SAUNDERS: Primary or purgatory?

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 6/8/6 | Debra J. Saunders

[SmithL]

FORGET the conventional wisdom. This was not a particularly negative campaign season. Sure, state Controller Steve Westly called state Treasurer Phil Angelides a developer, and Angelides called Westly a toady to the man both want to unseat, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. That's chump change, compared to mud slung in years past.

Think back to the recall and unsubstantiated stories about Schwarzenegger sexually harassing women. In 2002, GOP gubernatorial nominee Bill Simon accused Gov. Gray Davis of illegally accepting a $10,000 campaign contribution on state property -- and then had to retract his charge. In 1992, Davis had to apologize for ads that compared Dianne Feinstein, his opponent in the primary election for U. S. Senate, to convicted felon Leona Helmsley. Barbara Boxer won her U.S. Senate seat after a Democratic Party operative revealed that her GOP rival had visited a strip club.

I never heard anyone say: How dare Westly say that about Angelides?

The problem with this year's primary is that it didn't offer much positive. Neither Dem had a credible plan for addressing the state's financial woes. Both took the easy, if inadequate, tack of promising to tax only other people (that is, rich people)