Posted on 06/23/2004 11:25:54 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
SACRAMENTO - As he gears up for an expensive fight to defeat a pair of gambling measures on the November ballot, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is also moving to thwart proposed regulations that would block him from raising unlimited sums for his political campaigns.
Schwarzenegger is taking aim at rules under debate at the state political watchdog agency that would tighten campaign-finance rules so elected officials who are bound by contribution caps can't set up special ballot-measure committees to raise unrestricted funds.
The Republican governor has used existing rules to raise record sums for his political operation -- a move that has drawn criticism from campaign-finance advocates and scrutiny by the state Fair Political Practices Commission, which will debate the issue Friday. Since taking office, Schwarzenegger has raised a record-breaking $12.7 million, surpassing the six-month tally of his prolific fundraising predecessor, Democrat Gray Davis.
``There is clearly a way in which the ballot-measure committees are used as a continuation of candidate campaigns, and I don't think that's what the voters wanted or intended,'' said Sacramento lawyer Thomas Knox, who sits on the five-member commission.
(Excerpt) Read more at mercurynews.com ...
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Arnold clearly wants to control the political money that is raised, exactly the way Wilson's handlers trained him. Nothing to sell there, nosiree.
We'll see if Maria ends up on the BoD at ARCO!
It's a thing of beauty to watch the Dems attempt to rein in Arnold's fundraising abilities...in stark contrast to how they turned blind eyes towards Gray Davis' lesser efforts.It opens them up to all sorts of charges in campaigns. It makes them vulnerable on so many levels.
No doubt that the Arnold-haters will despise watching the results of such feeble attempts, too!
Excuse me, but Arnold has been caught breaking campaign fundraising laws before. So what is politically beneficial about spreading the news statewide that the governor has no regard for the law and cravenly pursues political payoffs?
That message, which Arnold is feeding, will do more to drive people to the left than anything. It will be used to color conservatives with it, as predicted.
Everybody knows the Democrats are corrupt. Not so many know that the Democrats are tools of big business. Republicans get hit with that brush instead, even though they get more of their historic support from small business. To play into that impression is thus destructive to the GOP base.
So you celebrate.
You mischaracterize everything that Arnold does. If he's broken any laws, file charges against him.
The facts argue otherwise.
He's already gone to court and lost. I don't have to file charges, there are plenty who will do it and it will get LOTS of play in the press. It will do damage to Republicans Statewide.
You celebrate.
These charges are trivial. They mean something to you only because you are desperately seeking a scandal. To a woman with a hammer, every problem looks like a scandal nail.
Nor will such charges "damage" the nearly non-existent Republican Party in California. You had one Republican in statewide elected office prior to Arnold, now you have 2 at most (if that).
Such charges will simply make Arnold more popular, as his rebuttable will no doubt play better in the media than the charges themselves against him.
Just as wild-eyed claims against Hillary made her more popular, so too will Arnold grow as extremists victimize him.
Day in and day out you are posting anti-Arnold nonsense. Day in and Day out Arnold grows more popular.
Enjoy your frustrations. They'll be what little comfort you have to look forward to.
It's the media that look for scandal deary.
Nor will such charges "damage" the nearly non-existent Republican Party in California. You had one Republican in statewide elected office prior to Arnold, now you have 2 at most (if that).
Thanks to Pete Wilson, RINO extraoridinarie, and unlike either after Reagan or Deukmejian. Arnold is making the same moves that are destructive to the GOP base. If he finally pisses off conservatives and they sit out, it's the end for the GOP until there's another Reagan, just like it was after Earl Warren.
Such charges will simply make Arnold more popular, as his rebuttable will no doubt play better in the media than the charges themselves against him.
Substantiate that, with references please.
Such charges will simply make Arnold more popular, as his rebuttable will no doubt play better in the media than the charges themselves against him.
Extremists? The judge that chastised him for his $4.5 million dollar campaign loan was a Republican (a loan that he later tried to pay off with other people's money, thus changing an illegal cash infusion into a BLATANTLY illegal cash infusion). When he was finally busted, Arnold said, "fantastic!" I'll bet you agreed.
Day in and day out you are posting anti-Arnold nonsense. Day in and Day out Arnold grows more popular.
Substantiate that, with references please.
Enjoy your frustrations. They'll be what little comfort you have to look forward to.
I'm looking forward to it indeed.
I'll have to peek at the Alabama topic. It must be really boring.
Only two (2) new posts on the Alabama Topic about Alabama in the last eight (8) days. One about a chicken and the other about three (3) dead cops.
I knew it. Poor Southack is probably loosing his mind waiting for something to talk about.
Attacking me won't improve either your own anti-Arnold arguments or your self-image.It doesn't even make for a good distraction.
No doubt, however, that doing anything besides reminishing about how Arnold is more popular in your own state than you would desire...is preferable to you.
Not only sedulously misinformed, but characteristically incoherent!
Please tell us what "reminishing" is, inebriated nostalgia perhaps?
Please take Arnold to Alabama. I won't complain.
Maybe he can do something positive about the old chicken and the 3 dead cops.
Arnold owns California simply because so many of you locals are so insulated from anything happening outside of your own homesteads that you've lost track of the reality on the ground.Arnold came into your state and conquered it.
You'll be hard pressed to ever figure out how he did it.
The plain truth is that numerous outsiders know your own state better than you do.
Most conservatives in California know exactly how Schwarzenegger did it. With the help of Republican Party loyalists, many from outside California. Loyalists hungry for a partisan victory no matter how high the cost. That blind loyalty to partisan politics along with some truly shameless behavior on this forum has created the rancor among the locals toward the interlopers.
Do California conservatives understand what happened and is continuing to happen in California and it's effects on national politics? Of course they do. That's why they're screaming so loudly and are so quick to point an accusatory finger at the moderate wing of the Republican Party.
Beyond the obvious bad manners, the myopic strategy and the steadfast refusal to examine the results of Schwarzenegger's stewardship in light of traditional conservative, Republican values these interlopers have the audacity and gall to assume that they know more about the state's political machinations than locals who have lived and worked within the California political system for decades.
Do conservatives Freepers in California wonder about aimlessly on other state topics? Of course they don't. First, they have their hands full waging a virtual war against "compassionate conservative" values which are about to sink the state into a perpetual morass of insolvency. Second, they have the common sense to stay out of arguments which they little appreciate and don't fully comprehend. Last, they're simply too polite or smart, take your choice, to walk into another man's house and challenge his knowledge of the neighborhood, the basic definition of an interloper.
All of you locals still don't get it. Arnold *is* an interloper. He came in and saw that you locals weren't minding the store.
Now the store is his.
Whine away at how you lost on your own turf; the fact remains, you radicals lost while pragmatic conservatives won a victory by having Arnold get in to kill such things as Gray Davis' illegal alien drivers license law, car tax, and lack of appropriate revenue from Indian casinos.
So much verbosity, so little knowledge of the facts.
Schwarzenegger has trumpeted that he is about to provide driver's licenses to illegal aliens, did not reduce the taxation on motor vehicles (still at 2% of assessed valuation) and left literally billions on the table (getting less than 4% of the gross revenue when other states got from 10% to 30%) in a faint effort to fulfill a campaign pledge in spirit only.
Schwarzenegger is clearly a nice guy, has never lied to the voters, and is doing better than most expected but he is still a liberal businessman who has proposed an increase in state spending, championed the single greatest indebtedness the state has offered to it's electorate, increased taxes, and steadfastly refused to cut off the "less fortunate" from the public trough.
But of course the loyalists know all this. They just refuse to publicly acknowledge it, for the good of the party. The reasoning is apparently that if this liberal businessman's track record is spun, it will somehow improve the chances of a national victory in November.
A what expanse? The largest state in the nation perpetually bankrupt and on the verge of loosing it's sovereignty to extra-nationals. No thanks. I'd rather it happen to Alabama. I promise I won't attempt to interfere.
Like I said, you locals know nothing of your own state:
When San Jose Budget Director Larry Lisenbee checks the city's bank account this morning it will be missing nearly $3 million. In Los Angeles, the accounts will be $13 million short. In tiny Parlier in the Central Valley, $52,000 -- nearly half the city's monthly budget -- won't be there, all from payments never deposited overnight by the state.
Today the rubber hits the road for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's reduction of the state's car tax. The monthly payments from vehicle license fees that cities and counties use to pay for police and firefighters' salaries, write welfare checks and keep library lights on will shrink by nearly $300 million, for a total loss of nearly $4 billion.
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