Posted on 02/04/2002 9:46:05 AM PST by ElkGroveDan
Remember the old conflict between Lucy and Charlie Brown on the football field? She would always promise to properly hold the football for Charlie Brown to kick and then just as he put all he had into a running kick she would pull the ball away sending poor Charlie Brown flying into the air and landing embarrassingly on his back. No matter how many times Lucy reneged on her promises, Charlie Brown would always believe her sincerity and take one more run at the ball.
This story clearly illustrates the relationship between the Republican Party and much of the establishment press here in California. Allow me to share my experience this morning as an example.
As the five week mark drew near in the new March Primary for the Governor's race a number of polls were about to be announced with some significant trends that were important. In a Los Angeles Times poll Bill Simon's support was going to surge from 4% to 19%.
More importantly, former Los Angeles Mayor Riordan's support had slipped, and when you looked at a low turnout, which everyone expects, Mr. Simon was within the margin of error. The famous Field Poll also had new numbers to release. Again, Mr. Simon had surged from his earlier showing and more importantly Mr. Riordan had not shown any movement even after weeks of heavy TV buys.
Obviously, a BIG part of any news stories this morning should have been the movement by Mr. Simon. So how did the media handle the news this morning? I opened my Sacramento Bee to see the blazing above the fold headline "Riordan still out in front of pack," which has been true for almost six months. This is front-page news? Turning to page three, the headline for a major columnist reads, "Poll confirms that Riordan is big threat to Gov. Davis' reelection", and the spin continues.
Despite their claims of "objectivity" the vast majority of California's press and opinion leaders are liberal and do not have the best interests of the Republican Party or conservatives in mind when they decide what to write about on any given day. Some of this perceived bias is ignorance about who and what we are, but most is a natural defense of what they want in their heart: Sort of like Lucy's insatiable appetite to embarrass poor Charlie Brown. They really do want a governor that supports all the spending programs they like. It would be embarrassing for them to see a liberal Democrat like Mr. Davis be the first governor in over 50 years to fail in his attempt for a second term.
So why would the press treat Mr. Riordan with kid gloves if he is the major threat to Governor Davis' reelection?
Republicans REALLY want to believe that the press will be fair this time if we nominate someone they are comfortable with like the liberal former mayor. Remember, the reason everyone believes that Mr. Riordan is a formidable opponent for Governor Davis is because the political pundits and press folks have been telling us that for the past year - in order for a Republican to win statewide in California, they must be a liberal.
What the talking heads are certainly not pointing out is that Mr. Riordan is actually the weakest candidate that Republicans could field because there are so many scandals in his record. The Davis campaign would have plenty to attack Riordan on in the fall election. But won't that make Governor Davis look like he is running a negative campaign? Not if all he is doing is repeating all the investigative reports and negative columns that are written by the press, AFTER the Republicans nominate Mr. Riordan in March.
Yes, they are planning to pull the ball away from those poor Republicans once again.
If the Republicans nominate Mr. Riordan, he will be unable to hold the conservative base together. I predict that he will suddenly face vicious attacks from the once-friendly press. The investigative stories will begin on March 6th: Californians will suddenly find out that Mayor Riordan charged the highest prices of any supplier for power that the rest of California desperately needed during the energy crisis. The police and education scandal stories out of Los Angeles during his reign will become legend. The press will wonder in their "objectivity" how a "Republican" mayor could have had someone like Web Hubbell on the public payroll during the Clinton scandals.
After a few months of this with full TV support from the Davis operation which has over $35 million in the bank, Mayor Riordan's negatives will be so high and his poll numbers so low that the "concerned" members of the press will begin to ask how the Republicans could have been so naive as to nominate such a damaged candidate. That would add up to another losing year for Republicans here in California. Of course, the press won't dwell on this part of the story for too long because by then they will be starting to set up the next ball. They will be working to convince the Republicans that they need to find a moderate to liberal candidate to run against Senator Barbara Boxer in 2004!
Perhaps the time has come to stop listening to the press and the pundits. Perhaps instead, California's Republicans should let someone else hold the ball and score some field goals here in the Golden State, as we did with "politically inexperienced and unknown" candidate Ronald Reagan in 1966 and 1980!
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Theron Johnson is the director of California's Heritage PAC and President of Cherish California's Children, Inc.
Giving Riordan the helm of the California GOP, is like giving the third-mate the helm of the Exxon Valdez. It is a disaster waiting to happen.
Will large numbers of left wingers cross over in the primary to vote for Riordian to help him win like they did for McAinal in 2000 in California's presidental primary election?
The fact that those "attack ads" against Riordian re him being against abortion does not identify Davis as the sponsor of the ads suggests a three card monty trick being set up by the left wing press.
Yes! Go Bill Simon!
Will somebody please send this to John McCain? He seems to think they will really like him if he adandons everything he stands for. Hello, John, you are being used and they don't really like you.
We no longer have an open primary, but Decline-to-state voters can CHOOSE to vote in the Republican primary. Democrats can't.
What is to keep them from re registering as "Decline to state" voters before this election, just to vote in the primary?
When did this little thing happen re no open primaries? We need Cray computers and satellite access to the internet to keep up with all of this.
Thanks for the feedback.
This cross over voting in primaries was a DemonicRat scheme to allow the DemonicRats to vote for our weakest candidate to derail our strongest candidates!
I think sometime in the beginning of 2001 or end of 2000, the courts threw out open primaries. Unfortuantely, the Republican Party in it's infinite wisdom decided to allow decline-to-state voters to vote in the Republican Party. Believe me, if I had know this at the time I would have made a big issue of it! But it's over and done with. Maybe we can change it later --
Anyway, we need to do everything we can to elect Bill Simon.
Not likely to happen before the next primary in Illinois I'm afraid. The only way I can see for the state to remain habitable will be if Corine Wood and Jim Ryan (no relation to King George the RINO) manage to sufficiently damage each other in their campaigns to allow O'Malley to win the nomination.
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