RE: the Recall.. Done Deal!
Best Option.. One Republican candidate runs.. best person for the job?
RE: FR - There ain't no better place to start some fires on the plains of politicoland then here..
The power of the internet, Greeley and Mencken would have killed for this tool to report the news and events.
What better way to share and query thoughts inside the heads of real people and not those under the influence of the camera lens and the warp and distortion effect inherent with it?
TV is and has been the way to communicate "effectively" to convey ideas, but often lack true detail of events.
We get the inside scoop here and there and we share it, unlike many reporting the news.
Speaking if the LA Times .. uhh. Let's not, They make me nauseous with the biased vitriol they put out.
There rhetoric alert level is at Red. ;-) THis illustrates the point that the media is feeling heat by being called to task for its complicity in keeping Davi$ in place and supporting boatloads of demRats.
We have the jayson Blair X factor working here as well. The LA Times is no Love Child to this state and never has been. :-)
I agree completely. The recall will happen. The only question is whether it will be in a fall special election or the March 2004 primary. And it's looking increasingly likely that enough signatures will be turned in by early July to force the fall election.
I would love it if the Republican Party were to coalesce around Tom McClintock. He'd make a marvelous Governor, and he's the only potential candidate in whom I have a high level of confidence that he could actually fix California's fiscal problems (and with no tax hikes!).
Unfortunately I doubt that the Republicans will rally around Tom. Issa is almost certain to run, since he's putting so much of his own money into the recall drive. Bill Simon is panting to run. Arnold Schwarzenegger is likely to run. Richard Riordan may run. Etc., etc.
Frankly, if I had to make a bet at this time, I'd bet that the Democrats will have greater discipline than the Republicans in limiting their prominent candidates. And especially since California is still a heavily-Democratic state, the odds are that Davis will be replaced by another Democrat.
It's worth the risk. Even most of the potential Democratic replacements would be major improvements over Davis (which just proves how horrible a governor Davis has been). And in any case it will be an object lesson for politicians in this state that the wrath of the people cannot be ignored.
There's the old story about two guys who see a bear coming after them in the forest. One guy starts to run away. The other guy calls after him, "It's hopeless to flee. You can't outrun the bear." The other guy calls over his shoulder, "I don't have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun you." That has been Gray Davis' modus operandi his entire career, as he laborously climbed the political ladder to his present perch. As corrupt and incompetent and personality-challenged as he is, Davis has been blessed with Democratic and Republican opponents he could outrun (most recently Bill Simon). But this time the recall is focussed solely on Davis; there's no one along side him who he can simply outrun. Davis is about to become bear-food.