Posted on 09/13/2003 1:37:18 PM PDT by snopercod
p>The Recall: It isn't every day that someone of Arnold Schwarzenegger's caliber gives up a highly successful career to run for public office. Californians should take advantage of the opportunity.
If they don't, we fear the worst. The state is being driven off a cliff by a one-party government led by second-rate hacks. Next month's recall election may be the only chance to turn things around.
No need to go through the problems the cavernous deficit, the porous border, the business exodus and so on and so forth. But you have to be here (and IBD is headquartered in Los Angeles) to realize how badly the state is governed.
It isn't just that Davis is incompetent letting spending run amok, choking in the face of an energy crisis, condoning one anti-business, job-killing scheme after another.
What do you expect from someone who's spent his entire adult life in state government and in mostly second-rung jobs at that?
It's that Davis is also corrupt. He spends much of his time raising money that he uses to smear anyone who's even thinking about opposing him. And he sells favors to the highest special-interest bidders.
It's no coincidence, for example, that prison guards are getting the biggest pay hike in state government after contributing more $3.4 million than any other public employee union to Davis' campaigns. Over five years, they're getting a 37% hike at a time of severe budget crisis.
The lieutenant governor, Cruz Bustamante, may not be as venal. But he's every bit as dull and perhaps even less competent.
He owes much of his political success to an Average Joe image and a certain vagueness about where he really stands. But as the clock ticks down to Oct. 7, and the need to nail down liberal votes gets serious, the veil is lifting.
He is part of an administration that presided over a tripling of car-license fees and workers' comp rates. Now he's pushing socialistic monstrosities like mandatory, employer-provided health insurance, state regulation of the oil industry and ever-higher income taxes on the state's most productive citizens.
That he doesn't seem to realize or care about the devastation such measures will bring on jobs and the economy is reason enough to disqualify him.
No sane person facing such a costly raft of tax hikes, mandates and new rules as Bustamante has proposed would choose to expand or build a new business in the Golden State.
California is the world's fifth largest economy, with nearly $1.4 trillion in output. But it won't hold that position for long if its best and brightest keep leaving in droves as they have in recent years, thanks in large part to Bustamante's and Davis' stunning incompetence.
Needless to say, Bustamante and now Davis are all for the new law that lets illegal aliens get driver's licenses, thereby further opening our borders to terrorists. (Davis at first opposed the idea. In a classic flip-flop, he reversed field after the recall movement gathered steam and it became clear he'd need Latino votes to survive).
Most residents sadly agree that California isn't what it used to be. What we fear is that after five years of Davis and another three of Bustamante, it may no longer be even recognizable.
Maybe that's the idea: Despite many opportunities to do so, Bustamante has refused to denounce the credo of a Chicano organization in which he was once active: "For the Race, everything. For those outside the Race, nothing."
Contrast all this with the engaging, inclusive and well-rounded Schwarzenegger, an immigrant who came to America with nothing and achieved everything he's put his mind to.
He's been a success in several fields, including bodybuilding, business and acting.
No dummy, he put himself through college and has written four books, including a 736-page encyclopedia of bodybuilding.
No dilettante, he has served presidents and sponsored a successful initiative to fund after-school programs for disadvantaged kids.
No shrinking violet, he married into America's royal family and attracts and holds his own with our best and brightest.
No quitter, he'll keep at the problem until it's solved.
How many Americans, let alone politicians, can set a better example for California's large and growing immigrant population?
They say Schwarzenegger has no experience in Sacramento. We say hallelujah. What's needed there now is new, positive thinking based on real-world experience and common sense.
Schwarzenegger has both.
Our admiration for Schwarzenegger is in no way a reflection on the other candidate who'd also get the job done State Sen. Tom McClintock. We've watched him for years, marveling at his grasp of the issues, impressed by his principled stands and wincing at the narrow defeats he's suffered in other attempts at statewide office.
But the conventional wisdom seems to be that McClintock, a no-nonsense conservative, will not likely be elected governor in a state in which there are a million more Democrats than Republicans.
We expect him to graciously step aside for the front-running Schwarzenegger when the time is right.
As for the more moderate (but still conservative) Schwarzenegger, it's beyond us why someone with so much going for him would want to step into such a mess.
But then, we're not Arnold Schwarzenegger.
And neither, voters surely must know, is Gray Davis or Cruz Bustamante.
Actually for the record Arnold has stated that he supported repealing SB60 from his own mouth on live interviews with Bill O'Reiley and Sean Hannity.
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McClintock can be elected. We'll start with your vote.
Thank you for the endorsement and support. You've restored my respect for you.
What is amazing is McClintock is the kind of candidate everybody claims they want to elect. Won't break promises, isn't slick and smooth, doesn't compromise his principles for a special interest buck, etc. So then the dream candidate is here, the one everybody claims they want, and people say "he can't win." Sad, sad, sad, letting the elite media keep brainwashing you into voting for a compelete slickster, the prototype politician you claim you can't stand, and you foam at the mouth for him.
Nope.... No special interest here.....
http://www.knowledgenetworks.com/ganp/calisurvey1.pdf
Sorry but I'm only accepting editorials from true bastions of conservatism such as I.E. Katie Couric, The LA Times and the National Inquirer. . .
Live! From her studio in New York City.
"Please vote for Tom McClintock. He's the choice of true conservatives everywhere. . . Like me."
Schwarzenegger, meanwhile, addressed a state Republican Party convention crowd divided over whether to back the socially moderate actor or support the more conservative McClintock, who is in line with the party faithful on issues such as abortion and guns but is widely viewed as unlikely to beat Bustamante.
Schwarzenegger sought to reassure party activists that he is one of them. He repeatedly described himself as a conservative, proclaimed, ``I love the Republican Party,'' and invoked the state's most beloved GOP figure.
``In 1964, Ronald Reagan gave a speech called 'A Time for Choosing.' That is what we face here today,'' the action star told the crowd of more than 500 at a hotel near Los Angeles International Airport.
``We as Republicans have a choice to make: Are we going to be united or are we going to be divided? Are we going to win in unity with our common fiscal conservative principles or let the liberals win because we are split? Are we going to fight Davis and Bustamante or are we going to fight among ourselves? I say, let us unite for victory.''
The speech did not mention McClintock, who was to speak to delegates Saturday evening.
The lawmaker has shown no sign of dropping out. ``I'm in this race to the finish line,'' he said at a pro-recall rally Saturday in Long Beach.
``I think if Schwarzenegger's campaign spent a fraction of the time studying the issues that they have been trying to muscle me out of the race, they'd be in much better shape today,'' McClintock told reporters after speaking at the rally.
Some Republican delegates who like McClintock said they have to be realistic in choosing whom to support.
Dottie Van Eckhardt, a delegate from Yuba City, called McClintock ``a lovely man'' but said she was supporting Schwarzenegger.
``I think McClintock probably is more experienced, but Arnold can win,'' she said.
(End of Excerpt)
Thought you all would be interested in what I bolded along with the underline. If you will note that Arnold did not go after McClintock by name in his speech and just asked Republicans to unite behind him. Read what McClintock had to say about Arnold. How anyone can keep support McClintock with his attacks is beyond me. California needs a Governor that can help get them out of the economic mess not the "my way or no way" politics of McClintock IMO!
Oh my gosh, this needs to be posted with that whiney-baby picture we usually use for the Demo's.
What a whiney loser. He's lost all admiration.
Dan
Tom Mcclintock
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