Month: September 2003

At the Cal Recall debate held in LA Wednesday among candidates Bustamante, McClintock, and Camejo (with joke candidate Arianna along for laughs), candidates agreed that Arnie’s refusal to participate in anything but a scripted debate was a weak spot, so they pretty well piled-on the poor old boy. Now they’re collaborating on a joint letter of boycott:

LOS ANGELES (AP) – Arnold Schwarzenegger’s top gubernatorial opponents on Thursday considered threatening to boycott the one debate that will include Schwarzenegger unless organizers switched to an unscripted format.

As it stands, only Davis and Arnie would be in the debate, to be held in Sacramento by the Cal Broadcasters’ Assn.

Blogger Dan Weintraub suggested the scripted format, and he’s naturally defensive about the boycott threats. He’s already been bashed by Mickey Kaus for making things too easy, and when Bustamante agrees, that pretty well nails it.

Prediction: The scripted debate will happen, and they’ll all show up except Bustamante, who doesn’t need the free TV time and doesn’t want to appear on a stage with Gray. If McClintock goes along with him, he’s dumber than he looks. Debating is McClintock’s strength, and it’s Bustamante’s weakness.

“It’s time we Americans came to terms with something: France is not just our annoying ally. It is not just our jealous rival. France is becoming our enemy.” — Tom Friedman, Our War With France

Unlike George Will, LA Times columnist George Skelton understands California politics. Skelton’s impressed that Cal Reeps are piping down on social issues, evidenced by the recent state convention:

Said Assemblyman Ray Haynes of Murrieta, another unabashed conservative who backs Schwarzenegger: “We social folks realize that being in your face all the time is a turnoff.”

Haynes says “pro-choice” and “right-to-life” Republicans have reached an “accord.” The former will help move the latter’s agenda when there’s no political cost, and the latter will stop constantly harassing the former — like slipping those “baby killer” fliers under delegates’ doors.

If Republicans really have stopped railing about social issues, the politicians and activists who will miss it most are Democrats.

These are signs of intelligence, showing that even the hard right can learn a lesson every once in a while. Let’s hope it sticks.

In the Washington Post, Will compares McClintock to Thatcher and predicts a delay will help his campaign:

McClintock has risen from 8 to 13 to 18 percent and can reach a tipping point — “I don’t know where it is, but I’ll know it when I see it” — where “pent-up” conservatives now gritting their teeth and supporting Schwarzenegger will switch to him. The later the vote, the more Davis will be mired in making unpopular budget choices.

He’s right on a couple of counts: McClintock would be a better governor than Arnie, Cruz, or Gray, and the longer the campaign drags out, the better the chances are that the voters will see that. The better too, that Arnie will lose interest and take up sky-diving. But is a McClintock win the best thing for California?

I like McClintock, and he’s head and shoulders above the other candidates. He’s got a wealth of experience and a sound, coherent theory of government grounded in the Federalist Papers. He’s the only candidate that I’ve ever met and talked with, other than Gray at a campaign stop where I did get to roast him about Singapore. And Will’s right that California needs his medicine. But Will’s missing one thing, and it’s a very big thing: this is California, not Kansas, and the long-term health of California depends on a Republican Party that can put up socially liberal and fiscally conservative candidates. And as good as Tom is on the fiscal side, he’s not the man with the finger on the pulse of California’s social malaise.

I’d vote for Tom over Gray or Cruz, but it’s still hard for me to choose him over Arnie for these reasons. But I suspect I’ll come around if Arnie doesn’t start campaigning like a man possessed, and that means showing up at the debates. He’s missed three so far, and it’s starting to look like he’s got something to hide. Arnie has to shake off the dilettante factor, and so far he’s not making any headway.

Eugene Volokh points out that Costa’s brief on the en banc review of the 9th Circuit’s activist delay of the California Recall cites one of his blog posts. Here’s the relevant part of the brief:

[5] See also Howard Bashman, Meet hanging chad?s relatives, scribbled oval and hacked touchscreen, <http://appellateblog.com/2003_09_01_
appellateblog_archive.html#106365589040317778> (Sep. 15, 2003), Eugene Volokh, California Recall and Technology <http://volokh.com/2003_09_14_ volokh_archive.html#106365996330480386> (Sep. 15,
2003);

Bashman’s blog cite wasn’t even his own thought, but an e-mail he received from an anonymous reader. (My argument to the error business is here.) We’ve come a long way in intermingling the public policy dialog with blog ranting, haven’t we?

After perusing the briefs on the Activist Ninth Circuit’s web site, it’s apparent that the ACLU has no case, as they’re wrong on the facts and wrong on the law.

On the facts, the activist panel confused “residual ballots” with “errors”, a basic rookie mistake. Residuals include undervotes (i.e., ballots where no mark is made), most of which are cast as “none of the above” votes, and truly represent the voter’s intent. That’s not an error, of course. The activist panel also incorrectly imagined that the first run with new equipment would be less error-prone than voting on the same equipment that’s been in use for 35 years would be, and they reached this amazing conclusion without any evidence.

On the law, the Sec’y of State points out that the court failed to find grounds for appeal in the first place, which would be “abuse of discretion” on the part of the trial court, so they didn’t establish there was a reversible error. Costa argues that the activist panel erred in misapplying Bush v. Gore in a way that would invalidate virtually all elections held in the last 25 years, despite clear statements in the opinion and in all the dissents that it should not be applied in such a way as to ban all punch-card voting. Then there’s the issue of the consent decree dictating that all such arguments are moot as the remedy has already been set in place beginning in March and we aren’t there yet.

The arguments on the other side are beyond weak. Rick Hasen filed another empty amicus brief the sole purpose of which is to tout his textbook, and the ACLU argued that it would be wrong to delay a decision a few days after they successfully argued that it’s cool to delay an election a few months beyond its constitutionally-specified timeline. The ACLU brief is so weak it borders on legal malpractice.

The county elections officers from Sacto and LA are the most scathing in their rebuke of the activist panel. The delay will now go down in history as the most idiotic decision by a federal court since Plessy.

Take your pick: Right Wing News inteviews Milton Friedman on tax cuts, and left-wing blogger Calpundit interviews Enron adviser Paul Krugman. They’re both softball interviews, but I found the Krugman interview particularly offensive. Calpundit allows comments in-line, but Right-Wing’s are at a different place.

Some pols notice that Howard Dean’s supporters are all professionals, just half of the traditional Democratic constituency that usually encompasses working and unemployed people alike. See Howard Kurtz, just over half-way down:

This concern, which has popped up repeatedly in the media, is shared by many other Dean supporters, including Richard Hoefer, a San Francisco filmmaker who believes that the campaign has been too ‘blog-centric.’ Asked if he thinks there’s a homogeneity to Dean’s base, Hoefer responds, ‘You mean whitey?’

We know that blogging, like political giving, is only for white professionals, but voting is something everybody gets to do, so Dean may not be as strong as he looks based simply on fundraising.