Category: Politics

Jeff Jarvis reports that the Iranian demonstrations were cancelled by the leaders of the student movement in the face of government threats of violence, but world-wide they’re still on.

UPDATE: Jerusalem Post reports the Iranians demonstrated anyway:

Shrugging off death threats by government paramilitary forces, tens thousands of Iranian students took to the streets Wednesday night, burning at least three government banks, calling for the country’s democratization and the death to its extremist leader Ayatollah Ali Khameini.

The demonstrations, banned by the Mullarchy, came on the 4th anniversary of 1999 pro-reform protests which triggered a violent regime crackdown, the death of one student and the arrest of thousands.

Opposition group leaders hailed Wednesday’s demonstrations the culmination of month-long anti-government activities as a deadly blow to the repressive regime, saying it edges Iran ever closer to a democratic revolution.

Good for them.

Democrats have a problem with snobbery, according to Michael Barone:

Core Democrats have an emotional investment in the idea that George W. Bush is an idiot [they believe they’re] smarter than other people. At the heart of their hatred of Bush is snobbery… Dean and Kerry [exude snobbery]. This could give whichever of them survives New Hampshire an edge with core Democrats.

If the snob factor leads Democrats to nominate Kerry or Dean, Bush wins in a landslide, because most Americans don’t share this attitude. Barone is one of the most serious students of American politics, and his views are worth considering.

Link via Instapundit.

On this day in the year 2000, the evil Boston Globe muzzled its only conservative voice, Jeff Jacoby, for submitting the well-traveled history of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. The Globe called it plagiarism, but everybody who can read knows it’s not an original work, and that Jacoby wasn’t trying to pass it off as one. The net effect of the Globe’s action was to deprive its readers of a conservative voice during the Bush/Gore contest of 2000, not that Massachusetts was ever in danger of leaving the plantation.

I mention this just to remind you that even in these enlightened times, standing up for America can cost you your job, or worse. This is especially true in the bastions of left-wing thought, such as Boston and the San Francisco Bay, where free speech is only valued when the speech is politically correct. But that just makes speaking your mind all the more worthwhile, doesn’t it?

This year, left-wing critics are lambasting Patriot II and the supposedly massive erosions of civil liberties that it represents (a good example: San Jose Mercury News South Bay columnist L. A. Chung invoking 75-year-old peace activists to make her point emotionally.) Not to suggest that these critics are less than sincere, I wonder how they would feel about a law that provided for such things as these:

All bank records, utility accounts, cable TV, and phone records to be turned over to the government every month for examination.

Prosecution of criminal offenses in a civil court in order to deny indigent accused the right to counsel at taxpayer expense.

Suspension of professional licenses and drivers licenses by administrative process without court intervention.

Seizure of property without court order.

Property liens against people who had violated no law and owed no unpaid debt.

Elimination of the requirement that court orders be served on the defendant.

Issuance of court orders kicking people out of their homes on hearsay evidence submitted to a court by fax.

Court-ordered, mandatory political re-education in the values of a particular political organization.

Elimination of the right to confront the accuser and the presumption of innocence in certain criminal cases.

A national database, updated in real-time, of the names, addresses, and social security numbers of all working Americans.

Arrests without warrant and detentions without charge, often of the wrong people, in “midnight sweeps.”

Debtors’ prisons.

A law forbidding the correction of court orders made on the basis of false information.

A sweeping denial of equal protection based on gender.

Court orders requiring some working adults to live in poverty in order that they support other adults, who don’t work, in high style.

Now, on the face of it, we’d expect anyone with the least concern for civil liberties to be up in arms over a law with just some of these provisions, let alone all of them. Yet the very critics of the Patriot Act and of Patriot II sat on their hands while every single one of the provisions I listed above passed into law in the name of child support, child custody reform, alimony, and domestic violence prevention. And in some cases, the critics weren’t just silent (as the ACLU and EFF were), they actually sponsored the legislation, as the National Organization for Women did.

So who do you trust on civil liberties, the occasionally overzealous guardians of national security in the White House and Justice Department, or the left-wing organizations criticizing them who give “hypocrisy” a whole new dimension?

(note: I am not saying, of course, that child support is bad or that domestic violence is good; I am saying you’re either in favor of civil liberties for all or you aren’t, and the vast majority of those hammering the Bush Administration on this issue today have proved they aren’t.)

Sad-sack Governor Gray Davis hopes he can intimidate the voters into letting him stay in power to further fatten special interest bellies:

Sacramento — Opponents of the move to recall Gov. Gray Davis are asking their supporters to intimidate signature gatherers and complain of harassment at stores where recall petitions are circulating, stepping up the political battle taking place in front of Wal-Marts and Home Depots across California.

In an e-mail message and Internet posting titled “How to Advocate Against the Recall,” Davis supporters were told, “It is OK to stand in front of their table or approach potential signers before they do, or otherwise inhibit their activity.” The memo instructs people to say they are “offended by being harassed” and file complaints with managers of stores.

“Remember, the longer you engage them, the fewer signatures they can collect,” said the memo distributed by Taxpayers Against the Governor’s Recall, a union-funded group. The memo also includes a telephone hot line to report the location of recall petition circulators.

There are no limits to the venality of Gray Davis and his buddies in the Prison Guards Union.

John Burton wants to put a band-aid on the California budget mess:

Senate President Pro Tem John Burton (D-San Francisco) said passing a spending plan with Band-Aids offers the best hope of freeing up lawmakers to deal with the budget’s structural problems in time to bring proposals before voters.

“It is like you have a patient with double pneumonia, which is this year’s problem, and the patient also has cancer, which is a problem for next year and beyond,” said Burton. “You cannot operate on the long-term cancer problem until you deal with the pneumonia.”

This is nonsense, of course, because this legislature only has two modes of operation: business as usual, which means spending like a drunken sailor to appease the special interests, or crisis mode, to appease angry voters. If we sit back and give the legislature time to reflect, consider, and mull things over, they’ll end up doing nothing. The only opportunities we have for structural reform are those brought about by crises, so we have to act right now to correct the problems that made this crisis happen.

And even John Burton knows that.

Prince of Darkness Bob Novak reports that Calif. Dems urge Davis to resign

Prominent California Democrats are pressing to get Gov. Gray Davis to resign rather than face a recall that may replace him with a Republican governor in a special October election.

And goes on to get the facts on the recall wrong, as Dan Weintraub points out.

Don’t get your hopes up, or down, as the case may be, on Novak’s rumor; the last thing Davis is going to do is leave town with his tail between his legs and Cruz Bustamante in the corner office. Like anti-hero Meursault in Camus’ L’ Etranger, Davis dreams of final vindication, and he hates Cruz, so the poor bastard will hold on to the end. The only question in my book is when Sheila Kuehl, his first supporter and primary ruiner of his tenure, will abandon him. My guess is pretty soon, but not before she sees an opportunity to attach herself to the next rump descending on the seat of power.

Here’a a quote of the day from Roger L. Simon

To complain about the absence of WMDs at this point would be like having liberated Auschwitz during WWII only to grouse that there wasn’t any cylon-b in the concentration camp, just dead bodies.

Totten noticed it too.

The bipartisan Richman/Canciamilla plan is the best idea to come out of Sacramento on the budget crisis so far, but the authors are taking a big gamble:

Two members of the Assembly — a Democrat and a Republican — bucked their party leaders Tuesday to propose a budget that makes deep cuts and temporarily raises the sales tax to bring state finances back into balance.

Party orthodoxy on both sides is against it, but it’s the only realistic solution. As Lois Wolk points out, it’s the only plan with a vote from each party.

Via Rough and Tumble.

According to the Secretary of State’s Report of Registration, California voters are a diverse bunch: 44.4% are registered Democrats, 35.2% are Republicans, 4.4% belong to third parties, and 14.4% are “Decline to State” or independent voters. Democrats lead in 26 counties, and Republicans in 35.

The trends, since the February 10, 2001 Report of Registration:

the percentage of total registration in the state has decreased from 72.2% to 70.3%

registration in the qualified political parties has decreased from 84.7% to 83.5%

registration in the Democratic party decreased from 45.6% to 44.4%

registration in the Republican party increased from 34.8% to 35.2%

the number of voters who have declined to state has increased from 14.4% to 15.3%

Bear these figures in mind when you read my colleague Grant, who says:

First, republicans only make up roughly 20% of California’s residence. Of course, that number improves if we only count the likely voters. That means that roughly half of California democrats would need to vote for President Bush if he were to win the state. That is the primary reason I don’t think he will win California.

Not quite right, is it?

Now what things affect election results, beyond party registration? At least three major factors: 1) turnout; 2) crossovers; and 3) coattails. I think all of these favor George W. Bush in California.

Democrats are unlikely to nominate a candidate who really gets their party faithful all fired-up to go out and vote, because they don’t have one among the largely shapeless and nameless bunch in the running. Would you get out of bed 30 minutes early to vote for Bob Graham, John Kerry, or Dick Gephardt? Neither would most Democrats. Dean, Kucinich, and Sharpton seem to get people more excited, but it’s not clear any of them has a genuine shot at winning the nomination, although Dean has Kerry worried. So barring Hillary!, Dems will have low turnout in 2004.

Crossovers, meaning voters defecting from their party and voting for the other guy, favor Bush for a couple of reasons. Disaffected Reeps tend to bolt when the candidate isn’t fanatical enough about abortion or religion, but nobody’s going to dump Bush for Kerry or Dean on that basis. Disaffected Dems bolt from candidates who’re too soft on crime, too namby-pamby on national defense, and too generous with the welfare checks. And voters of all parties, especially women, bolt to re-elect an incumbent. George H. W. Bush got more California women in 1992 than Clinton did, for example. So crossovers favor the President.

Which brings us to coattails, meaning voters to come out to vote the Party ticket because they’re psyched-up by somebody else on the ballot. This doesn’t happen in California with Legislative or Congressional races, because the districts are so Gerrymandered that the November results are always a foregone conclusion; the primary is where the action is. The Governor’s race may get some people excited, except that the recall, if successful, will tend to make it simply a re-election of whoever takes Davis’ place in the corner office.

And the wild card is the Decline-to-State voter, the fastest growing segment of the voting population that makes a difference (third parties are actually growing faster, but they self-marginalize and therefore aren’t interesting). Since neither of the major parties has a majority of registered voters, they both live and die by the Independent vote, at the end of the day, and right now, that’s in Bush’s favor.

So I wouldn’t write off the state of California just yet, Republicans.

Cam Barrett, a guy who’s been blogging almost as long as I’ve been, has started a group blog for 2004 Election News, Opinion and Commentary. It’s called “WatchBlog” and he’s still taking applications from Democrats, Republicans, and Independents who’d like to contribute. See Cam’s blog for details.