Add conservative-patriot-pro 2nd Ammend. faction control of any Cal. state agency (with senior gubernatorial appointments) that deals on the California state level with gun control, then. if that is your sole issue.
It is evident that you still do not see the importance of Tom becoming governor instead of Arnold.
The Governor is the one who can stop all of the idiotic gun legislating coming out of Sacramento with his veto power.
Besides, if you ain't the lead dog the view never changes.
IMHO this is the current situation.
Arnold is within striking distance of outright plurality, Cruz and Tom are on cruise control, waiting for Gray Davis's patented last minute hit piece to hit the airwaves.
I have watched this man in politics since he worked for the Moonbeam and it is his standard MO.
When it arrives, even if later proven untrue, is the other shoe that everyone is waiting to drop. All the men in the race (which includes Huffington) know it is coming.
Tom is basing his future on the fallout being bad enough to be able to pick up the slack and beat Cruz.
Cruz on the otherhand is flipping a coin, hoping that the disgust in Davis remains high enough to still slip in.
As much as many of us here would like, Tom will never, EVER, win the state. He is one of us after all. With the entrenched press corps and hostile legislature, he would be a one termer, if not recalled himself by one manufactured scandal or another, on the off chance he managed to slip into the seat.
The fact is, with nearly the entire state in the Republician grasp GEOGRAPHICALLY, the Population is staunchly Democratic, with regristration running far and above the Republician numbers. It is a FACT, not arguable. If you doubt this, I can only refer you to the last presidential election.
http://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images/view?back=http%3a//images.search.yahoo.com/search/images%3fc=fullcov%26ei=UTF-8%26p=2000%2belection%2bmap%2bcalifornia&h=563&w=807&imgurl=www.polidata.org/en2000/cy00p4cb.gif&name=cy00p4cb.gif&p=2000+election+map+california&rurl=http://www.polidata.org/en2000/default.htm&no=2&tt=3 It was never close. Looking at the map, it is clear that with most of the population centered on the coast, the Dems will easily win any election contested by a conservative such as Tom. With allies like the LA Times, SF Cron and the SD Union, all of which serve the population centers of the state and will go all out to defeat Tom, or anyone like him.
Pointing at Reagan is a fond memory, we are in new times. In the 70's, when I first voted for Reagan, we lived in a different era. Nostalgia is great, but I like to live in the NOW.
If Reagan were to run today, he would be eaten alive. The 24 hour news cycle combined with the creepy preference the media has for outright manufacturing "news" would, IMHO, doom him.
Go ahead, flame away. I am confident in my conservative credentials and will yield to no one in my defence of them.
I am however an old observer of California politics and I call them as I see them. Living in a conservative area of the state like the Sacramento suburbs as I do, can make you loose sight of the fact that the era of huge numbers of Aerospace workers and construction workers has passed to one of service industry employees and internet hucksters.
All that being said, I, like many others are keeping our options open.
Cheers,
knews hound
The State Superintendent of Public Instruction and the state AG are elected offices in Cal; and right now,they are both held by communists. If either Arnold or Tom win, they are going to be in for one hell of a fight with the entrenched RAT-controlled state government. The gov, of course, holds the VETO pen, a powerful tool, indeed.