Giuliani leads McCain in poll of California's GOP (40% strongly conservatives support him)

Mercury News ^ | April 4, 2007 | Mary Anne Ostrom

[Yossarian]

We've gotten a little wary of the CA GOP since the whole Arnold thing. A lot of us had admired McClintock's instincts and tenacity for years, even out here in flyover country.

I still think you guys missed your chance. But I can't fix the CA GOP. I can only watch it warily from a distance.

The process by which Arnold came to power over McClintock was unusual indeed. The recall process has NO "primary" or run-off that would narrow things down to one candidate per party. Therefore in order for a party to win such a recall election, it must show strict discipline to whittle their candidates down to one by the time the ballots are printed.

As this ballot deadline approached, McClintock both gave no indication that he would pull out, despite only polling at 12 - 14 % : horribly behind both Arnold and the dangerous Mecha-idiot Cruz Bustamante.

At this time, many of us though McClintock would only split the Republican vote, letting Bustamante win. And at this point he started, frankly, to get flakey - saying something along the lines of 'that for him to cede to party requests to pull out would be giving in to terrorists'. (I can't find the exact quote right now, it's a pain to pull up between Google & FR's search engine.)

It was a real pressure cooker of a situation, and to be honest, McClintock didn't seem to be holding up all too well. And to get campaign money, he started getting into bed with indian casinos. Meantime, Arnold was going around, doing the conservative talk, promising an audit of the state budget, and beaming confidence & organization. And I got on the Arnold bandwagon. And I even made some editorial cartoons ridiculing McClintock for his new indian casino friends, and his "terrorists" remark.

(It must be said that the McClintock-to-the-bitter-end supporters claim that his name on the ballot pulled a critical slice of conservatives to vote for dumping Grey Davis, without which Grey would still be Governor. I disagree, but Lord only knows...)

Now, in the end, where do I stand? Well, Arnold has been a disaster for the party since 2005 (when he got wiped out in a special election). He expended NONE of his political clout towards the rest of the ticket in the last election, and is saddling the date with debt. And guess what - he never did the promised audit of the state government.

BUT I still think it was the right thing to support him in 2003 - it was critical to dump Davis, and to keep the truly stupid Mecha-member Bustamente out of office.

And as for McClintock? I think he learned lessons, some painful, in the recall election. I think he would have made for one hell of a CA budget director, a spot I think he could have gotten if he pulled out of the election in time. Success there would have better propelled him for other statewide offices.

Maybe. I could be all wet, too. In the end though, Tom McClintock is a good man who I'd support in the primaries for future offices - whatever he thinks he's qualified for. And Arnold is being a politically opportunistic media-hog skunk, who I'd campaign against in future primaries. And I still think I made the right call flipping that around in 2003.

Welcome to California.....

[Godebert]

"and guess what Hillary’s positions and AGENDA is on the subjects you mentioned?"

I don't need to guess.........they are the same positions as Giuliani. If Giulini wins the GOP nomination you leftists can't lose. Either way we'll have a New York liberal in the whitehouse.

[redgolum]

I know how things will end up, but the big question I have is if the country will still be here. Nations such as ours rarely fall to outside invaders without rotting from decadence first, and we are pretty rotten.

[George W. Bush]

Well, you had your reasons to vote as you did. I remember the Indian casinos. I don't recall the terrorists remark. That's quite an explanation though. As I recall, I never read any such dispassionate analysis at the time of the event on the Arnold threads.

The problem you guys have in CA is that you seem irretrievably doomed to a choice two very liberal candidates. If you cannot move the party in a more conservative direction, you're only holding off the advance of socialism by less than ten years.

And I still don't think Bustamante was so certain to beat McClintock. Bustamante was so flaky, I think the voters would have rejected him, no matter who the CA GOP ran.

[George W. Bush]

Well, you had your reasons to vote as you did. I remember the Indian casinos. I don't recall the terrorists remark. That's quite an explanation though. As I recall, I never read any such dispassionate analysis at the time of the event on the Arnold threads.

The problem you guys have in CA is that you seem irretrievably doomed to a choice two very liberal candidates. If you cannot move the party in a more conservative direction, you're only holding off the advance of socialism by less than ten years.

And I still don't think Bustamante was so certain to beat McClintock. Bustamante was so flaky, I think the voters would have rejected him, no matter who the CA GOP ran.