Can someone please explain to me why so many people loathe this guy? Yes I am a Conservative Republican, but I just do not see where this animosity is coming from. Right now there is a recall effort that seems to be gaining momentum. I personally don’t really like him, but I also don’t really dislike him. I am pretty much indifferent to the guy and have little understanding why anyone else would be otherwise.
PS, for those of you who do not know, Gray Davis is the Govenor of California.
Well, it mainly comes down to the power mess that he
a) could’ve avoided, when many (including his own appointee to the PUC) encouraged him to do something about it very early on, and he didn’t.
b) delayed solving (by rasing rates) till immediately after his re-election. He was elected by an incredibly thin margin.
Also, as a side note: California, which has never been an extreme left state is now considered such by Washington. And rightfully so, as Davis, Feinstein, and especially Boxer are pretty left of center. Even a little re-claimation of center if not righteous thinking is a good thing.
Sniff 
I thought that this here was Reagan country.
At some point not long ago, wasn’t Davis considered the potential goldne boy for a Democratic run to the White House. Maybe my memory is overstating things, but I thought he was viewed favorably as a pretty popular Governor of a state with obviously high electoral college value. Now, he seems so unpopular the Green Party would probably turn him down.
But, as a Georgian, perhaps the news regarding California politicians leaves a little something to be desired once it reaches us.
Gray Davis is a Democrat in a politically powerful state. Of course the Pubbies are gonna go after him like the rabid ferrets they are. The Pubbies will go after anybody with anything they have if it’s to their political advantage, as was demonstrated most starkly by their crude hatred of Chelsea Clinton, whose total sins consisted of 1) being Bill Clinton’s daughter.
No amount of vile, bigoted, hateful invective is too much for Pubbies, and they’re not the least concerned about truth.
Hear, hear! The Reptilian Party will stop at nothing to smear elected Democrats. Unfortuntely, the Democrats do it, too, but they’re just not as good at it.
Nonsense. The power suppliers were colluding to rape CA. Nothing could have helped except federal intervention, which was ultimately what fixed the problem. Although I would definitely agree if you said the Davis administration did a crappy job when they negotiated those hideous long term power contracts.
Rates were raised in 2001. The election was in 2002. Try again?
He was reelected by a 6% margin. Not a landslide, but hardly razor-thin. Davis was elected by a 20-point margin in the previous elected running against Dan Lungren.
IMO, Davis’s big problems are:
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The current CA budget crisis, which should have been foreseen. It was partially caused by the long-term electricity contracts that the Davis administration negotiated, but caused more by runaway spending during the bubble that hasn’t been restrained enough.
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A series of fundraising scandals has heavily tarnished Davis’ image on the left, right and center. I’m personally very disgusted with Davis on this issue.
OTOH, Davis was vilified by Republicans long before any of the above took place. Just because he’s not Republican.
As a Californian, I get the impression that Davis is far more moderate than most Democrats in the legislature. Most budget battles here have been between Davis and the legislature, in which the Republican opposition is largely ineffectual. Davis has consistently called for more restrained spending than in the bugets that have been passed. He has a very “tough on crime” stance and, as far as I am aware, has a policy of never approving parole for anyone convicted of murder, even in seemingly reasonable cases. Those Conservative Republicans who see Davis as some kind of arch-liberal are deluding themselves.
It is highly unlikely that anyone more conservative than Davis could be elected in a normal election. I think the Republicans are counting on the fact that in a post-recall election, candidates are not limited by party and only a plurality is required to win. They hope the Democratic vote will be splintered and their guy might squeak into office.
The Dems do it as well, just not nearly as much. If we had our own network like Faux News, or our own national radio station network like Clear Channel, we’d do better. Honest.
Isn’t it amusing that the same reactionary Republicans who respond to the slightest criticism of Bushy with a “you just hate him” are so rabid in their hate for Davis? Hypocrites? You betcha.
During the energy crisis, Davis appealed for help from Washington, to no avail. Enron doing anything wrong? Never!
BTW, do you know that California sends $65 Billion more to Washington than we get back?
A couple of observations:
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I gather from the newspaper this morning that, if a recall motion passes, there would be a recall election. In the recall election, the question would be put whether to recall Davis, and who would replace him. So it seems your observation may be correct – some Dems might vote to keep Davis, some might vote for another Dem, some for a Republican. So a candidate might need merely 34% of the vote to win.
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I wonder if there’s also another motivation: the GOP has nothing to lose. They have close to zero mindshare in CA. The recall petition is generating some bit of publicity now in terms of people getting to say bad things about Davis (and hence Democrats). If a recall election happens, even if a GOP candidate loses, there’s endless opportunities for the GOP to smear the Dems in CA. All which sets up the GOP for the next election, and helps them gain mindshare for other upcoming statewide and national offices elected in CA.
Let’s call it the “impeach Clinton” strategy – even if recall/impeachment didn’t happen (it didn’t in the latter case), the GOP gets ample publicity for whatever nasty things they want to say and whatever low portrayals they want to make about Democrats. It was certainly a successful strategy in 1998-2000, and it seems we’re seeing a replication of this strategy at a state level.
If this works or doesn’t work, I can see recall campaigns becoming more common – it gives the opposition (relatively) cheap publicity and attention and lets them at the very least try to crank up the target’s negatives among the electorate for the next and/or related elections.
squeegee hits the nail on the head. The budget crisis and his being such a blatent whore when it comes to fundraising are the main triggers of revulsion. Now I agree the budget crisis was unavoidable, seeing as there was nothing anyone could have done to prevent the dot-com collapse. On the other hand, the budget could be in better shape had spending been restrained and Davis managed the manufactured energy crisis a little sooner.
The letters from Gray Davis which accompanied our car tax rebates were too blatently self-promoting. (Instead of a mass mailed rebate, just lower the tax and save us $22 million in postage and handling).
That being said, I think the recall effort is stupid and self-serving. Let’s see, it’s being bankrolled by Mr. Issa, who just happens to be a gubernatorial candidate if the recall is successful. No conflict of interest there!:rolleyes: There was a perfectly fine chance to remove Davis from office last November. It was called the general election. If the Republicans hadn’t nominated a complete buffoon, they would have won. An ADD-addled chimpanzee could have run a better campaign than Bill Simon. Riordan (oh no, a moderate :eek: ) would have kicked Davis’ ass. Even Bill Jones, who was a pretty good Secretary of State but committed the apparantly unforgivable mortal sin of endorsing McCain instead of Bush in 2000, could have beat Davis. But no, they had to pick the inept, but “idiologically pure” Simon. Hey, Republicans, you practically handed Davis to us on a silver platter, so quit bitching. Besides, if you recall Davis now, you can’t run Arnie in 2006.
From TIME Magazine, dated May 19 2003:
[bolding mine]
So yeah, it’s yet another Rich White Republican Conspiracy. :rolleyes:
I voted for him twice, but I can see his flaws.
Energy: not his fault (raped by the energy producers who were in bed with the Bush administration), but he handled the resolution badly, with high-cost long-term secret contracts.
Budget: only partly his fault. Someone with actual statesman-like qualities could have said during The Bubble–“all this money isn’t going to last forever. Let’s spend it on one-time infrastructure investments, and not lock ourselves into assumptions for the long-term, by lowering taxes and increasing services.” But…a statesman? In California? Yeah, right.
Fund-raising. Yeah, he’s a whore.
But on the other hand, the Republicans had their shot in November 2002. But CA Republicans have a fondness for nominating stupid rich guys with no political experience (M. Huffington, B. Simon) for statewide office, and savvy Dems wipe the floor with them. So it’ll be interesting to see who they put up this time.
It never ceases to amaze me how supposedly noble, enlightened, progressive, and tolerent liberals are so quick to stereotype and demonize anyone who holds any opinion slightly different than their own.
I have no idea what Republicans think about Davis since I am not a Republican, nor do I read any conservative publications or watch/listen to any conservative news programs. What I do know is that LA Weekly, an extremely liberal independent newspaper, is constantly printing attacks on Davis for various reasons, most commonly his budget cuts, his handling of the energy crisis, and his fund raising.
I’m not here to defend the Republicans or to attack Davis. I’m just saying that before you start throwing insults and conspiracy theories around you should check the facts and see that this is not just some slander campaign dreamed up by a bunch of evil vindictive Republicans.
I’d have to agree that they screwed up by not nominating Riordan. I’m not sure it would have made any difference, though, since he was constantly under attacks by liberals when he was mayor of LA. If there’s anything liberals can’t stand more than conservatives, it’s moderates.
P.S. When and how did the Republicans go after Chelsea Clinton? Did they try to get her expelled from Stanford or something? Print photos of her drugged up at an orgy? I must have missed that somehow.
Davis is, for the most part, a middle-of-the-road politician – reasonably moderate, somewhat bland, mildly slimy – who happens to be squeezed from the mess from his predecessor (Pete Wilson) and the current national economic downturn. Everyone has to tighten the belt, and since Davis is at the top of the California food chain, he gets the blame. If it wasn’t for the circumstances, Davis’ administration would be mostly uneventful and bland, IMO.
And yeah, the recall efforts have all the stink of the usual “We lost the election so we’ll try to steal the office another way” Republican politics. But then, what do you want from a party that passed on the widely-appealing Richard Riordan for the looney-toon Simon?
Considering that Washington is now run by the likes of Cheney, Wolfowitz, and Rumsfeld, that says less about California than you may think.
Please reread KGS’s post. Looks like it to me.
Not a huge attack, but try this.
Emphasis mine. FWIW, some claim Rush never made the remark, or it was an honest accident. It was on his (pre-recorded) cableTV show, many saw it. But I wouldn’t call it a “campaign” against Chelsea just typical Rush tastelessness.
How about the fact that they’ve just about proven that the energy crisis was just a bunch of bullshit that ripped a lot of us off and so far, we’re still ripped off! Also, how about the fact that the state of Clifornia is now in a huge budget crisis and cuts are being made all over the place. Community college prices just doubled, meanwhile many programs have been cut, and the money that that they are bringing from being doubled doesn’t even come back to improve the schools (it goes to pay off other debts). Perhaps this stuff can’t really be blamed on Davis, but he sure is doing a crappy job of ‘fixing’ things around here. By the way, I’m not a Republican, I’m just a Californian for California!