California Recall Daily Thread (10/6/2003) 1 Day To Go

Tomorrow the people of California will choose a Governor and as a result set a course that will affect the future of the state and our country in profound ways. This thread has been created to keep us all informed of the important developments.

I invite you to post all the major recall stories here or if it has already been posted, then add links to these posts. We welcome discussions of the candidates, the issues, campaign strategy, the polls, etc. Please be civil in your comments.

If you want to be added to a ping list on the recall please freepmail me and make sure you mention that you want to be added to the "recall ping list." I will ping you once daily at the start of the thread and occasionally if there is major breaking news.

Voter Revolt -- It's a California Thing

Los Angeles Times ^ | October 6, 2003 | Mark Z. Barabak
Posted on 10/06/2003 6:55 AM PDT by John Jorsett

We've been here before, even though this has been a campaign unlike any other.

From time to time, California erupts with a spasm of anger, a voter revolt that shudders the landscape like the inevitable, if unpredictable, earthquakes that are part of life on the continent's edge.

The effort to oust Gov. Gray Davis, less than a year after he won a second term, is part of a continuum that reaches back to Ronald Reagan's first election in 1966, amid the upheaval of the civil rights movement and campus unrest over Vietnam.

Antecedents include the revolutionary tax-slashing Prop- osition 13, the bench-clearing recall of state Supreme Court Justice Rose Bird and her liberal allies, the imposition of term limits and other moves over the last decade to straitjacket Sacramento and give voters a larger say over the day-to-day actions of their representatives....

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/995981/posts

California: But will they vote this time?

Dan Weintraub Weblog ^ | October 6, 2003 | Dan Weintraub
Posted on 10/06/2003 7:05 AM PDT by John Jorsett

This Mercury News story about the Knight-Ridder poll has some good insights about how this electorate might differ from any in the recent past, namely that Schwarzenegger is getting his margin from voters who have rarely gone to the polls.

Key graphs:

Those voters, who are either newly registered or have voted in less than half of the previous six elections, tipped the Mercury News poll in favor of both yes on the recall and Schwarzenegger as the replacement.

Such new or infrequent voters probably view the allegations against Schwarzenegger as just another distasteful helping of traditional politics, Elway said.

UPDATE: Some analysts have noted that support for the recall dropped in the final two days of this poll's four-day run. That drop has been attributed to the stories about Schwarzenegger's treatment of women. But the poll also has an aberation: a sample on Friday night that was 40 percent Democrat and only 31 percent Republican. That compares to Wednesday, when the sample was 44D, 41R and Thursday, when it was 43D, 41R. Saturday it was 43D, 39R. Here is the day by day chart....

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/995996/posts

Did Arnold Grope Leni Riefenstahl?

National Review Online ^ | 10-6-03 | Arnold Steinberg
Posted on 10/06/2003 7:14 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer

LOS ANGELES — An 80-year-old man confesses the details of a lurid affair with a college co-ed. The priest responds, "Moishe, you're Jewish. Why are you telling me?" Moishe: "I'm telling everyone!" And so is Arnold Schwarzenegger. "Maybe I did go overboard sometimes," Arnold confessed. Today, he argues, you've got a "different Arnold" running for California governor.
On Friday, Arnold's apology and Maria Shriver's speech were superb. But extended discussion of the matter is not helpful for Schwarzenegger. He's off-message as he questions why the women waited so long to report the gropings. If the recall election is seen as a ballot measure with the burden of proof on proponents, then risk-averse voters might stay with the Davis-devil they know.

Meanwhile, Democrats insist Arnold's business partner made a deal all along with tabloids to lay off the stories. But cartels never hold. For example, on Sunday, the Los Angeles Enquirer (I mean Times) headlined "4 More Women Go Public Against Schwarzenegger." And, "In all, 15 women have now accused...." Arnold's lucky the story didn't break two weeks ago. Imagine: "164 women have now charged...." Yet, in at least one prior campaign, the Times editors met privately with an accused candidate, then decided not to publish the story. That was then, this is now. And now, Gov. Gray Davis wants Arnold Schwarzenegger prosecuted for sexual battery. But a pro-Arnold weekend sign read: "Gray Davis groped me when he reached into my wallet." Fear not — there's still time for TV spots featuring Davis campaigner Bill Clinton; he can attack Arnold as a misogynist....

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/995999/posts

McClintock Does Conservatives No Favor

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | Oct. 6, 2003 | Jennifer Nelson
Posted on 10/06/2003 7:42 AM PDT by FairOpinion

Tom McClintock believes he is helping the conservative cause in California by staying in the governor's race. The state senator from Thousand Oaks couldn't be more wrong.

Attempting to recall Gov. Gray Davis is a risky business. Many people, including U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa, who helped finance the effort, have considered voting against the recall just to avoid the chance of electing Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante to the state's top job. Davis has failed as governor, but he has steered a moderately liberal course so he could continue to raise money from big business. Bustamante, however, has made no effort to disguise his disdain for business owners and will move state policy sharply to the left on all fronts.

But McClintock has vowed to stay in the race until the end. "I don't know what it is that people find so astonishing about a politician who actually keeps his promises," McClintock said on Fox News. "I promised at the beginning of this campaign that I would see it through to the finish line, and I keep my promises."

Well, some of them. Just ask Darrell Issa.

"Tom made a promise to me that he, in fact, wouldn't be a spoiler," Issa told The Washington Times. "So the pressure is on Tom to decide whether that has become the reality, that he might be becoming a spoiler." ....

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/996019/posts

Davis Calls for Arnold Grope Probe, Mum on Clinton

NewsMax.com ^ | 10/06/03 | Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff
Posted on 10/06/2003 7:59 AM PDT by kattracks

Gov. Gray Davis said on Saturday that state law enforcement authorities should investigate a series of old groping allegations against Arnold Schwarzenegger, which would require investigators to waive California's statute of limitations on sexual battery.

At the same time Gov. Davis has declined to respond to questions about whether his most prominent supporter, ex-President Bill Clinton, should face the same kind of legal scrutiny over far more serious charges of sexual misconduct.

Speaking about Schwarzenegger, Davis told a rally in Oakland on Saturday, "Some of these instances, if they are true, constitute a crime . . . I believe authorities should do their job. They should review all the facts. On the completion of that review, if they think a crime was committed, they should follow their own laws."

Though Davis aides later insisted that he was not calling for his opponent's prosecution, the governor himself continued to insist as late as Sunday night that law enforcement needed to address the situation. ....

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/996031/posts

Should Schwarzenegger Have Lockyer Investigated On California Prison Rape Policy?

Townhall/Steve Chapman: The Hidden, Accepted Horror of our Prisons ^ | October 6, 2003 | Lockyer/Chapman/aas
Posted on 10/06/2003 8:32 AM PDT by an amused spectator

Yesterday, California Attorney General Bill Lockyer called on Arnold Schwarzenegger to volunteer to be investigated over the accusations that he harassed 15 women over the last 20 years: (Attorney General wants Schwarzenegger investigated)

In June 2001, AG Lockyer was quoted as saying "I would love to personally escort Lay to an 8-by-10 cell that he could share with a tattooed dude who says, 'Hi, my name is Spike, honey.'". Many observers, including Townhall's Steve Chapman (The Hidden, Accepted Horror of our Prisons, June 7, 2001), have correctly interpreted this statement as an official sanction of prison rape by the State of California's penal system - Chapman: "Let the record show that the chief law enforcement officer for the nation's biggest state regards prison rape as a valuable feature of his correctional system." ....

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/996054/posts

Equating Arnold's Boorishness and clinton Rapes At Once Patently Absurd and Irrelevant

10.6.03 | Mia T
Posted on 10/06/2003 1:57 AM PDT by Mia T

To draw an equivalency
--moral or otherwise--
between Arnold's boorishness
and the clintons' rapes and other predations
is patently absurd.

Notwithstanding this, the recall is, if I may borrow from the rapist, himself, about w-a-a-aay more than McClintock, or Arnold, or anyone's precious conceit. It's about nothing less than our survival, folks. And if the clintons retain control of CA, you can kiss it goodbye.....

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/995880/posts

Computer scientists fear voter fraud with touch-screen voting

Associated Press ^ | 10-6-03 | RACHEL KONRAD
Posted on 10/06/2003 3:25 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) -- Punch-card ballots from Tuesday's historic recall election are sure to get a going-over by political activists, but some computer scientists think touch-screen voting machines deserve just as much scrutiny.

While punch-card ballots caused headaches for Florida election officials with their "hanging" and "pregnant" chads, 10 percent of the touch-screen machines in California don't produce paper printouts. And no printouts, the scientists say, would make a legitimate recount impossible.

"You can't do a meaningful recount if the question is about the integrity of the voting machines themselves," said David Dill, a computer science professor at Stanford University. He urged voters in the four counties using touch-screen terminals to vote with absentee ballots. ....

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/995894/posts

Schwarzenegger Win Could Have Downside for Bush

New York Times ^ | October 6, 2003 | ADAM NAGOURNEY
Posted on 10/06/2003 3:37 AM PDT by calcowgirl

POLITICAL MEMO
Schwarzenegger Win Could Have Downside for Bush

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 5 — President Bush’s political advisers have long yearned to win back this most Democratic of states. Accordingly, while wary of the unpredictable forces unleashed by California’s tumultuous recall, they were roused by the prospect that Arnold Schwarzenegger could topple Gov. Gray Davis, providing at least a psychic lift to Republicans and a demoralizing blow to Democrats going into 2004.

But now, in the final days of what has turned out to be a very messy election, even some Republicans are wondering if a victory by Mr. Schwarzenegger would be such a good thing for Mr. Bush.

Mr. Bush’s advisers have long been concerned that the pleasure of removing Mr. Davis from office would come with a cost: a wheelbarrow of fiscal and governance problems dumped into the lap of an inexperienced new Republican governor.

And now, several Republicans say, the flurry of last-minute stories about Mr. Schwarzenegger’s past — including repeated accusations of improper sexual advances toward women and a report that he once expressed admiration for Hitler — suggest that a victory for the actor might prove a dubious prize for the Republican Party, while presenting complications for Mr. Bush in 2004. ....

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/995899/posts

Challenging the Governor on His Own Lawn

New York Times ^ | October 6, 2003 | CHARLIE LeDUFF
Posted on 10/06/2003 3:45 AM PDT by calcowgirl

THE LEADING REPUBLICAN
Challenging the Governor on His Own Lawn

SACRAMENTO, Oct. 5 — The Arnold Schwarzenegger bus tour made its final stop on Sunday, on the lawn of the state Capitol.

Addressing a crowd of 10,000, Mr. Schwarzenegger was upbeat and avoided comment on the headlines of recent days about women who said the actor had molested them or a book proposal that quoted him saying he admired Hitler. He did not refer to "yellow journalism" nor did any of his supporters here try to rally the crowd, as one did on Saturday, to beat up reporters.

On Sunday, Mr. Schwarzenegger drove the high road, invoking the name of Ronald Reagan and his old line about the shining city on the hill. ....

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/995903/posts

Schwarzenegger Prompts Role Reversal Among Media

New York Times ^ | October 6, 2003 | JIM RUTENBERG
Posted on 10/06/2003 3:50 AM PDT by calcowgirl

Arnold Groped Us! Six Women's Horror Stories"

"Schwarzenegger Shocker: I Admire Hitler."

No, these scoops did not appear first in the supermarket tabloids The National Enquirer, The Star or The Globe. The news breaks, albeit with significantly more subdued headlines, actually came from mainstream news organizations like The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times and ABC News.

The top supermarket tabloids, as of Sunday morning, had let such news about Mr. Schwarzenegger alone, content in the last seven weeks of the California recall campaign to stick to the ups and downs of Ben and J. Lo or Demi and Ashton.

Like everything related to the election Tuesday, the news media landscape has turned topsy-turvy.

Two forces are at play in the apparent role reversal, newspaper editors, television executives and journalism critics say. ....

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/995905/posts

Arnold's Biggest Fan

New York Times ^ | October 6, 2003 | BOB HERBERT
Posted on 10/06/2003 4:03 AM PDT by calcowgirl

We may once have admired Hitler for whatever reasons, but I’m sure if you asked Arnold Schwarzenegger whom he admires most, the honest answer would be, “Ah-nold!”

Welcome to the world of undiluted narcissism. The man who is now the betting favorite to become the next governor of the crazy state of California has spent a lifetime pirouetting in front of cameras and mirrors, contemplating his navel and every other part of his once-buff bod....

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/995911/posts

"Yes" on Recall, "No" on the L.A. Times

Weekly Standard ^ | 10/06/2003 | Hugh Hewitt
Posted on 10/06/2003 6:25 AM PDT by veronica

The Los Angeles Times is no longer just part of the story on recall, they're now part of the election.

SUDDENLY Tuesday's election is more than a recall. It has also become a referendum on the Los Angeles Times.

In an astonishing story from page A34 of Sunday's Times, Readers Angry at The Times for Schwarzenegger Stories, the paper struggles to report the damage done to its reputation over the past three days while at the same time offering a lengthy apologia from editor John Carroll. Andrew Sullivan has described the Times as a "Smear Machine," columnist and former Times reporter Jill Stewart labeled their recent stories on Schwarzenegger as "hit pieces" and the Times' recent actions as "journalistic malpractice," and Susan Estrich used space on Friday's op-ed page to berate the paper for doing damage to women with legitimate charges of abuse. On my radio program Friday, Morton Kondracke expressed surprise and disapproval of Carroll's decisions in the run-up to Tuesday's campaign (Carroll used to be Kondracke's White House correspondent). ....

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/995972/posts

Attorney General wants Schwarzenegger investigated

Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal ^ | October 5, 2003 | Timothy Roberts
Posted on 10/06/2003 6:59 AM PDT by John Jorsett

California Attorney General Bill Lockyer on Sunday in San Jose called on Arnold Schwarzenegger to volunteer to be investigated over the accusations that he harassed 15 women over the last 20 years.

The attorney general, a Democrat, was accompanying a campaign bus tour by Gov. Gray Davis, who is the target of Tuesday's recall election....

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/995988/posts

CA Democratic Chairman Art Torres: Criticizing Busta's Tax & Spend Policies "Offensive to Latinos"

MSNBC
Posted on 10/06/2003 7:21 AM PDT by governsleastgovernsbest

Just when you thought that Art Torres couldn't sink any lower - the smarmy, slimy, unctuous phony Chairman of the California Democratic Party . . .

Torres just completed an interview on MSNBC, along with Duf Sundheim, the California GOP Chairman.

At one point, Sundheim criticized Busta for "going along with all of Gray Davis's tax and spending increases."

Torres piped up to say: "that is offensive and demeaning to Latinos."

That's right. Anytime is a good time to cry racism and seek to stir up with worst kind of passions. ....

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/996004/posts

Recall race enters final leg

http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/10/06/recall.main/index.html ^ | 10/06/03 | (no one takes credit for the article)
Posted on 10/06/2003 8:06 AM PDT by harpu

Actor (that would be 'Arnold' for those voters in Rio Linda, CA) labels groping accusations 'campaign trickery'

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) --The California gubernatorial recall election is less than a day away and the crystal ball reading California's future is anything but clear.

Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger still leads in opinion polls but his numbers have slipped in the wake of sexual harassment claims made against him in the past few days....

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/996036/posts

Schwarzenegger Candidacy Illustrates The Republican Party's Lack Of Commitment To Conservatism

Toogood Reports ^ | October 5, 2003 | Chuck Baldwin
Posted on 10/06/2003 8:12 AM PDT by Vindiciae Contra TyrannoSCOTUS

If there is anyone left who truly believes the Republican Party is committed to genuine conservative principles, the candidacy of bodybuilder/actor Arnold Schwarzenegger to be California's next governor should be enough to set the record straight.

Despite Schwarzenegger's extreme liberal views, he has won praise from Republicans nationwide. On virtually every issue worth noting, Schwarzenegger comes down on the left side of the page.

Schwarzenegger is pro-abortion, pro-homosexual rights, pro-gun control, pro-green, and pro-illegal immigration. He even said that Clinton's impeachment made him "ashamed" to call himself a Republican.

Furthermore, Schwarzenegger's immoral escapades make even Bill Clinton look unsoiled. He once bragged in an Oui magazine interview about participating in sex orgies, not to mention his repeated admissions of drug use.

In spite of his personal and philosophical discrepancies, Schwarzenegger has received accolades from notable conservatives such as Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, and Pat Robertson, not to mention practically the entire national Republican hierarchy.....

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/996041/posts

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