So, did y’all watch the debate last night? Best political debate I’ve seen in years! I swear, I thought Arianna was about to get up and hit Arnie with her purse!
Redwolf
It wasn’t too bad. Arianna’s attitude kind of turned it in to a circus, but other than that, I don’t think any of them really won this debate.
Quite entertaining. I watched the talking heads afterwards, both locally and nationally (a bit of Fox panel and Hardball). Only the ultra-lib political reporter of my morning paper, Borenstein (the guy who moderated the first debate) thought Bustamante came off strong. So predictable. I am sure Molly Ivins will end up praising Buster too.
Enough of the siren! She has 1% or something but they keep including her shrill voice and putdowns. Camejo is a scream. He sounds very credible till he falls into the heavy generalized Socialist ideology and the “woo-woo” whistles go off in my brain. I do appreciate the Green defense of sustainability and eco-protection but the rest of it comes off as tried-but-rejected leftover social engineering and it guarantees electoral loss. After one statement, Bustamove actually piggy-backed on Camejo’s far left policy proposals but none of the talking heads mentioned it.
I am glad Arnold nailed her on the fact that pays little to no taxes. I mean, she marries a rich guy, divorces him and sits in her fancy house in LA and calls it workin’! She once was a reporter, tis true, but she is basically living off the fat of community property and her questionable celebrity. Her rainbow ideology (one day a conservative, one day a liberal) completes her utter phoniness in my eyes. I can imagine her on Johnny Carson’s couch, along with Orson Bean and other people you are not sure of why they are famous.
Her main value to folk like me is the hope she will split the liberal vote because I don’t want Davis or his racist Lt. Governor in power.
I supported McCLintock in last election cycle though Davis basically engineered the Bill Simon candidacy with his dirty tricks and Mc was kind of an asterisk. In his own way, his ideology is so clear that it might guarantee loss as well. BUt in a state with a Democrat controlled Assembly and Senate, I want a very conservative governor to slow down unfettered Demo policies. It’s unhealthy to continue one-party dominance here, in fact, it’s killin us (and I would argue the same if opposite were true). His eyes are kinda goofy tho, especially when you gotta dang movie star as the alternative. He is a solid guy, but I swear, nobody wants a solid guy anymore.
As a rightist voter, I feel a bit better about Arnold though I still kind of find it hubristic that he has jumped into this race without some other office in Legislative branch to get political experience. Feels like he is going to become President of the country club with everybody slappin his back. BUt maybe his aggressiveness and self-confidence is valuable in this current mess.
One thing about moderator: I wish they would have put a caption around the voluble Stan Statham. He made very big headlines about 8 years ago in his attempt to split California into two or three states. He was a senator then. All the talkin’ heads made fun of his performance.
One thing that had me feeling a bit leery about A. Schwarzenegger was the apparent scriptedness of his sallies in the debate. I’m given to understand that he’s generally avoided informal debates. Were I a Californian, I would wonder at this.
I really felt that McClintock came off the strongest in this debate. He had concrete plans for every question (and they made solid sense, too), and he didn’t feel the need to shout down the other debaters…good confidence there. I would have liked to hear a bit more of that from Arnold…his basic platform’s good, but I’d like to hear more about implementation. As far as the other three go, I kept finding myself wondering if they live in the same state I live in…the one where jobs are disappearing faster than you can say “things are cheaper in Arizona”?
I’m glad I watched, even though I had to tape it (choir rehearsal last night, and we have Evensong this Sunday, so I couldn’t blow it off).
Redwolf
It doesn’t bother me when a politician avoids “informal” debates. Not everyone is equally good at replying sensibly on the spur of the moment, and I want to hear what they really believe, not what comes out after a moment or two of hemming and hawwing. Also, those “informal” debates so often turn into little more than shouting matches…not very useful for determining the best candidate.
I didn’t think that Arnold sounded “scripted.” I do wish he’d gone into more detail about specific plans…that’s where I felt McClintock really stood out. It’s one thing to say “we need to fix this,” and another to describe how you would go about doing it.
I think that, barring something unforseen happening between now and October 7, Arnold, whose last name I can never spell, will be our new governor, and after last night, I’m relatively comfortable with that (especially after listening to Huffington, Bustamante and Comejo, none of whom would I like to see anywhere NEAR Sacramento). I would prefer McClintock, and will probably cast my vote that way, but I will be less disappointed than I thought I would be if Arnold wins.
Redwolf
Best quote: “I have a role for you in Terminator 4!”
I loved that too, Glaub!
Redwolf, Arnold isn’t my ideal candidate, either (I would have greatly prefered Dick Riordan to either Arnold S. or McClintock). But the California Republican party has shown a truly awesome ability to to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
According to the polls, Riordan could have flattened Davis in the last election - but after Davis spent $15 million on hit pieces aimed at Riordan before the Republican primary (accusing him of - gasp - being personally conservative but able to work with Democrats to get things done) they ran Simon as their candidate in the general election. Less political experience than Arnold, wealthy by inheritance rather than his own efforts, and from the right wing of his OWN party in a state that, if anything, leans a bit left of center. That Simon was able to pull the numbers he did (low to mid 40s, as I recall) was a tribute to a visceral dislike of Davis more than his own merits.
I predict that Arnold and Tom McC between them will pull at least 10 percentage points more then Cruz Bustamonte - and Bustamonte will be the next Governor. I think Arnold, running as the sole Republican candidate, could almost certainly beat Bustamonte, and the Tom McC would have a pretty good shot at it. But unless one of them withdraws, they’re going to split the moderate-to-conservative vote between them.
Normally, in these situations, the lower-polling of the two candidates will withdraw (as, to his credit, Issa did - and he funded the recall drive). Tom McC refuses to withdraw - and if the election results are as I predict I’ll never vote for the man for any state or national office in the future.
Politics is the art of the possible, and compromise. People need to be aware of the distinction between principles and preferences; all too often the “no compromises” crowd conflates the two.
Henry Clay once proclaimed “I’d rather be right than president”. The problem was that he never fully achieved even the first of these goals.
Right now, I’d be a lot happier of the Republicans remembered another famous quote about “Half a loaf”.
It’s a possibility, though from what I’m seeing, Arnold is still a very strong front runner…well ahead of Bustamonte…and the election is only a little more than a week off. I too would be happier with only one Republican candidate, however…splitting the vote is never a sound idea, and, in a left-leaning state, a moderate like Arnold almost certainly has an edge over a straight-line conservative (though, like 'Enders, I think we could really use an honestly conservative governor to balance out our strongly left-leaning legislature).
I couldn’t quite get over Bustamonte’s characterization of illegal immigrants as “tax payers.” If they’re undocumented, they can’t be W-2 employees, so how in the heck are they paying taxes? Sure, they pay sales tax if they buy something, just as any visitor to the state (legal or otherwise) does, but that doesn’t even begin to be in the same league as those of us who are filing our tax returns to Sacramento every year (along with writing those property tax checks, paying those unbelievable and soon to triple auto licensing fees, etc.). Sorry Cruz, but a lot more of our money is bleeding out to provide services for people who have no legal right to be here than they can even begin to put back in.
I caught ol’ Cruz in a mistake (or was it a falsehood?) too…he said something about not having built any new universities in the state since (I forget the date, but it was a long time ago…1970s? 1980s?). He seems to have forgotten about CSUMB (California State University of Monterey Bay), which was build on the old Fort Ord property during the 1990s. I’m sure the CSUMB students and faculty will be thrilled to learn that, as far as the Lt. Governor is concerned, they don’t exist.
Redwolf
On my scorecard, Arnold, Arianna, and Bust-a-move-e (thanks, Bill Maher) each behaved like a different kind of jackass. And while I found the positions of McClintock and Camejo reprehensible and dreamy, respectively, they were nonetheless well articulated.
I don’t know that I’ll be able to like our governor for the next couple years, no matter who he or she is, based on the likely winners. Davis is loathsome, and none of the “replacements” rattle my saber. Ah well.
Hey, now…I didn’t write that! Tsk.
No…I wrote it. Funny…is the forum script messing up somehow?
Redwolf
I got a PM from someone who’s having some trouble with the board…getting logged off spontaneously. Gremlin patrol?
That’s been happening to me too. It doesn’t happen all the time, but every so often I’ll come back here after checking another site to find I’ve been logged off.
Oh well…these scripts are complex, and can sometimes be a bit flakey.
Interesting poll I just read at the Mercury News…when asked which candidate gained the most from last night’s debate, Arnie was leading by a nuclear mile, followed by McClintock, followed by Davis (for not being there), followed by (gag!) Huffington, with Bustamante and Comejo trailing considerably.
Redwolf
I think what happened was:
Redwolf posted a message in which she replied to Nano, and used the quote function.
Then DCrom responded to Redwolf’s post, but when quoting Redwolf accidentally left Nano’s tag in there as he composed his own post, so that it looked like Nano was saying what, in fact, Redwolf had said.
Redwolf then quoted DCrom’s post, also leaving Nano’s erroneously tagged quote in there, and it just got all screwy from there.
Human error, not a board glitch. Careful with attribution, folks! Otherwise someone might someday edit a post so that it looks like Weekenders has said something that Bloomfield actually said, and everybody logged in will faint right there in their chairs.
I think what happened was:
Redwolf posted a message in which she replied to Nano, and used the quote function.
Then DCrom responded to Redwolf’s post, but when quoting Redwolf accidentally left Nano’s tag in there as he composed his own post, so that it looked like Nano was saying what, in fact, Redwolf had said.
Redwolf then quoted DCrom’s post, also leaving Nano’s erroneously tagged quote in there, and it just got all screwy from there.
Human error, not a board glitch. Careful with attribution, folks! Otherwise someone might someday edit a post so that it looks like Weekenders has said something that Bloomfield actually said, and everybody logged in will faint right there in their chairs.
Definitely! 
Jef
Mea culpa.
The edit window for posting uses such a $#@!$ small default font I didn’t spot the error until after the rest of you had already seen it.
Original post edited for clarity.
Dana
You know, Jef, I think you are mis-applying the term “_______” right there.
From the obnoxious armchair,
der Weekenders
If I was a Californicator I’d vote for Peter Camejo or Arianna Huffington. I’ve always loved her, and I think that anybody who isn’t afraid to change their mind is who I’d want in a leadership position.
I liked McClintock, too, weirdly enough.
Arnold and Cruz, I thought, were both idiots like they always are, and it’s a shame that one of them will win.