Governor claims a victory in odd 'debate' Governor claims a victory in odd 'debate'

Fresno Bee ^ | 10-25-2005 | Dan Walters

[Amerigomag]

This very odd political campaign spawned a very odd political event Monday night — a kinda, sorta, more-or-less, quasi, facsimile, pseudo-facade of a faux-debate between Gov. Schwarzenegger and two critics of the ballot measures he wants voters to approve on Nov. 8 — and Schwarzenegger delivered a strong performance to claim at least a semi-victory.

The result, not surprisingly, was an exchange of pre-digested assertions about both the measures and the motives of Republican Schwarzenegger and the Democrat/union coalition that opposes the four propositions that would, at least marginally, reduce their influence in the Capitol.

It's more than a little ironic that Schwarzenegger's foes believe that their path to defeating his measures is to pin them on him, because a year ago his public approval marks were near 70%, and he wanted the campaign to be a referendum on himself. Now, with his public standing cut in half, he's trying to soften his personal identification with the measures and portray them as a crusade to clean out entrenched interests in a Legislature that may be even less popular with Californians.

[Amerigomag]

The view of McClatchy through a liberal columnist.

[NormsRevenge]

It was definitely an odd event.

I missed the c'Rat front end of the affair.


Nothing new came to light in the last half and Torres and Doof only got a short time to say much of anything.