Posted on 11/06/2002 11:13:00 AM PST by RightOnTheLeftCoast
It's certainly distressing that the Golden State was unable to scrape Gray Davis off its shoe last night. Challenger Bill Simon did well everywhere except the big cities and limousine-liberal counties:
For much of the night he was ahead of Davis. That was fun, but I kept reminding folks that the big metro areas hadn't spoken. Then L.A. County's numbers came in, well after the agricultural areas and suburbs had shot their wad (agriculture is California's largest industry, but it doesn't count for squat electorally), and that gave Davis all his margin:
| Los Angeles County Returns | County Returns | Statewide | Other Contests |
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Candidate Party Votes Percent |
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Los Angeles County * Gray Davis Dem 588,811 55.9 |
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Isn't that amazing? One county gave Davis his entire freaking margin! One county!
Analysis:
You gotta understand, Simon won his primary in a stunning upset. To many, that was unforgiveable. The originally-anointed candidate, Richard Riordan, was former mayor of L.A. and a committed leftist: Barbara Lee applauder, taxer-and-spender, house-to-house gun confiscator... in other words, what some folks call a RINO, meaning "Republican in name only". Other folks prefer the term "electable", though that's far from certain considering his primary-race flameout. Anyway, after Simon crushed him, holding him to only his home county in the primary and burying him under an 18% margin statewide, Riordan spent practically the entire general election campaign licking his wounds and taking occasional snippy potshots at Simon, muttering about mounting a write-in campaign and other immature sour-grapes stuff like that. So it's no surprise that Riordan's county-of-prominence is what won the election for Davis all by itself. Really, the numbers are damning, and put to lie all the cr@p pundits are spouting about what a bad candidate Simon was and the futility of running a conservative in California. Sure, Simon was inexperienced-- never so much ran for student council before, as far as I know, and his campaign had many malaprops and stupidities and several doses of bad luck and worse judgment. But he won more of the state than Dan Lungren did four years ago. And let's not forget, his primary was brilliant. His biggest mistake was that he didn't see the need (as Reagan saw intuitively, being an experienced union president) to make peace and otherwise neutralize the GOP's notoriously fractious factions and appease icons like Riordan immediately after the primary. (Let's put it this way: Reagan coined the 11th Commandment for good reason.) And the Party powers-that-be here let Riordan get away with his bad behavior (and furthermore meddled with Simon's superb street-fighter primary team). We had four or five visits by Bush, about ten from Giuliani (big friend of Simon's), and even McCain last week, and a fair amount of national GOP money, which in hindsight should all have been poured into L.A. ...including to buy a muzzle and straitjacket for Riordan or send him away on a long vacation.
Simon can congratulate himself for a valiant first effort and for sticking to his principles more than most first-time candidates who land in the big-time do. I hope he's not done with politics. He's a good man in every sense of the word, and California is poorer for his loss. Much poorer: Gray Davis' deficit for this year alone amounts to nearly $700 per man, woman and child here; he's driven state spending up 34.6% in his first term, and he's done nothing to solve the lack of energy supply or address looming water and transportation crises (except declare that California has built its last freeway, which is hardly any solution).
California needs your prayers. Yesterday was a very bad day for the state.
Except at the local level in less urban areas, the republican party is dead in California. Weak or non-existent leadership. Also the demographics, immigration and increasing democratic power portend more of the same. A corrupt disasterous democrat was just reelected to the top spot and swept others in with him. The ex-mayor of LA might have won, but he'd be a democrat in any other state.
It will take a miracle or ressurection to beat the democrats in the next Cal election.
BTW, This just goes to show how goofy the LP voters really are.
"In hindsight - maybe Sec of State Bill Jones would have been a better candidate."
Ah bin sayin' that all along.
"1996 Dole 3,828,380
1998 Lundgren 3,218,030
2000 Campbell 3,886,853
2000 Bush 4,567,429
this year:
Davis 3,141,000
Simon 2,812,000"
Looks to me the Republicans didn't bother to vote.
That's what hurts the most. Bill Jones went all over the state telling people to just go and vote. He said that if all the Republicans would vote, Simon would win. He was right but the Republicans in this state are so INFURIATING! We just roll over and let ourselves be abused. Grrrrrrrrrr! Just think of all the democrapic Californians who went to the polls yesterday and voted for Satan himself and his many minions while the so-called Republicans stayed home and didn't even bother. It's enough to make you cry. Ack!
| Los Angeles County Returns | County Returns| | Other Contests |
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Candidate Party Votes Percent |
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Los Angeles County * Gray Davis Dem 874,382 55.9 |
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I think if you got a good candidate (Arnold?) and energized the base, you'd make it Reagan Country all over again. Good Luck! (And keep Doofus away from those tofu and berry shakes he drinks for breakfast - every day - the guy is seriously loony.)
And I voted straight-line Republican. Said NO to every bond measure, every feel-good idea on the ballot...
There is one other way I can still vote- with my feet. I finish my degree in March next year... And then I'm leaving this cess-pool of Socialism, which I've referred to for years as Kalifornia.... Had Simon won, I would have considered staying... Even though all of the job-offers I have thus-far received have been mid-west or east coast...
But not now.
It's time to leave. North Flori-duh is looking pretty good, right now....
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Bill Simon Rep 371,477 35.3