The California governor debate in LA today was depressing. Anyone who reads this blog knows that I don’t like Gray Davis, for a vast array of reasons I don’t need to recount here since they’re all the commonplace ones, except that I have an extra-special dislike for the dude because of his uniquely troubled relationship with his deceased father and his childless status. So it won’t take a whole lot to make me vote for Simon, and I tuned in to the debate today hoping I’d find it.
But I didn’t. Simon stuck to his script, displayed little or no grasp of the issues, had no specifics, and wasted too much of his time attacking Davis when he should have been outlining the vision and new ideas he kept talking about, and did it all with the same goofy, robotic smile on his face. Davis was composed, direct, confident, and showed a grasp of the issues and the stubborness that a governor needs in California to keep from being run over by John Burton and the other radical lefties in the legislature.
Davis made a real blunder by limiting the debates to this one hour session at noon; the more Californians get to see Bill Simon, the more they’ll be able to hold their noses and vote for Davis.
I listened to it on KQED today at work, and all things considered, I would have rather had some dental work done, sans anesthetic.
Well, that sure was crappy, wasn’t it? Didn’t help that the format was screwed, that Hal Fishman — God love him — is just a bit too octogenarian for the moderating task, and that this is all we get. Davis looked pretty damned weary, and aware of how much we all despise him. Simon has that weird South Park smile, and I was creeped out by his incessant references to the fact that, yes indeedy, he has a family. … My decision gets harder and harder…
God, how it pains me to admit it, but you’re right, Richard. Simon is a disaster. I will sit this one out before I vote for Davis, though, and at the moment, I still intend to vote for Simon.
I’m still completely unconvinced that Davis wouldn’t have slaughtered Riordan just as badly as he’s taking apart Simon. After all, he destroyed him in a Republican primary. Why would one expect Riordan to do any better in a general election?
No doubt that Riordan ran a horrible primary campaign, reflecting an inability to deal with the hard-core conservative base of the Republican Party. This tends to cast doubt on his ability to govern, because keeping the special interests at each others’ throats is a prime requirement.
Bill & Richard — I think it’s an extremely open question as to whether Riordan even wanted to govern. I’ve had the pleasure of talking with him a lot by now, and we never discuss the governor’s race much (beyond him hissing out some colorful phrases about Davis, and — in April, at least — certain members of Simon’s staff) … but he’s 72 or 73, and I think he honestly doesn’t know what to do with his life. His biggest draw was always his *electability*, not his potential for governance (though I think he would have been boffo on education, which is a passion of his). I think you could even draw a weird analogy with a potential Riordan Administration that you could with Bill Clinton in ’93-94 — great on electability, probably pretty clueless on the ways of the new bureaucracy he’s governing. Except that Clinton has endless ambition and energy, while Riordan’s ambition is certainly open for question.
Still, I think there’s somewhat of a civil war in the California Republican party, and though I’m firmly on the Dubya side of the “reform” project, it is very true that this strategy thus far has been an utter electoral wipeout. I find it very interesting, but I wish it was all happening in some other state, one where I don’t actually have to live.