[feralcat]

I felt it was much better to let Davis crash the state -- it's inevitable anyhow as long as Dems/unions control the Legislature -- and show the voters who's responsible for the disaster.

I mostly felt the same way. Arnold was able to avert the immediate fiscal crisis in the state through borrowing. But that just let people's sense of urgency for reform decline. So now the dumb Californians think every sweet sounding government program can just keep on spending more and more money in perpetuity.

Still, this was all less a left wing victory than a straight up "sheeple" election. If it were a left wing victory, then the two socialist propositions 79 (drug giveaway) and 80 (energy re-regulation) would have passed. The unions spent big money against Arnold's initiatives and they lost. The drug companies spend big money against 79 and it lost. The voters did what the TV told them to do.

[Bernard Marx]

The voters did what the TV told them to do.

Yes, and it was the dirtiest, most distorted, most lying TV campaign from the Left I've ever seen -- and I've seen some bad ones. Whether the sheeple can be manipulated or not, it's a left-wing victory. A win's a win.

As for the sense of urgency for reform, the upshot is that now Republicans will be blamed entirely for the slow-motion disaster in CA. As far as I'm concerned it's the worst of all possible outcomes. And already our SchwarzenKennedy is promising to "compromise" with the Bolsheviks in the Legislature. Sometimes I wonder if this whole thing was engineered from Hyannisport.