DAVIS AD BARRAGE POLLUTES AIRWAVES AS HIS CAMPAIGN DONORS POLLUTE SAN FRANCISCO BAY

SACRAMENTO - Simon for Governor Campaign Manager Rob Lapsley today released the following statement: Governor Gray Davis today released a series of ads that demonstrate exactly why he is unfit to serve a second term as Governor of California. In the ads, Davis and his campaign make patently false statements about his failed record, and use doublespeak, scare tactics and outright lies to cover his deplorable record on the environment, education and the economy.

In one ad, titled "Global," Davis seeks to paper over his failed leadership, incompetence and seeming sale of California's environmental protection and quality to the highest bidder:

Davis allowed TOSCO to increase dumping of the cancer causing agent Dioxin into San Francisco bay by 400 percent after he took $50,500 in campaign cash from the company, Davis says he's against offshore oil drilling, but dozens of new wells have been drilled or deepened from offshore platforms during the first two years of his administration, Davis led the way for construction of the largest U.S. offshore oil and gas development outside Alaska, and he has taken over $1 million from the oil and gas industry since being elected governor, Davis stacked the North Coast Water Control Board so that Pacific Lumber Company, which has given him $61,000 in two years, could clear-cut forests, kill fish and pollute streams, Davis let chemical and biotech companies ignore a judge's order, and increase dumping of low-level radioactive waste products in ordinary landfills. Davis has held a fundraiser with the industry, and tried to help them increase their dumping. What Davis does not say in this or any other ad is that California does not have enough qualified teachers, or that his managerial incompetence during the energy crisis will cost future generations of Californians billions of dollars in the years to come, or that he spends up to 12 hours per day adding to his record-breaking campaign cash account. In the ad titled "Restore," Davis takes credit for California's growing economic role on the world stage. How ironic. The only thing Davis has restored is multi-billion deficits into the California economy.

By his inattention and incompetence, Davis racked up billions more in debt due to his failure to deal with the energy crisis.

Regarding the California economy, Davis continues in an Al Gore-like fashion to assault businesses in the state at the same time he is extracting campaign cash, by playing one interest group against another.

We have seen headlines in recent weeks that show unemployment on the rise, top companies laying off thousands of workers, and our deficit swelling by hundreds of millions. Governor Davis is adept at providing pet projects to his most lucrative campaign contributors, but he has saddled the state and its businesses with billions of dollars in additional costs by giving sweetheart deals to labor unions.

Another thing Governor Davis has restored is runaway government growth and spending, by swelling the state payroll by over 40,000 and blowing right through a phony, self-imposed hiring freeze by adding 10,000 new bureaucrats.

In the ad titled "Funded," Gray Davis attacks Simon for his support of a New Jersey charity where needy, pregnant women are given shelter and care before and after giving birth. Despite Davis' attempt to malign this charity and its supporters, this organization recently received a $50,000 grant from talk show host Rosie O'Donnell - demonstrating bi-partisan support for the organization.

Also, Gray Davis said in July 2000 that there are enough gun laws on the books and that the Legislature should study the effect of existing laws before enacting any new gun laws.

In his fourth ad, titled "Webster," Davis looks up a few choice words from the dictionary. Perhaps he should look up a few more words applicable to his own administration; words like corruption, incompetence, and greed. Gray Davis is the walking, talking embodiment of a corrupt politician with no ethics, who will use whatever taxpayer resources he needs to secure his own political future.

Davis gave a major campaign contributor a $95 million software contract that state government did not need or want, Davis and his administration are still under investigation by the US and California Departments of Justice, Insider stock trading by Davis' Press Secretary Steve Maviglio was so obvious that the Los Angeles Times called on him to resign or be fired. After rampant conflicts of interest were discovered among Davis' hand picked group of energy consultants, and after the Oracle scandal exposed the dark underside of Davis' pay-to-play administration, the governor sacrificed half a dozen senior administration officials to protect his fundraising administration. Davis uses taxpayer resources to conduct campaign activities, which led the Howard Jarvis Taxpayer's Association to file a complaint with the Fair Political Practices Commission alleging illegal use of state time and staff to benefit the Davis campaign. Is it any wonder that Davis is so unpopular with members of his own party? Davis is pitting agriculture against labor in an attempt to drive up his campaign contributions, to the disgust of his own party. This is just the latest example of the way Davis conducts his day-to-day political business, and why Davis' negative ratings are at or above 50 percent in nearly every poll.

This is why the public will not re-elect such a craven and dishonest politician.

I've been involved in a few campaigns too, and I agree that the last two weeks can be win/lose time. The Rats know that too, and they're masters at the last-minute scandal-smear. Remember Herschenson's strip show? Bush's 'secret' trip? Dubya's drunk driving incident? And dozens of others that left no time for the candidate to fully recover?

The attrition-type smear campaigns we're seeing these days are something different. Like the water torture the drip-drip-drips add up. And you'd be naive to think there won't be a Nasty Big Lie coming for Simon in the last 2 weeks of the campaign. Count on it.

Dan, I applaud the work you're doing. But you're wasting your breath on a lot of these folks. If they've been told once they've been told 500 times why the campaign is not yet advertising. That does not even slow them down in their armchair quarterbacking/criticism.

I personally think a small momentum shift is all Simon needs right now. The Presidential visits next week will be good shots in the arm, showing donors and volunteers the President is still on board, and they'll be good for a couple of points in the polls. Plus the money they'll raise can be used after Labor Day for ads, further raising Simon's numbers and hopefully lowering Davis' anemic numbers even more.

Some of the folks around here just crack me up. When Simon was leading in 9 of 11 polls, they completely ignored the polls and just complained that Simon can't win. Now that ONE DEMOCRAT poll shows Davis up by 17 points, they embrace this poll and complain Simon can't win.

Keep the faith, friend!

I have only one question to those who are compaining about Simons' failure to retaliate: Have you made a generous contribution to his campaign?

We all know most haven't even considered it. That would involve doing something besides criticizing.

I have.

I applaud you!

Davis is doing nothing with his ads now but attempting to hold hard core democraps from going Green. Those ads will have very little effect on people that are undecided.

It's worth noting that even after all Davis' ads, the beleaguered incumbent still couldn't break 48% in a Dem poll. But all anyone around here wants to do is talk about Simon's problems. LOL

Ought to be a law against it. LOL

I'm dead serious, there should be.
It is IMHO no accident that the First Amendment protects the right to listen/read only as an implication of the right to speak/print.
The government, in the form of the FCC, defines frequency bands in which it grants you a "right to listen" but denies you the right to speak. That's fundamentally in conflict with First Amendment principle, and that fact must eventually be faced. If you blow away the smoke, broadcasting is a species of telecommunication, not an inherent characteristic of wireless. Analog communications puts you into the mindset of frequency channels. Wireless internet, OTOH, does not require dedicated frequency channels for every individual transmission.
The point is that FCC "regulated" broadcasting is obsolescent, in that digital wireless can transcend the supposed scarcity of bandwidth which is the raison d' etre of the unconstitutionally licensed communication known as broadcast. And that "regulated" belongs in quotes because, as the Nov 2000 fiasco dramatized, broadcast licensees are not even being prevented from intruding on the election-day vote.
Broadcast licensees should, from their priveledged position, have no input to politics at all--and since journalism is and always was politics, that means broadcast journalism is illegitimate. Throw in a ban on broadcast political ads, and you have campaign cost reform that's actually constitutional!

My count:

TOTAL PARAGRAPHS: twelve
PARAGRAPHS ABOUT HOW BAD DAVIS IS: twelve
PARAGRAPHS ABOUT HOW GREAT SIMON IS: zero
PARAGRAPHS ABOUT BAD THINGS DAVIS HAS DONE OR BEEN: twelve
PARAGRAPHS ABOUT GREAT THINGS SIMON HAS DONE OR BEEN: zero
PARAGRAPHS PROVIDING REASONS NOT TO VOTE FOR DAVIS: twelve
PARAGRAPHS PROVIDING REASONS TO VOTE FOR SIMON: zero

I've mentioned this before. Isn't it time to change this approach? It doesn't seem to be working.

Dan

Someone convinced twelve OJ jurors in civil court that they should award money to people who claimed to be victums and due money.
No law was broken and even the civil judgement could be turned.
That aside, the hiding of Simon doesn't help him.

It's almost like he never intended to win the nomination. That he perhaps was only trying to scare the other guy but he instead got the nod!
I don't know the truth, but he is running backwards and not towards a victory.

If this is a winning process, it is new to the history of the world!

Davis and his campaign make patently false statements about his failed record, and use doublespeak, scare tactics and outright lies to cover his deplorable record on the environment, education and the economy.

Ah, yes... Such is the way of contemporary democrats.

Lies?

Deceptions?

NEVER!!!

And if you believe that, than you're either stupid, or a democrat...

Be well...

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