December 11, 2003
State mourns passing of new governor
Flags flew at half-staff and state buildings were draped in black crepe today to mourn the untimely demise of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. While no one is officially using the term "suicide," the cause of death seems to have been the governor's own actions: he promised during the campaign that funding for education would be cut "over my dead body," and...
December 09, 2003
A governor whose word is his junk bond
So our new governor, having promised an investigation of his own groping activities in order to avoid answering any questions during the campaign -- an investigation that would obviously be entirely worthless -- has now decided that such an investigation would be entirely worthless, so he's dropping the idea. And his spokesgeek insists that the voters, by voting for Schwarzenegger...
December 08, 2003
Good!
Rhonda Miller, one of the women who accused Der Gropenfurer of gropenfurering her, only to have the campaign spokesthug, Sean Walsh, point reporters to the criminal record for prostitution, theft, etc., of a different Rhonda Miller, is suing Der Groper, Walsh, and the campaign for libel. The Smoking Gun has the complaint, and the smoking-gun email from Walsh. Settle it,...
December 01, 2003
Bait and switch in California
It looks as if Schwarzenegger, like Bush, having run as a moderate plans to govern as an extremist. (You really have to wonder how often this bait-and-switch deal is going to work.) Yes, his environment secretary is actually an environmentalist, but everything else is straight from the Wilson-Reagan playbook. He kept the worst of his campaign promises: rolling back the...
November 17, 2003
Surprise!
Kevin Drum reports that Der Gropenfurer is planning to raise taxes, just as everyone who could read a budget knew he would have to do. I keep hearing about how it's not good to call opposition politicians liars. But how many times do these guys get to campaign, and win, on blatantly fraudulent premises without someone calling them on it?...
October 13, 2003
Just in case you thought
Schwarzengroper's political morals
were any better
than his sexual morals...
... they're not. Mark Paul of the Sacramento Bee [*] links to this truly appalling Dennis Roddy story [*] from the Pittsburg Post-Gazette about how Sean Walsh, the Gubernator's chief media spokesman, skirted the very edge of the libel laws in sliming one of the women who accused his boss of sexual battery. The technique couldn't have been simpler: Walsh...
October 12, 2003
A bit of good news from our new governor
For those of you concerned that the Schwarzenegger governorship might be disastrous in terms of liberal programs, the first sign is a hopeful one. Steve Lopez in the LA Times reports that the Governor intends to personally offer free breast exams....
October 08, 2003
Recall Arnold?
Hell, no! I want to forget him as fast as I can. Kevin Drum has a sidelight on the election I haven't seen elsewhere: Apparently the total turnout was actually below the already-low turnout in the 2002 governor's race. That suggests that the vote was a repudiation of Davis and Bustamante and not an embrace of Schwarzenegger, which makes me...
October 07, 2003
That's Governor Schwarzengroper, Mister!
The polls don't close for another nineth minutes and the count will take hours, but I see no reason to disblieve either Drudge or the exit polls he reports: the recall will pass comfortably and Schwarenegger will crush Bustamante. There's lots of blame to go around: Schwarzenegger for running such an intellectually dishonest campaign, the press for not calling him...
October 06, 2003
Election Day Volunteers Needed
If you're in the LA area, opposed to the Schwarzengroper, and have some time to spare tomorrow, there's need for Get Out the Vote workers. For door-to-door campaigning: No on Recall San Fernando Office 16000 Ventura Blvd., #405 Encino,CA Carolyn Smith, (818) 995-3367 For phone banking: California Democratic Party 888 Figueroa St., #400 Los Angeles, CA (213) 239-8730 phone...
October 05, 2003
Maybe I was Wrong ...
... to think that the Schwarzengroper was too far ahead for the sexual-battery stuff to hurt him much. The California recall race is tightening, though just how tight it's getting is a matter of dispute. [*] The combination of the complaints from gropees (which I think is solid) and the Nazi stuff (which I think is thin, and less...
October 02, 2003
Another Reason to Vote Against the Schwarzengroper
He's lending money to his own campaign. [*] Not only is this an apparent violation of a voter-passed state law, it creates an extremely precarious ethical situation once he's governor. At that point, contributions to his campaign that allow it to repay the loan are in effect going directly into the Governor's pocket. There's surely a difference between a...
October 01, 2003
Mickey Kaus Was Right...
The LA Times was saving up a devastating story about Schwarzenegger's career as a serial groper. Six women over twenty years, all found by the Times as opposed to coming forward or being put forward by rival campaigns, two willing to be quoted by name, the other four confirmed by interviews with friends who recall contemporaneous conversations in which...
September 30, 2003
Voting Against the Recall
It now seems virtually certain that Arnold Schwarzenegger is going to finish first in Round II of the recall. That means that anyone who doesn't want to see the state in the grip of the Wilson and Quackenbush crews had better hold his nose and vote "No." It will take another noseclip to vote for Bustamante in Round II,...
September 16, 2003
Judicial Overstretch in the California Recall
Right now, I'd be just as happy, in terms of expected outcomes, if the California recall election were cancelled. Bustamante's campaign so far has left me dubious that he'd be an improvement on Davis; given the risk of winding up with Schwarzenegger, I'd rather stick with what we've got. There's another reason to stick with Davis from a Democrat's viewpoint:...
September 14, 2003
Sticking With the Devil We Know?
It looks as if Gray Davis's basic political strategy -- making sure the voters never have a decent alternative -- may be paying off again. The LA Times poll shows the recall yes/no tightening, and Tradesports now has "recall fails" at about a 33% chance of winning (Schwarzenegger is a little better, Bustamante a little worse). I'm starting to lean...
September 10, 2003
Why Nixon Didn't go to Russia
Having run just last year on a strict no-tax-increase platform, Alabama's Republican governor tried a "Nixon goes to China": he proposed a reform of the state's horrible tax system to make it more progressive, close the budget deficit, and fund a school system that Lower Slobovia wouldn't be ashamed of. Yesterday, he got creamed; the voters rejected the proposal by...
August 30, 2003
The Odds in California: Correction and Update(s)
In an earlier post, [*] I tried to use the Iowa Electronic Market numbers to calculate the probabilities that Davis, Schwarzenegger, and Bustamante would wind up with the governorship when the dust cleared. The calculation presented was simple, elegant, and wrong. I can only attribute the absence of a flood of emails correcting my logic (indeed, of any emails at...
August 27, 2003
The Odds in California
The Iowa Electronic Markets webpage has opened a futures market on the recall. The contract structure makes it a little tricky to go from the prices to predicted outcomes, but Davis is about a 70-30 underdog, and the market is predicting the recall will carry by about 10 percentage points; you can get an effective 20-to-1 against the election's not...
Pledging Bankruptcy
Here's the basic fact facing the candidates in the recall election: If California does not raise taxes significantly this year, it will go bankrupt, this year. There literally won't be money in the state treasury to pay current bills. The pseudo-budget passed by the legislature and signed by the governor includes several assumptions contrary to fact. In particular, it assumes...
August 24, 2003
Not as Dumb as We Look: Bustamante Ahead
The same LA Times poll that showed Round I tightening, with the Yes side up only 50-45, showed Bustamante with a huge lead over Schwarzenegger, 35-22. Simon, who just dropped out, had only 6%, and not all of that will go to Schwarzenegger. Moreover, the poll shows Cruz with good net positive favorability, 48-29; Schwarzenegger's is a much less impressive...
August 23, 2003
So Long, Bill. Don't Come Back Soon.
Bill Simon has dropped out of the recall election, prompting Gray Davis's spokesman to remark that Round Two "is now a sideshow with one less clown." [*] As an environmentalist, I'm sorry to see Simon go. He wasn't just talking about sustainability, he was practicing it: his entire campaign consisted of recycled materials. Well, now they can be composted. At...
Fixing the Recall Process
My brilliant friend Steve Teles, who teaches politics at Brandeis only because I have so far failed to talk him into moving to UCLA, has some thoughts on the recall as an element of an electoral system. He thinks it's a bad idea: There are a few basic reasons to be against the recall, in principle. They are: a) A...
August 21, 2003
Is the Recall Justified?
Atrios [*] makes a principled argument against the California recall: it's undemocratic, he says, to overturn the result of a popular election. Now it's certainly a reasonable viewpoint that officials ought to have fixed terms rather than serving at the pleasure of the voters, but I'm not sure I see how a fixed-term system is more "democratic" than one that...
August 20, 2003
Bye-Bye, Gray!
Daily Kos (1) thinks Gray Davis is likely to survive the recall and (2) thinks that would be a good thing. [*] Those two beliefs, especially the second, are characteristic of Democrats nationally, but rare among Democrats in California. We all know that Davis is toast, and most of us regard toastitude as no more than he deserves. Kos thinks...
