Note that these are RATs who will be voting for "None Of The Above."Marjie Lundstrom:
Many voters will draw a blank making a choice for governor
By Marjie Lundstrom -- Bee Columnist
Published 2:15 a.m. PDT Saturday, November 2, 2002When the winner of next week's governor's race quits crowing about his margin of victory, there's another election figure that's bound to sting.
This is the percentage of California voters who refused to even deal with the governor's race.
Mind you, these will be the people who went to polls. These will be the people who did vote. They just couldn't bring themselves -- even holding their noses -- to choose any of the gubernatorial candidates, so they skipped right over and moved on to more scintillating matters.
The SMUD board leaps to mind.
It's as close as California's election process comes to the NOTA option -- None Of The Above -- and it appears likely this will set a record for the state's gubernatorial contests. A Field Poll released Thursday shows that 3 percent of likely voters volunteered to polltakers that this was one race they planned to bypass.
"This is not a disengaged voter," said pollster Mark DiCamillo. "This is someone who has looked at it all and said, 'I'm opting out.' It's really amazing."
DiCamillo said the actual percentage will likely be higher, perhaps hitting an unprecedented 5 percent -- or higher still.
The sentiment is undeniable, and reflects some serious scouring of consciences.
"I'm leaving the governor's race blank," a friend declared the other day, a woman whose family has voted the straight Democratic ticket since the Grover Cleveland administration.
Wait, I argue, isn't that a wasted vote? Don't you want your voice heard?
"That," she said icily, "is my statement."
Even newspapers have jumped into the act. In an editorial published Tuesday, the Los Angeles Daily News concluded that neither Gray Davis nor Bill Simon is fit for the job and suggested voters "do something in protest" -- write in Richard Riordan, for instance, or select a third-party candidate.
"Or better yet," it read, "simply leave the chads on the gubernatorial portion of your ballot unpunched as a protest vote."
The Santa Cruz Sentinel said it came to the "reluctant conclusion" that it could make no recommendation for governor.
Bob Stern, president of the nonpartisan Center for Governmental Studies in Los Angeles, said he believes the Daily News' suggestion to blow off the governor's race is "irresponsible."
"It's a cop-out," he said. "People tend to say, 'I'm protesting this way,' but you really sort of waste a vote."
The one man most bemused by this has to be Al Shugart, the Pebble Beach businessman whose 2000 ballot proposition would have created a "none-of-the-above" option for California voters. But the measure was soundly rejected, leaving Nevada as the only state with a nonbinding "none-of-the-above" alternative to all candidates.
"People are telling me more and more, 'Where's NOTA now that we need it?'" Shugart said.
That's just what Anne Staines of Sacramento would like to know. Staines, a marketing person and mother of three, has agonized over the governor's race but wouldn't dream of skipping over it.
"I don't want to be considered part of the apathetic, because I'm not apathetic," said said. "I'm frustrated."
But given the NOTA option, she said, she'd "vote for that in a heartbeat.
"I would be out campaigning for it," she said. "It's time we tell our political parties we don't approve of the choices they give us."
It was her 11-year-old son who summed it up best the other night when he mused: "I don't understand why lots of good people don't want to be governor."
Sacramento political consultant Jeff Raimundo has heard all the angst about this gubernatorial election. He just isn't convinced that voters ultimately will carry through on their threats to breeze past this top-of-the-ticket race.
Once in the voting booth, he believes, people will make a choice -- however grudgingly.
"They may not like it," he said. "But they will bite their tongue, they will swallow their distaste and they will do it."
Maybe that's true for some.
He just doesn't know my friend.
The Bee's Marjie Lundstrom can be reached at (916) 321-1055 or mlundstrom@sacbee.com.
On the OTHER hand, I know of a LOT of "broken glass Republicans" who will be passionately voting FOR Bill Simon on Tuesday, so my prediction remains:Simon = 44
Davis = 40
Camejo = 14
all others = 2
State official tied to fraud case quits
Calpine Senior Vice President John King told the FBI that he confirmed the threat in a telephone call to McFall. The San Joaquin County Board of Supervisors subsequently passed a resolution condemning the Alameda County project, and King blames his refusal to withdraw from the port project, the affidavit says.
I know of a LOT of "broken glass Republicans" who will be passionately voting FOR Bill Simon on TuesdaySee also, Peggy Noonan (although she MIS-attributes the origin of this term to Byron York, and not to FReeper LonePalm):
Gray Davis is much like Bill Clinton - without the personality, or the hormones.
- The Meaning of the Vote: Broken Glass Republicans
Politics/Elections Front Page Opinion (Published) Keywords: NOONAN ELECTION
Source: Opinion Journal
Published: 6 Nov 2000 Author: Peggy Noonan
Posted on 11/06/2000 06:34:03 PST by LetoThe Meaning of the Vote
Democracy is a blessing--especially for "Broken Glass Republicans."BY PEGGY NOONAN
Monday, November 6, 2000 12:01 a.m. ESTI will vote Tuesday and so will most readers of this page because we love politics and history. We are interested, engaged, highly motivated. We not only care about our country but see the direct connection between the decisions made at the polls and the country's literal future.But not everyone votes, as we well know. This is considered a matter of grave concern in many quarters, but to me it is only partly a matter of concern. It is also to some extent a reason for gratitude.
Because we live in a democracy we are free to vote; because we have individual liberty, we are free not to. We each of us get to decide. We can go or not go, take part of not. This is good. In some countries in the past voting has been mandatory. Even if you didn't care, even if you were drunk, even if you were completely unwilling, they made you vote. This is not good. It is a violation of rights in the name of "democracy."
Today I would like to thank that portion of the nonvoting public that does not vote for good reasons.
If you have absolutely no interest in how our country runs and is run, and know that you have no interest, and feel that your disinterest should preclude your taking part in this great national decision--well then heck, thank you for not diluting my vote with your vote. Because I have a great deal of interest.
-- snip --
And this is all fine with me. First, maybe I'm wrong and they're right: maybe it is close. Second, and more important, the closer people think it is the more people will feel their vote really counts, the more people will show up. The one group I know will show up is the group I expect will have the biggest impact on the election's outcome. And they are the Broken Glass Republicans. So named by Byron York of the American Spectator.
They're called Broken Glass Republicans because that's what they'd walk over to throw the Clinton-Gore administration out. That's what they'd crawl over to remove them from power. That's what they'd crawl over to remove this extraordinary corruption from our national life. That's what we'd crawl over to give Clinton-Gore a rebuke, and remove them from our history.
The BG Republicans want to do something else. They want to prove that we're still a good people--that we're still a good people in a good country, that the Clinton-Gore reality is not representative of who we are.
Someone somewhere along the way will try to capture the sheer propulsive force of the BG's, the size and drive of their emotional and philosophical commitment...
more
Election Day 2002 in CALIFORNIA will be as much of a surprise to the "chattering classes" as Election Day 2000 in AMERICA was, IMHO.