Category: Politics

— Celebrity blogger Matt Welch rips Gray and explains how lefties can bring themselves to support such an odious character:

Just combine a Tim Robbins-like conviction that Republicans not named Jim Jeffords are evil, with a Naderite certainty that corporations are the devil’s battering ram, and presto! You don’t have to pay attention, and you can vote Gray

Don’t read this if you’re tryng to get less cynical about politics.

Welch says he’s been anti-Gray ever since the robotic one voted to allow off-shore drilling in the 80s. As a former Texan, I’ve always been mystified by the way the people of my adopted state of California feel about oil drilling. If you want to play, you’ve got to pay, so either ride a bike or support drilling.

— California is effectively a one-party, Democratic state now, since our Republican faithful have adopted the position that it’s better to be right on the moral issues than successful at the ballot box. This has been evident in the choice of a string of hardcore pro-life party chairmen, and in the reaction of the faithful to Dick Riordan’s candidacy for governor:

Riordan is raising much more cash than Jones or Simon and leads the polls, but he is under heavy attack from some party stalwarts. Last week, former California governor George Deukmejian, an influential Republican in the state, took the extraordinary step of saying publicly that he had “no respect” for Riordan.

This deadly purity of essence makes the Dems who can bring themselves to support Davis, for all his warts, look almost bright.

Link: California GOP Reluctant to Rally Behind Riordan (washingtonpost.com)

From Rough & Tumble:

Don
Novey has a problem. The head of the powerful California Correctional Peace
Officers Association supported the legislative term-limits initiative in 1990
and still thinks it’s a good idea. But after watching it work for nearly a dozen
years he thinks there needs to be a change. Dan Smith
in the Sacramento
Bee Michael Gardner in the San
Diego Union — 2/18/02

This is a good sign for those of us who don’t like the results of term limits in California; Novey’s the most powerful special interest in the state.

non-Enron pieces in Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall, most recently on the fun-loving Gary Condit, who says (sort of):

If you will entrust me with your hard-earned dollars and contribute them to my campaign, I will use that money to make my case to the voters of our district, to tell a story about the struggles of working families and to enlist a dubious also-ran in the annals of forensic science to exonerate me of any responsibility for the tragic murder of my bosomy young girlfriend …

I’m no liberal but I admire Marshal for his ability to make the liberal case with intelligence and without the snarkiness that characterizes people like Talbot and Kinsley. Our democratic process doesn’t work without smart people on both sides, so I encourage them where I find them.

isn’t Ken Lay, it’s California Governor Gray Davis. This article (Dan Walters: Rivals prepare for long, expensive, negative campaign for governor) explains why:

“Gray, you’re a disgrace,” Riordan said last week, tagging Davis as the “Enron governor” and castigating him for raising campaign funds from interest groups while he has bills affecting them awaiting his signature or veto.

And the best method for reducing the power of Big Money in politics isn’t the unconstitutional Shays-Meehan bill that stifles First Amendment rights, it’s the ballot box. But the media have to do their job, which they have in the case of Davis:

The state’s news media have detailed numerous incidents in which Davis took actions, whether legislative or administrative, that favored major campaign contributors. Davis denies it, insisting that he has often disappointed contributors and doesn’t take money into account when making policy.

This by way of Rough & Tumble.

Joshua Marshall may be recovering his grip. This article (Are liberals hopeless suckers?) is the first thing in a long time on Talking Points that didn’t directly deal with Enron’s corrupting influence on the Bush White House and the Republican Party generally:

You better believe it.

Back in 1997 and 1998, as the presidential contenders were readying their engines, all Democrats pretty much realized that the nomination was Al Gore’s to lose. But liberals were discomfited by Gore’s centrism and casting about for some standard-bearer. Dick Gephardt decided he was that man.

Maybe there’s hope for the old boy after all.

by Curling is a nation ripe for pick-pocketing, so let’s not forget to keep an eye on the campaign finance manuevering in Washington and the Term-Limits manipulation in Sacramento. Our elected thieves know how to time their high crimes and misdemeanors if they know anything at all.

author Charlotte Twight was on the radio today, pitching this book:

Dependent on D.C. is a compelling new book that raises serious questions about the future of liberty in America. Charlotte A. Twight proves beyond doubt that the growth of dependence on government in the past seventy years has not been accidental, that its creation has been bipartisan, and that it is accelerating. She reveals a universal tactic used by federal officials to expand government authority over the lives of all Americans and exposes the many forms this tactic has taken. Twight shows how growing federal power–driven by legislation, validated by Supreme Court decisions, and accelerated by presidential ambition–has eroded the rule of law in our nation, leaving almost no activity that the central government cannot at its discretion regulate, manipulate, or prohibit. A constitutional counterrevolution has occurred in America–one so profound that few today can imagine Americans free of dependence on government. Dependent on D.C. shows why Americans have not resisted this expansion of federal power and reveals the daunting magnitude of the changes needed to reverse our nation’s spiral into dependency. In these uncertain times, Dependent on D.C. is the book Americans need to read when thinking about the future of their individual liberty in a country long committed to the ideal of personal freedom.

Sounds like a reasonable read.

| KEN . LAYNE . DOT . CON |

Ho ho … Riordan finally hit back. The Channel 2 news just had a commercial explaining the former LA mayor’s position on abortion — he doesn’t like it, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t support a woman’s right to do whatever — and letting the Home Viewer know just how much Gray “Singapore” Davis took from Enron: $119,000. Jeez, Ashcroft only took half of that.

This is a story I’ve been following, but leave it to the Bloggers to cover it when the media aren’t. I found no mention of Riordan’s response in the political press, but here it is.

Riordan’s response is cool, well-timed, and effective. Davis is just trying to jerk his chain into saying something intemperate, because Riordan has the reputation for being off-the-cuff. But he took Davis’ bait and made him eat it, which is the right way to handle the little dictator.

The Sacramento Bee — sacbee.com — Dan Walters: Do we want our politicians to be genuine or to be flawless actors?

No weasel words for George Deukmejian. The former California governor’s personal animus was plainly evident as he described Richard Riordan as “a person I have no respect for and in no way I could vote for.”

Nor did Riordan, the former mayor of Los Angeles and leading Republican contender for governor, conceal his annoyance with Deukmejian, when the remark was raised in a gubernatorial debate an hour later at a GOP state convention.

“George Deukmejian has a bad memory,” Riordan snapped. “The only things he remembers are his grudges.” Deukmejian, sitting nearby, was visibly jolted by the rejoinder.

Sounds like the old Jerry Springer Show, doesn’t it? No matter who wins the Republican gubernatorial primary, in November California voters will have a choice between a real human, with warts and all, and mechanoid fundraiser Gray Davis. This is shaping up as the most interesting political contest this state has seen in a very long time.