Fine editorial, but hardly what most FReepers would consider to be "breaking news"...
Posted on 08/18/2003 11:46:29 PM PDT by abigail2
The Golden State, The Trojan RINO and The Man Who Said “Nigger”
Exclusive commentary by Patrick Rooney
Director of Special Projects
BOND
Aug 18, 2003
“Welcome to California—Now Go Home!” said the old bumper sticker. That’s what I want to tell those “experts” who think they know what’s best for us.
I was born and raised in the Golden State. And like a lot of Californians, I’ve come to a certain ambivalence about it. Love the weather. Love the beaches. Love the mountains. Love the opportunity. Too bad the people have screwed it all up.
Ronald Reagan was once our symbol: strong, principled, sunny, free. But somewhere along the line, we lost our way. And as despicable as Governor Davis is, there’s a lot more wrong with this state than just his sorry carcass.
True, Davis has rolled a gigantic economic burden onto the state with his gross mismanagement of our energy crisis. And true, the governor told us one figure on the state’s budget deficit to get elected, then pulled the ole bait and switch and informed us the deficit was billions more than he had just reported. And true, Davis has resorted to the most shameless pandering to save his political hide. Two weeks ago he signed a bill to levy large fines on business owners if they refuse to hire a man who fancies wearing skirts to work. Now he’s promised driver’s licenses for illegal aliens, reversing an earlier position for the opportunity to bow before the radical Hispanic voting block.
But Davis is just one corrupt liberal Democrat among legions in Sacramento. Last month a group of these creatures was caught on a public microphone conspiring on how to build public support for tax hikes by purposely continuing a time-consuming and expensive (to the taxpayers) budget deadlock.
California has about ten percent more registered Democrats than Republicans. One reason for this is the dominance liberal San Francisco and Los Angeles maintain over the state. Our culture has been slowly poisoned by the values of “anything goes” Frisco and Hollywood. Is it any wonder the leading Republican contender for the Recall is a famous actor?
We’ve reached a breaking point, but I’m sorry to tell you, our crisis will not be solved by a liberal movie star (Ah-nold) some have blasphemously called a “Reagan conservative”, or a liberal political hack (Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante) whose primary claim to fame is letting the word “nigger” slip during a Black History Month speech! Yes, folks, these are our frontrunners!
The prevailing wisdom is that true conservatives are unelectable in California due to demographics and history. The theory doesn’t hold water, though, when examined closely. For instance, look at Reagan. “Yeah, but he was governor many decades ago!” you say. Okay, but what about the Presidential races of 1980 and ’84, when he nuked Carter and Mondale—in California!
In the recent governor’s election, a conservative, Bill Simon ran against Gray Davis. Simon, with no previous experience in politics, ran an abysmal campaign, capped off by a debate appearance in which he attempted to sandbag Davis by producing a photo of the governor purportedly accepting an illegal contribution in the state Capitol. Turned out the photo was apparently not taken in the Capitol at all—ouch!
Simon also did a campaign flip-flop, first appearing to court homosexual voters, and then backing away when his conservative base recoiled. The pundits predicted Simon would be blown out on Election Day, but lo and behold he ended up losing by only five percentage points. Not a bad showing in “liberal” California. By the way, contrary to the predictions of “experts”, Simon pummeled moderate ex-L.A. mayor Dick Riordan in the Republican primary. Riordan and Ah-nold happen to be friends and are virtually identical politically.
This time around, it looks like it’s State Senator Tom McClintock’s turn as the conservative of choice. He’s been a movement stalwart for twenty years, and ran a strong race in the last election, losing the state Controller’s race by a whisker. He’s just picked up the support of the California Republican Assembly, the state’s premier conservative activist group. A strong conservative candidate has as much chance in this anti-Davis atmosphere as anyone in this horse race. “Not electable”? Don’t believe it.
But interestingly, famous conservatives from Hannity to Coulter to Horowitz are speaking highly of Ah-nold as a candidate. Strange, as every day the man looks less and less conservative. We know he felt “ashamed to call myself a Republican” when we impeached President (“I did not have sex with that woman”) Clinton. He supports abortion, homosexual adoption, and gun control. He’s “impatient” with the religious right. And he wants businesses to come back to California, so he can tax them to pay for more social programs.
Now he chooses the tax-loving Warren Buffet as his economic advisor, and long-time Democratic activist Rob Lowe is on board too. Lowe appears to have cleaned up his act, but he’s still probably most famous for videotaping himself having sex with two young women—one of whom was underage—at the 1988 Democratic Convention in Atlanta. What next? Ah-nold’s numbers are starting to drop, particularly among conservatives. Anyone surprised?
Democrat Bustamante is worse. He’s a former member of the radical Chicano student group MECHA, whose goal is to return the entire Southwest of the U.S. to Mexico, by force if necessary, as part of the mythical land of Aztlan. He’s never distanced himself from MECHA. Bustamante is nothing if not a political opportunist. At one point word leaked out that he was considering pulling a power play and assuming the governorship if the voters recalled Davis. He quickly backpedaled, and said of the Recall vote itself: “There is no circumstance in which I would be a candidate.” Now of course, that statement has blown away in the wind with his credibility. Is anyone calling him on this? What a sad state of affairs.
Democrats are obsessed with winning, as power is all they have in their empty souls. Republicans are obsessed with “winning”, defined only as having someone with an “R” after their name win an election, no matter their actual positions. Ah-nold is clearly a Trojan RINO (Republican In Name Only). Personally, I’m much less interested in whether a candidate is a Republican or Democrat, than I am in the actual character, philosophy and credentials of a candidate. Aren’t you?
I love California, and I love freedom. I love winning too. And that’s the rub. I know what winning is, and what it isn’t. And how great is the risk, really, in pursuing a real victory, particularly when the alternatives are not so far apart.
Fine editorial, but hardly what most FReepers would consider to be "breaking news"...
Sounds contrary to Homeland Defense...but what do I know?
Don't blame me! I didn't say it!...(I just think it.)
Sounds to me like he's being set up as to be the lesser of 2 evils instead of the savior of California and her fiscal woes!
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