Posted on 08/10/2002 9:50:50 AM PDT by Tumbleweed_Connection
You may have noticed that there's something missing from the recent spate of reports predicting that California Republican Bill Simon doesn't stand a chance against incumbent Democrat Governor Gray Davis.
That something would be any actual polling data to support the conclusion.
In fact, though one media wag after another has stepped forward in recent days to pronounce Simon a political dead duck, the California conservative actually leads his left-wing opponent in the only survey released within the last two weeks.
That's right. Though the California press has buried the news so thoroughly that most of the state's voters are unaware of it, a Survey USA poll commissioned by several California network TV affiliates has Simon leading Davis 46 to 45 percent.
Not bad for a guy whose campaign is supposed to be toast.
Still, the good news didn't do much to quell critics who inexplicably maintain Simon doesn't have a prayer. Here's how the San Francisco Chronicle's Debra Saunders reacted after the Republican's lead was reported in the Washington Times.
"Bill Simon should just give up. He's a lousy candidate. He should admit it, bow out of the race, then endorse a good Republican -- Secretary of State Bill Jones -- who has a shot at beating the otherwise-vulnerable Gray Davis."
Surely, with all the pessimism on Simon's chances, there must be other polls showing Davis trouncing him.
Well, try as we might, we can't find any.
And apparently, neither could the Simon-doom-and-gloomers at the New York Times, who admitted on Saturday that an earlier survey by California's best known polling operation, Mervyn Field, showed the GOP candidate chopping Davis' lead in half within the last four months.
And that's not all.
In June, a survey by the Public Policy Institute showed Davis with a sky-high negative job approval ratings of 52 percent. Only 39 percent, noted the Times, approved of Davis' performance in office.
(Buried in a July 28 Los Angeles Times report on the California governor's poll numbers, the paper noted that only 30 percent gave him a favorable job approval rating, putting Davis in the same polling territory as Richard Nixon just before he was forced to resign over Watergate.)
So how did the New York Times headline all this good news for the Simon campaign?
Illegal aliens are voting.
Stick a fork in him; he's done.
1) The lack of a public campaign.
2) General lack of public knowledge of his credentials, his principals and his goals (except those twisted negatives touted by the Davis campaign and the mainstream media).
3) His public speaking ability.
4) The vague recollection of the families' failures in previous attempts at public office.
4) An almost embarrassasing lack of public support from those nationaly elected members of his own party.
Simon may win but if he does it will not be due to the efforts he has displayed thus far.
It is now almost mid August and the political landscape has remained unchanged ... only Davis can defeat Davis.
If he wins, he has to deal with a great variety of very serious problems that will be left to him by the Davis "administration" or, as I like to call it, "the unamusing California clown show". Problems like the huge state budget deficit, the massive, all-consuming wave of illegal immigrants whose dependence on and demand for state services is causing said deficit, etc.
He will be shackled in his efforts to actually do anything about these problems by the fact that the population of California is just to the left of Mao and has all the courage and moral clarity of Vidkun Quisling. Any attempt to address the real and serious problem of immigration in this "state" will be met with howls of "racism" and "hate" that Simon, being a Republican, will buckle to and grovel.
In all this buckling and grovelling nothing will get done, and when California finally collapses it will be Simon's "fault" because "he's the governor."
Let Davis win. Let California fall to those who want something for nothing and those who want to give it to them. Let it become the cesspit it's straining for, a muddy example for the whole world about the dangers of overregulation and cowardly, path-of-least-resistance politicians. Then let it fall into the ocean.
"Bill Simon should just give up. He's a lousy candidate. He should admit it, bow out of the race, then endorse a good Republican -- Secretary of State Bill Jones -- who has a shot at beating the otherwise-vulnerable Gray Davis."
I thought Jones had already been eliminated in the Primary...
From here it looks like he's doing very well at that! (defeating himself)
How can someone distinguish between your post and examples of gratuitous and unnecessary insult?
I'm not in California but I'm glad to see Perry in Texas is starting to fight back against his nothing-but-negative-ads liberal opponent. Republicans need to fight fire with fire and also see how certain groups of people are being manipulated by the democrats --including illegals and try to grab away at least some of their votes.
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