They may be crying foul in front of the cameras -- but behind closed doors, rank-and-file legislators are breathing a sigh of relief over Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declaring a fiscal emergency to keep money rolling to cities and counties.Heh.Even if he did break a few rules and stomp on a few toes in the process.
"Publicly it's, 'Oh my God, how could he?' Privately it's, 'Thank God he did it,' " said one legislative staffer who was close to the moves that led up to the governor's proclamation.
Schwarzenegger was sworn in and gave a nice speech, promising to build cross-party coalitions and not to rest until California becomes a "job-creating machine".
He has already called a special session of the legislature to lower workers compensation premiums and to rewrite the budget which has been projected to add another $10 billion onto the state's already staggering deficit.
In other news:
Several lawmakers hope to convince Gov.-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger to allow Gov. Gray Davis to name more than a dozen Democrats - including some of his staff -- to paid positions on key boards and commissions.If Schwarzenegger doesn't play ball, the Senate will have to call an emergency session to approve the appointments before Schwarzenegger takes office.In return, Schwarzenegger would rescind more than 80 other appointments made by Davis in the waning days of his administration that have yet to win confirmation by the state Senate.
I say let them call an emergency session. Let the people of California see the despicable Democrats in action, packing the administration of an incoming governor with the flotsam of a failed regime.
Upon certification of recall and replacement, the new governor immediately can be sworn into office. Barring legal challenge, the latest an inauguration could happen is Nov. 16.
I think it was a sad night for our state, and a sad night for our country. It shouldn't be that public officials have to watch their back every moment for fear of recall.Obviously, Pelosi believes that once securely ensconced in office, public officials should not be accountable to the public. Hey Nancy - he was a servant of the people, he sucked, so the people fired him.
And yes, if you are as bad at your job as he was at his, you should get fired to.
Does this remind you of a certain red/blue map from Y2K? Concentrated centers of liberalism on the coasts, conservatism in the heartland?The red areas are majority "No to recall" counties. The green areas are "Yes to recall" counties. (It figures that California would use green.)
Click on the map for a larger image (11K).
Click here for the original.
Click here for all the election results from the California Secretary of State.
7:25 pm PST: Susan Estrich on Fox News says that voters are angry - angry at the LA Times, angry at Gray Davis, angry at the parties. She goes on to say that if Democrats start to do a recall for Arnold before he gets a chance to do his job, it will do real harm to the party.
7:34 pm PST: William La Jeunesse reporting from the Davis election headquarters said, "The Democrats are setting the stage for a possible legal challenge and a recount. They are talking about voting machines, punch cards, disenfranchisements, changing to the touch screens, and reducing the number of polling places which may deny people the right to vote."
Interview with Art Torres, CA Democratic Party Chairman: "Well, there may be some voting rights violations here if in fact these people are not allowed to vote within a certain period of time. But that will also depend on how close this election is and if that could make a difference."
7:49 pm PST: Another interview with Art Torres, when asked how Davis was doing: "He's looking at the tremendous amount of people that are not being able to find their polling places. Here in Los Angeles County, over 300,000 people are not going to the polls yet because they can't find their polling places. We are in the process now of making sure that when people are in line, even if it's after 8:00, they be allowed to vote. We've also been having problems in Ventura County, where I issued a letter to the Registrar, where polling workers weren't prepared or briefed properly and they were advising people that if they voted on the second part of the ballot they couldn't vote on the first part, which was the recall part of the ballot."
8:00 pm PST: Fox News officially projects yes on recall and Schwarzenegger as the next governor.
8:16 pm PST: Interview with Bob Mulholland, Democrat Campaign Adviser (i.e., strategist), when asked how the Democrat legislature will work with Schwarzenegger: "Well remember, the legislator, Republican or Democrat, they're elected by their own voters and they gotta do what they believe is in their best interest. We're not going to roll over for Arnold Schwarzenegger just because he won tonight. I mean, clearly the voters are going to hold him accountable for all his promises and if he doesn't fix the state's problems in a hundred days, he could be facing something like this down the road himself. I think there's another message, and that's to Bush Junior. There's a lot of anger across the country, in Iraq and on the economy, because the economy's not in great shape, whether here or in across the country. And, and I think any incumbent, is ... who's a governor or president, gotta take this as a strong message: you better get this country's economy turned around."
[Note: in the ensuing interview with Brit Hume, this Mulholland asshat repeatedly referred to the President derisively as "Bush Junior". It was more than a little offensive.]
8:23 pm PST: Interview with Michael Barone, when asked by Brit what he thought of the Democrats giving Schwarzenegger 100 days to fix all the state's problems before launching a recall: "Well, I spoke to Bob Mulholland a week ago, he's Executive Director of the State Democratic Party, I've known him for years. I always enjoy talking with him. He was talking about, then, about 'we will do a recall in a hundred days' if he hasn't gotten unemployment down to four percent and a whole series of conditions. There're other Democrats talking about this too. There's a millionaire named Steve Bing who has promised to finance a recall drive. But I think the Democrats misunderstand here, why this was not just a traffic accident happening to Gray Davis who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, but how it resulted from the basic character of his political appeal and his record."
7:25 pm PST: Susan Estrich, when asked what she thought of the smear campaign against Schwarzenegger by the LA Times/Democrats: She said that she was "disgusted" by what had gone on, that she and her colleagues had defended Clinton against far worse.
[Susan is mellowing and becoming more honest as she ages.]
9:23 pm PST: Cruz Bustamante gives a concession speech and spins it into a victory speech for Proposition 54, as if he has been campaigning for that for the last few weeks. As if the political career of this sad, little racist isn't over.
9:56 pm PST: Gray Davis gives a gracious concession speech, interrupted by the crowd chanting "Recall! Recall!" Gray said no, he will support the new governor. Most intelligent thing the man has said in seven years.
Other Stories:
Kevin at the Smallest Minority has some gems mined from that bastion of intelligence, Democratic Underground. Heh!
Irish Lass reports harrassment by a poll worker at Calblog (this'll piss you off). [Hat tip to Citizen Smash]
The Accidental Jedi makes an interesting point about voting today.
"We need immigrants to pick our food and put it on our tables," he said as the audience — middle-class Latinos, primarily — shifted uncomfortably. "We need immigrants to clean our hotels and office buildings and take care of the elderly."Where's the media outrage?And: "That work is important.... Whether people are janitors or maids or busboys or cooks, it's all part of the experience we enjoy when we're at a restaurant or a hotel."
If any of the Latinos in the studios of the Spanish-language station Univision felt patronized, they didn't say so. But the governor's words landed with a dull thud Monday night, creating one of many awkward moments as he fought for his political life in the final week of the recall campaign.
Unfortunately, I do think it says something about his character, but we had a worse one in as president.Proving that Democrats do indeed reap what they sow.
If the vote is close, the court battles will begin at the local level. If the vote isn't, the ACLU will take the overturned decision to have the recall to the Supreme Court. Settle in folks, no matter what my counter in the upper right says, this one ain't gonna be over next week, or even Nov. 15.
American hero Rudy Giuliani is on his way to California to do a little fund raising of his own - for Schwarzenegger, while spoiled-brat Huffington has done the ultimate flip-flop and is campaigning for Davis. Bustamante is increasingly irrelevant, as it looks like he has blown his entire political career in this one short span of time.
Arnold, on the other hand, has moved from acting like a candidate to acting like a governor as he laid out a ten-point plan for his first 100 days in office:
It doesn't help the Democrats cause that their only real candidate is a confirmed racist that even the left-wing media of California can't endorse.
But the judge isn't buying it - he's told Bustamante to prove it.
One of Schwarzenegger's new ads opens with the image of a slot-machine dial as the candidate says: "Indian casino tribes play money politics in Sacramento: $120 million in the last five years." California should require tribes to "pay their fair share" of state taxes on casino profits, he says.This is a major departure from the campaign he promised, as he said he would not run negative attack ads ala Gray Davis.Without naming any of his opponents, he adds: "All the other major candidates take their money and pander to them. I don't play that game. Give me your vote, and I guarantee you things will change."
"It's a major, major risk," one GOP strategist said. "The campaign either hits a home run with this or they get clobbered."
"I don't think someone should be voted out of office because the voters don't like them any more," said Barbara Pavey, a Republican from Hollywood. "It's petulant."Heh, now there's a phrase you wouldn't have come up with on your own: a "Republican from Hollywood". But anyway:
That, in a nutshell, is what has become the main rationale against the recall: Even if you don't like Davis, he has done nothing so terrible that it justifies such a drastic act.Hasn't done anything? Hasn't done anything? How about running up a deficit during an economic heyday in technology-rich California that exceeds the deficit of all the other states combined?
And in the midst of a recall based on his short-sided, politically-motivated, pandering economic mismanagement, Davis signs a law that allows terrorists to more easily blend into society and will leave his DMV in a five and a half million dollar hole!
A self-described racist has endorsed California Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante in the California recall election, praising the candidate for being what he calls "a separatist," based on Bustamante's past association with a racist Hispanic organization.Politics does indeed make strange bedfellows. No word from the Bustamante camp on the endorsement, but supporters continue their bizaare defense by insisting that Bustamante was only a "moderate"The unusual endorsement by Tom Metzger, former Grand Wizard of the California Ku Klux Klan and director of the White Aryan Resistance, was accompanied by a call for all like-minded Californians to vote for Bustamante in the Oct. 7 election.
Insisting his endorsement is legitimate, Metzger said he hopes that if Bustamante is elected, the issue of immigration and border control will reach a boiling point.
"Worse is better, to bring it to a head," Metzger said. "Either we're going to solve this by realistic negotiation or there will be blood on the border. One of the two ways is the only thing that's going to solve this problem."
Hat tip to Wolfesblog.
I can't help about the shape I'm in
I can't govern, I ain't pretty and my neck is thin.But don't ask me what I think of Cruz,
I might not give the answer that Richie wants me to.
A federal judge ruled today that "he would not rule against the will of the people by delaying the [recall] vote."
Bustamante says he has to tax his way out of the deficit using 'tough love'. Taxing, by the way, the rich and businesses. No word on how he plans to stop (or even slow) the economic hemorrhaging that is taking place as business flee from California to more tax-friendly locals.
Arnold, meanwhile, emerged from hiding and did quite well at his first real press conference. Unlike Bustamante, Schwarzenegger promised to take a look at cutting spending and also trying to pull businesses back into the state.
An article from Bloomberg highlights just out bad California's budget handling processes are. Yet Davis refuses to accept any blame, blatantly distorting history (perhaps the Clinton he has been getting advice from is Hillary):
The governor described the 2001 energy crisis, which saw Californians experience power blackouts and soaring utility bills, as something foisted on the state by Enron and other greedy energy suppliers. However, Davis glossed over and distorted his refusal early in the crisis to allow utilities to sign long-term supply contracts that would have protected them and their customers from soaring spot market power prices. That refusal has been singled out by even the most objective critics as Davis' chief failure -- one magnified a half-year later when he sought long-term contracts at much-higher prices.
Davis cryptic version: "I refused to give in to pressure to raise rates astronomically." Reality: Rates would have risen only slightly had Davis acted earlier, and they did rise astronomically to pay for the much more expensive contracts his administration signed later.
Davis' semi-apology about energy was confined to, "We made our share of mistakes." He took much the same tack on the budget, saying only that "I could have been tougher in holding down spending when we had a big surplus" and quickly adding that the $8 billion in extra spending that he and lawmakers of both parties sanctioned in 2000 was to finance vitally needed health and education services. "I make no apology for that," Davis said, adding that it was "preposterous" that he had concealed the size of the state budget deficit when he was running for re-election last year.
The record differs markedly from Davis' self-serving version. When the state experienced a $12 billion windfall in 2000, Davis publicly declared that he would stoutly resist pressure from either party to spend it because it likely would be a one-time phenomenon, stemming from a flurry of stock market activity in the volatile high-tech industry. If the money were to be committed to ongoing spending or permanent tax cuts, Davis said then, the state could face massive deficits as future revenues returned to normal levels.
In fact, however, Davis and lawmakers quickly agreed to spend about $8 billion of the windfall on ongoing programs -- tax cuts, education and health care primarily -- and when revenues did return to normal, the state had an $8 billion "structural deficit" that was papered over with bookkeeping gimmicks and loans in the ensuing three years. It leaves the state with an immense ongoing deficit and equally massive debts.
Davis was right to address his roles in those two crises, but he was wrong to offer such obviously distorted accounts of those roles. It was political propaganda, not straight talk.
Arnold has it all wrapped up according to the psychic dogs:
We phoned Jacqueline Stallone, matriarch of the "Rocky" brain trust, and got the official forecast from her clairvoyant canines, Rachel, Hannah and Friday. As you might recall, in July 2000, the miniature pinschers astounded the political world by correctly predicting that George W. Bush would defeat Al Gore by a razor-thin margin of "a couple hundred votes."
Never mind that the prognosticating pooches also said prison inmates would soon be sent to Mars and guarded by robots. When it comes to politics, they're golden. So, whom do they pick to win California's recall roulette?
"Arnold Schwarzenegger, by a major margin," said Mama Stallone, interpreting for the dogs, who speak no English. "If my dogs like him, he's in."
I can't believe that I scooped Prestopundit on this major news story.
Bill Hobbs has it absolutely correct:
PrestoPundit is, hands down, the most comprehensive blog for all things related to the California gubernatorial recall election.
Make it a regular stop, starting here (heh).
You think Democrats in the U.S. Senate are obstructionist? Some Californian Democrats have promised that if the recall of Davis succeeds and a Republican takes the Governorship, they will immediately mount a recall effort of their own.
"The recall petition would be handed to that Republican at their swearing-in, absolutely," said Bob Mulholland, a political adviser to the state Democratic Party.
These guys haven't even lost yet, and already they're sore losers!
Developments in the California Craziness:
All this means that Arnold will probably win (read the top ten list of Schwarzenegger campaign slogans from the Late Show). Too bad - I wanted a real Republican like Issa, Simon or Riordan.
Other possible candidates (they've taken out papers but haven't filed) include comedian Gallagher, Bill Murry (R), Michael Jackson (R - believe it or not!), Arianna Huffington (I), Jack Grisham - lead singer in the punk rock group TSOL (I), Gary Coleman, billboard model Angelyne, and even street person Ted Hayes.
The filing deadline for candidates is 5 p.m. Saturday. Tomorrow may be interesting!
Update: Green Party candidate Peter Camejo has jumped into the race. He garnered 5.3% of the vote in the last governor's race. Who knows, with over 150 possible candidates he might just be able to get a big enough slice of the pie!
And the California Supreme Court turned down five petitions to intervene, clearing the way for the election to take place. Except for several federal lawsuits that have been filed, such as one by the ACLU that some of the counties aren't prepared for an election and others will have to use the old-fashioned punch cards that gained notoriety in the Florida Y2K debacle.
Some quotes concerning the recall race:
"It's humorous," said Adrian Wallace, who was visiting San Francisco with his family from London. "It sort of feeds the stereotype of California having so many crazies."
It's not a stereotype if it's true - it's a trait.
"I can't decide between him and Gary Coleman," laughed Billy Vasquez of Oakland. "Larry Flynt from Hustler is a good one, too. I mean at least he knows how to run a business. They're all freaks, but at least this recall isn't boring."
See what I mean?
Williams said she's never before voted for a Republican but added, "Arnold is Arnold. He's not really a Republican."
Truer words have never been spoken.
This promises to be fun. Let the nutty Californian jokes begin!