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Grex > Agora46 > #121: California's Governor Gray Davis facing recall election | |
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| 25 new of 264 responses total. |
gull
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response 100 of 264:
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Aug 13 00:51 UTC 2003 |
Re #22: Enron gaming the system (while Ken Lay, with a straight face,
said they weren't, and Bush backed him up) didn't help either. Gray
Davis did a bad job handling the electricity deregulation situation, but
Republican interests helped set him up.
After that evidence of how easy it is to manipulate electrical markets,
I'm amazed that other states are going ahead with deregulation plans.
Re #98: "It may not be a crime, but gross misrepresentation of the
State's fiscal situation and/or a candidate's intensions (once elected)
strike me as a good reason to recall him/her from office."
So we should recall Bush, then?
---
I'm having a hard time taking Arnold's bid for governor seriously.
After all these years you'd think he'd have at least grasped the English
language. He has no campaign planks except "bringing business back to
California." His speeches consist of bumper sticker slogans. If he's
elected, it'll prove to me that Californians really have lost track of
the dividing line between reality and the movies. I've suspected it for
a while now.
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russ
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response 101 of 264:
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Aug 13 02:13 UTC 2003 |
Wow, some commentary from Richard that doesn't come across as pure
partisan advocacy. What took you so long to get insightful?
I like the idea (#98) of holding pols to their campaign promises.
If their election could be annulled on the basis that they made
misrepresentations, it would force everyone to be more honest.
(Imagine George O'Brien being tossed out of the mayor's office
in Boston for campaigning against a subway fare increase and
changing his mind! There'd be one less folk song in the repetoire.)
I think that it also might be a good idea to force pols to recuse
themselves on votes on matters concerning persons or groups from
which they obtain significant amounts of campaign money.
I doubt that California will face endless recalls. Either the
legislature will fix the problem, or abuse of the process will
create a push culminating in an initiative to fix it. If nothing
else, I'd expect a reform to to limit ballot access to one candidate
per party represented in the previous race for the office.
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scg
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response 102 of 264:
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Aug 13 06:00 UTC 2003 |
I don't think the legislature in California has the power to prevent recalls.
The voters would have to fix the problem.
It seems to me that the existence of the recall process is probably
reasonable. The replacement election being on the same ballot leads to all
kinds of strategy games that would probably be better avoided by having a
separate, later, replacement election (or letting the Leutenant Governor take
over if he/she hadn't also been recalled). The system whereby anybody can
get on the replacement ballot simply by paying the filing fee has to go.
Schwartzenegger's answer to every question about his positions on issues seems
to be something along the lines of "I'll let you know when I'm ready." I
suspect his popularity will drop considerably if he's ever forced to answer
thsoe questions (or if the voters notice he's refusing to answer), since no
matter what his answers are they're bound to anger somebody.
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russ
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response 103 of 264:
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Aug 13 12:00 UTC 2003 |
Re #100: The California deregulation law passed a legislature
completely dominated by Democrats. When the problems began to appear,
the utilities pleaded to be allowed to make long-term contracts to
buy electricity instead of being forced to buy on the spot market.
Gray Davis instead decided to gamble with the taxpayer's money, and
lost big time. He deserves his comeuppance.
The deregulation law's problems shouldn't have gotten very far, but
did so because California's legislature is apparently full of
ideologues of various stripes but nobody with much analytical
ability. You may be right that the electorate has lost the
distinction between reality and story-telling; in any case they
have gotten what they elected, and thus what they deserve. To
fix this, they have to stop nominating (mostly the Democrats)
candidates who have no experience or record of substantive thought,
but only mouth the politically-correct slogans of the day. Then
the voters have to punish the parties for allowing insubstantial
candidates to be nominated.
As if that'll happen.
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gull
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response 104 of 264:
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Aug 13 13:01 UTC 2003 |
Re #103: But would the spot market have climbed so high if not for
Enron's strategies to drive it upwards? They were creating artificial
shortages.
*This* is why electrical deregulation is a bad idea, really. There
isn't enough competition to prevent one or two companies from
manipulating the market. It amazes me that anyone thought this wouldn't
happen. The only way to deal with a natural monopoly industry like this
is government regulation.
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bru
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response 105 of 264:
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Aug 13 13:50 UTC 2003 |
don't you think they should have been smart enough to see that and taken
action to avert it?
Arnold is at least his own man. He doesn't depend on anyone else to make his
decisions. You may see that as either bad or good, but at least it will be
different.
If he doesn't understand a problem, maybe he is at least smart enough to find
the people who do understand and can help.
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janc
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response 106 of 264:
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Aug 13 16:03 UTC 2003 |
I want to see the Schwarzenegger / Coleman debate. Might be worth getting
TV for.
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albaugh
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response 107 of 264:
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Aug 13 16:55 UTC 2003 |
I'm too lazy to research this: How did Jessie "The Body" Ventura's background
and experience before being elected governor of Minnesota compare to Arnold's?
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scg
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response 108 of 264:
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Aug 13 17:12 UTC 2003 |
Ventura had been mayor of some Minneapolis suburb. The paralel to somebody
with no political record, but a famous name and a politically connected
family becoming governor of a state significantly bigger than Minnesota but
significantly smaller than California would be George W. Bush.
I do love the bit about Schwarzenegger being a "self made man." He shows that
even a movie star who marries a Kennedy can get rich if he really works at
it. ;)
It seemed to me a few years ago that the political demands being placed on
Davis at the time were to get the power situation under control regardless
of the cost. Now that power is under control, people are upset about the
cost. I suspect if there were still frequent blackouts, it wouldn't be the
cost that people were complaining about. The real question there, of course,
is what could Davis have done to more cheaply stop the blackouts.
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gull
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response 109 of 264:
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Aug 13 18:39 UTC 2003 |
Re #105: Probably, but the pressure from the "free markets uber alles"
types to deregulate was pretty strong. It's also hard to fight a
company that has strong allies in the White House.
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happyboy
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response 110 of 264:
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Aug 13 19:06 UTC 2003 |
re107: seal training. :)
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tod
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response 111 of 264:
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Aug 13 19:12 UTC 2003 |
This response has been erased.
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dcat
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response 112 of 264:
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Aug 13 19:43 UTC 2003 |
re105: actually, he apparently didn't decide whether or not to run until his
wife told him he could.
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tod
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response 113 of 264:
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Aug 13 20:42 UTC 2003 |
This response has been erased.
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richard
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response 114 of 264:
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Aug 13 21:39 UTC 2003 |
There was an article in the New York Times earlier this week on how
crazy the California recall process is. Basically, with hundreds of
candidates on the ballot, it would be logical to list everybody running
alpabetically by last name, so you'd know where to find your candidate
on the ballot. But thats not what they are doing. They actually held
a LOTTERY style drawing where they picked letters of the alphabet out
of a hat or something randomly, and the first letter chosen determined
the first person on the ballot. So that if the first letter was "G"
and alphabetically, somebody named George Gaaronson was the first
person with the last name G whose name comes up, he'd get listed first
on the ballot. But then the second person who appears on the ballot
WOULDN'T be the second name listed alphabetically under G, it would be
the first person listed under the second letter of the alphabet that
comes up in the drawing. Or something like that. Totally absurd.
So what you'll have is several hundred people on the ballot, with the
names all scrambled and in no logical order, so you'll have to look
long and hard to find your candidate's name. This probably means LONG
lines on election day.
Also there are stories that there are right wing groups gearing up to
go hard negative on Arnold. Arnold is a Republican, but he is a
moderate, and even worse for some conservatives, is pro-choice and an
environmentalist. Those folks would rather have a DEMOCRAT as governor
than a pro-choice tree hugger! One article said they may use in ads
outtakes from Arnold's "Pumping Iron" movie, the documentary about
Arnold's bodybuilding days in the seventies, which show a young Arnold
smoking a marijuana joint, exhaling and laughing. Yep, this campaign
could get nasty! I mean unlike Clinton, Arnold couldn't even at least
deny he inhaled, because its on tape! :)
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richard
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response 115 of 264:
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Aug 13 21:45 UTC 2003 |
And another point. Shouldn't California's recall laws stipulate that a
runoff be held if no candidate in a recall election gets 50%? How can
anyone who gets elected with ten percent or less of the vote possibly
claim to have a mandate? It seems to be that this sets up whoever gets
elected to be ineffective from the start. If noone on the recall vote
gets fifty percent, and its highly unlikely anyone will, they should
have a runoff between the top two vote getters. And if the second
place person got only 4%, and there were 48% of voters voting against
recalling the Governor, it could be argued that the Governor is in
essence the first or second place vote getter and he should be in the
runoff against whoever won the recall ballot.
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scg
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response 116 of 264:
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Aug 13 22:16 UTC 2003 |
California's *general election* laws don't generally require greater than 50%
to win, nor do the general election laws in most parts of the US. You just
need a plurality.
The difference here is that in most such elections, getting on the ballot is
difficult.
Still, I suspect we'll see somebody come out of this with reasonably broad
support. Perhaps not 50%, but enough to win a three way general election at
least.
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rcurl
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response 117 of 264:
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Aug 13 22:23 UTC 2003 |
Not only is the name order for the ballots in a district determined by a
randomization of the alphabet (as mentioned above), but the order will be
permuted for each of all the voting districts, so that the name at the "top"
of each ballot will be different in each district.
This is all quite a topic of (cynical) discussion here in California.
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klg
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response 118 of 264:
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Aug 14 01:38 UTC 2003 |
According to foxnews.com, the order of the names is not rotated by
"voting district," but by state assembly district:
"The state also has a process to rotate the names in subsequent assembly
districts. If "Robinson" were the first name on the 1st Assembly
district, it would drop to the bottom of the Rs in the 2nd Assembly
District, and the second name that starts with R would go to the top of
the sequence. When the R's are finished, the first name that starts with
W will lead the ballot and all the R's would be on the bottom. There are
80 Assembly Districts in the state and 131 certified names by Wednesday
morning, so many candidates' names will never lead the list. California
implemented this system after studies showed that the traditional A, B,
C method disproportionately favors candidates with last names that
placed them higher on the ballot."
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gelinas
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response 119 of 264:
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Aug 14 03:27 UTC 2003 |
School ballots here also rotate, with every precinct having a different
ballot.
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scg
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response 120 of 264:
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Aug 14 03:44 UTC 2003 |
Klg is correct, but loses credibility points for quoting Fox News. ;)
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mrmat
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response 121 of 264:
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Aug 14 10:45 UTC 2003 |
Part of the reason they scramble the names on the ballot for each
district is because having your name at the top of the ballot gives you
an advantage. With so many names on the ballot, lazy voters may just
mark the first name they see or someone near the top of the ballot.
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johnnie
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response 122 of 264:
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Aug 14 13:23 UTC 2003 |
Yes, something like a 5% boost for being top of the ticket. Some fella
sued the state a while back for this reason, and so now they do the
lottery thing.
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gull
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response 123 of 264:
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Aug 14 14:40 UTC 2003 |
The Daily Show had fun with this last night.
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klg
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response 124 of 264:
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Aug 14 16:02 UTC 2003 |
We are, Mr. scg, fair and balanced.
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