pretty good real soon. Maybe a moratorium can be granted for the bond issues and special interest funding that is on every election ballot. That would surely save some money.
Didn’t we have a SURPLUS before this whole bullshit regarding terrorism/recession/fat tax cut. The economy is tanked right now and even though Davis may be a bad governor, we can’t blame him for the business cycle. No money made = no tax revenue.
And true, taking money away from education is a stab especially since Davis ran on improving schools but the money has to come out of somewhere. Would you rather they leave schools fat with cash and instead slash social service programs and law enforcement? How about funds for fixing the roads you use to drive to work?
Also the tuition increase: The cost has not kept up with inflation over recent years so the increase had to have happened sometime. A third of the money from the increase will be put into financial aid to help those in need too.