Well, it now seems that not one but two two-term governors will be running for unprecedented third terms in our two most populous states. What are the odds of that? And what are the odds that your-not-so-humble-servant knows both of them? As it happens, one hundred percent. I never expected to be that well connected (at least in this life) and I’m still trying to figure out how to exploit this, although my encounters with Jerry Brown are now over twenty years old and deep into the land of lost synapses. I met Rick Perry quite a bit more recently, not more than a couple of months ago, when I had the pleasure of going pistol shootin’ with the Texas governor in his hometown of Austin. (The video at the link is fun, if you haven’t seen it. And congrats to Gov. Perry — a PJTV fan — on your primary victory today.)
Of course, Perry is going to be running for a consecutive third term, while Brown has been off doing other things like being Mayor of Oakland and California Attorney General and, intermittently, wannabe zen roshi, etc. Further, Perry looks to be a shoo-in because Texas is in great shape compared to most of the nation now, while Brown is going to have a fight on his hands because California is, in a word, a mess. Some people even say it’s worse than Greece. And we don’t even have the Acropolis. We have to make do with Arianna Huffington’s mansion.
So would I support these guys? Well, I’m easy. You shake my hand, tell a few jokes, slap me on the back and you’ve usually got my vote. In fact, I thought Rick Perry was just a great fellow and if I lived in Texas, I’d certainly support him.
Jerry Brown is another matter. Much as I like Jerry — he’s an original mind and an amusing guy — he’s absolutely the wrong person for the job under the current catastrophic conditions in my home state. Reason: for all his famed Governor Moonbeam exoticism, when push comes to the proverbial shove, Jerry is very much a conventional liberal politician and very much his father’s son. But the days for that kind of approach to solving California’s financial problems are as long gone as the Buffalo Springfield from the Sunset Strip. Or should I say Linda Ronstadt?
Brown is using the failure of “political amateur” Arnold Schwarzenegger as California governor to try to convince voters to stay away from another “political amateur,” former Ebay CEO Meg Whitman. But right now California needs someone who can wield a red pencil with absolute determination — not allowing it out of his or her hand until half the lines in the budget were scratched out — or we really might turn into Greece. If I were a betting man — and sometimes I am — I’d bet California voters will be handing that pencil to Whitman in November.
I too liked Jerry Brown, the first time around. I never bought the idea of a Governor’s mansion, myself (it seems rather over the top to have such a thing, though I suppose some other states do it) and the business with the car seemed reasonable. He was ostentatious about it, but very unpretentious, and I’ve never liked pretentious, so I was a fan. He also was the first Democrat I heard actually confront the issue of crime in terms other than preventing police abuses and protecting criminal rights. In those days, the Democratic party was very much on the side of the accused (they would insist they weren’t on the side of criminals, just those accused of crimes) and the Republicans were the party of law and order. Jerry broke that, and as far as I’m concerned changed the political landscape, or at least led the way to the change.
All of that being said, Roger’s opinion of him is essentially correct. Jerry’s a relatively conventional liberal Democrat. He’s pledging not to raise taxes, and I have no doubt that if he wins, he’ll “try” not to, and then blame something Schwarzenegger did for his drastic measure, and go ahead and raise taxes anyway. I’m not sure Whitman can solve the problem; frankly I’m not sure anyone can solve the problem. I’m certain that without a legislature willing to make the proper sacrifices, we’re going to be in trouble for a good long while.
Rick Perry is a globalist and Bilderberger: he initiated the Trans Texas Corridor highway. This planned highway is for trucks only, to bring cheap “goods” from Mexico and to consolidate the proposed North American Union. Unless people wake up. Debra Medina is the true freedom candidate which is why Glenn Beck did a hatchet job on her.
Jerry Brown is a globalist; he recently reworded Dan Logue’s initiative to suspend California’s Cap & Trade law. Schwarzenegger is a globalist, was involved in Enron and is buddies with the bankers. Whitman is a globalist, NeoCon Condoleeza Rice supports her and instead of nulifying the federal health care bill,, which states like AZ plan to do, she wants to be included in the Washingtom debate. Californians are profoundly ill-informed and will get suckered again.
Roger, Pat Brown stood against pretty much ALL of what the Gentry Liberal (to use Kotkin’s phrase) class including Jerry Brown has done.
Pat Brown built the UC, the Freeway System, and the water system. He had low welfare spending, no real Affirmative Action, and worked to make the White Middle Class the beneficiary and guardians of public spending and government.
That is all radically different from the Jerry Brown alliance of non-Whites (welfare spending, AA patronage, government excluding the White Middle class and hostile to it) allied with the Larry and Laurie Davids of the State AGAINST the White Middle class.
Pat Brown was the Suburbs against the Ghetto and Beverly Hills, Jerry Brown is the Barrio, Ghetto, and Malibu against the suburbs.
Meg Whitman, is part of that problem. Because like Arnold she reflexively takes the side of the Ghetto, Barrio, and Malibu against the suburbs. She’s in fact part of the RINO elite that hates the suburbs, not the least of which is the threat they’ll throw out the elite leadership. Poizner (I see an ad here for him on PJM) may or may not be that guy who is an alternative, but you won’t get from Ebay’s executive ranks anything substantively different than Arnold or Jerry Brown.
The White Middle Class and the suburbs are the enemy of all them, Jerry, Meg, and Arnold alike.
Calaifornia’s debt problems are actually a bit funny. Here, we have the most progressives, and rich people in Hollywood, who are always for their progressive brethren. Aren’t they always the supporting politicians with the slogan “no more tax cuts for the rich”!
Now, how is it that california is broke with all those poor souls in hollywood, and all their money? Are they really paying their fare share?
“Are they really paying their fare share?”
It really does not make that much of a difference one way or another. There are simply not enough rich people. You might tax them at an one hundred percent rate—and it would still be necessary to increase the taxes of the middle class. Ultimately, the “forgotten man” who earns their money in the private sector funds the welfare state.
I am relieved that Rick Perry won a decisive victory. This sends a clear message to the Obama administration: leave Texas alone! Our elected officials must make sure the politicians in the nation’s capitol do not force Texans to pay the bills of spendthrift blue states like California, Illinois, New Jersey, and New York.
I agree even more strongly, Roger. Jerry Brown is a man of another era and if California—in its gargantuan fiscal dis-repair—is retro, nostalgic and irresponsible enough to re-elect him over Meg Whitman then you’ll get what you deserve.
Meanwhile, knowing Rick Perry most likely will remain at the helm of fiscally-solvent Texas gives me assurance and encouragement. He’s the good medicine we all need.
whiskey: I’ve known Junior Brown for 50 years (though the personal acquaintance is slight) and knew Pat as a school and college friend of my father’s. Pat was a genuinely good man, for a politician, but he was pretty much a standard issue San Francisco liberal for his time. Junior was, and I suspect still is, an arrogant prick whose smug sense of knowing what’s best for the rest of us, and his hostility to the University of California, have always put me off. I always blamed Junior’s nasty side on his Jesuit education when he was younger – he reminded me of some of my cousins who went to the same schools he did. They mostly mellowed out at Cal or Stanford (with one exception….)
Pat was a pretty decent governor, and probably was a better governor than Bill Knowland or Dick Nixon would have been, but he did expand the welfare state, favor entitlements, etc, and was a big supporter of the unions (and they of him). He was a friend of UC, which may explain why he didn’t crack down on the shenanigans at Cal early enough on that it would have done some good. I disagree with your Pat as the suburbs vs. the elite analysis – if you want to understand how and why he was elected and what he represented, you really have to read Gladwin Hill’s 1968 book DANCING BEAR: AN INSIDE LOOK AT CALIFORNIA POLITICS. Nothing on California politics I’ve read in over 50 years comes close.
If I still lied in TX, I would have a hard time voting for Perry, especially if he was running against White (Mayor of Houston). Perry is too bloodthirsty, too eager to apply the death penalty even if the man is innocent.
http://reason.com/archives/2010/02/22/is-texas-about-to-execute-anot
I don’t know if there are enough sensible California voters left to bring the party to an end before bankruptcy. The middle class suburban type voters have been leaving the state for decades. I’m still here because of my kids but I’m erecting a bomb shelter (metaphor) to hide in when the s**t really starts to fly. The state more and more comes to resemble a third world country with walled enclaves of the rich, whose money is hidden in offshore accounts, and the poor who troop to the polls to elect the welfare state they think will go on forever.
Lived in California in the mid-80′s, been in Texas for 15 years – doesn’t matter who is Govenor of California, it is toast. The culture and general population there ensures a continuing downward spiral except to the extent they get a federal bailout (like this past year). I hope Texas can hold the line and with other states prevent the federal government’s transfer of dollars to California. Personally, I don’t hold out much hope and have moved most of my investment dollars to countries with more promising fundamentals.
The problem with Jerry Brown is that he actually believes he knows what he is doing and can handle BLOATafornia..
A Red Pencil is exactly what California needs. Residents of other states can NOT AFFORD to bail out California. The residents of California are ultimately going to have to feel their own self-induced PAIN.
California is like a man trying to walk on a broken ankle. The Democrats’ prescription: take lots and lots of morphine, and start running!
California is a lost case.The best thing is for it to declare bankruptcy.But will it happen with the Dems in charge of the state?NO! The whole structure of governance is run by the the same guys who have been poisoning the waters.Don`t expect much from them.
Declare bankruptcy and redo the whole thing.
At the end of his prior term as governor, Brown signed into law the infamous act that requires all state employees to pay “fair share” dues, thus enriching the unions and leading partially to the sorry state of politics today. The unions pass on most of the fair share fees to Dem campaign coffers and dine regularly at the White House. This is why people like Obama bow to them.
Like you say, he is a typical old fashioned liberal.
My fear is that Whitman will turn out like Arnie: a business conservative without the political convictions to do that which will, in the short and medium run, be politically unpopular. In Arnie’s case, I had hoped for a Conan to take on the legislature and the entitlement state; what I instead got was Kindergarten Cop. I have a sneaking feeling Whitman will be more of the same. Hence, for now, I’m backing Poizner.
As for Jerry, I was in high school and didn’t care about politics when he was governor, but he seemed to do a good job as Mayor of Cokeland. His performance as AG has been weak, however. (Witness how he’s turned a blind eye to ACORN.) There’s no way I’d vote to return to the Governor’s Mansion (or flat, in his case).
Roger,
You wrote:
…although my encounters with Jerry Brown are now over twenty years old and deep into the land of lost synapses…
“Deep into the land of lost synapses…”
Very nice turn of phrase!
Great piece, and I think you’re exactly right n your analysis and forecast.
Jamie Irons
I remember J Brown back in the 70′s when he was Governor. He was this narcisstic dreamy somewhat dopy pampered son of former Gov’t Pat Brown, and the son would sprout weird ideas and display an almost yoga-like personna. He was almost straight out of the hippy movemnt of the 60′s. He just sorta occupied space in his 8 years without accomplishng much. I do not think he has ever run a business in his entire life , and is a career northern CA plutocrat politician and would prefer that CA be scrubbed clean of all filthy polluting businesses and that all folks should discard autos and ride mass transit. He would further the progressive/leftist/green agenda to completely regulate and strangle CA with green legislation which would result in a further loss of another million jobs to add to the 2.5 million already lost during this severe recession/depression.
He is too old and out of step to bring CA from the brink of economic/ fiscal disaster.
It’s about time that California woke up and listened to Governor Christie of New Jersey. The half-hand bigshots currently running, or intending to, in CA have not exhibited two percent of the determination to actually repair the spendthrift finances that Christie has. An example: People did not send me here to talk, the people sent me here to do. So we took the executive action we did to stop the bleeding. Link below at bottom.
Yes, the crying in reaction is a model for Niagara. But the choice is Niagara now, or Victoria Falls plus anarchy later.
The days of endless tax increases will just shove California into a revolt that will make Prop 13 look like a love-in.
Gov Christie’s speech:
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2010/03/governor-christie-time-to-hold-hands.html
Jerry Brown: tool of the State Employees Union. 1.) brought us car-pool lanes, 2.) the first state supreme court justices to be re-called by voters from that office (Rose Bird, who struck down California’s “use a gun, go to jail” law and Cruz Reynoso, co-founder of The San Francisco La Raza Lawyers Association), 3.) named a founding member of the Natural Resources Defense Council as chairman of the California State Water Board, 4.) imposed a moratorium (popular word back in the 70′s) on building freeway infrastructure that has put us into gridlock, 5.) he unionized the State employees and added to civil service rules that have given us the highest paid “civil servants” in the nation – the same unions that have ‘negotiated’ unsustainable sweetheart salaries, absurd work rules, and elevated staffing levels and pensions – with bribes to key corrupt Legislators.
Jerry Brown who has threatened lawsuits against businesses citing SB 32, the “global warming” hoax bill that is killing jobs throughout the state. Jerry Brown who years ago he appointed his friend Mary Nichols to CARB, the state air-resources, un-elected position-for-life Uber-board – a chairperson who continues to cover-up fraud committed by her staff; knowingly supporting an abusive, anti-truck and bus ruling made by a fake scientist, Hien Tran, who’s PhD degree came from a mail-order degree mill being run by a fugitive pedophile and who continues to make a $96,000/year salary from CARB – an agency that issues “rulings” that have affected the way the Federal Government’s Environmental Protection Agency itself operates.
That Jerry Brown.
My biggest concern with California is this: And no, I am not forgetting that there are still millions of sensible people in that state, but they are now vastly outnumbered.
When the dam breaks, and it will, that millions of leeches, slugs and other parasites float down wherever the flood carries them, they end up in locations all across the Southwest, and continue their leeching ways, destroying other states in the process.
I feel for you sensible Californians who would prefer to hang in your beautiful state, despite all of its problems. I really do and wished you would have left eons ago, being that you’re the ones now left standing with your thumbs in the dike.
But if you ask me, we are building the wall in the wrong location. We need to build about a 400 mile, 50 ft. electrified wall, with no roads leading out of California.
You good guys and gals need to leave Gomorrah before the carnage begins.
I live in Oakland. I even voted for Jerry. He may have sucked slightly less than the mayors before and after him, but that’s the best that can be said. Oakland illustrates the California political problem in miniature: multicultural patronage bloat, followed by increasing taxes and taxpayer flight in a vicious spiral.
HALF the California budget goes to the failed education systems that can’t even teach kids to read after thirteen years of public “schooling.” And if you think these “students” know anything about the US Constitution, think again.
California has a $500,000,000,000 debt and a $21,000,000,000 deficit.
Regulation has strangled innovation. Corporations are leaving, small businesses are closing. Each represents taxpayers. We are not allowed to drill for our own oil or build new power plants. The San Onofre nuke power station is going offline.
The politicians’ answer to a falling tax revenue? Raise sales tax and income tax.
The state is so Gerrymandered that there is something like a 97% re-election rate.
With the same entrenched politicians in place year after year, whose only solution is to tax and regulate, no matter who is governor, they will fail.
Arnold was good at the start, put forth three initiatives to the people that would have made serious changes, but was rebuffed by months and months of Teacher and Public Employee Union ads.
After that, he put his tail between his legs and turned into a spender.
Now we are on the hook for a $2 billion Stem Cell research program. Yeah, stem cells. With a $500B debt and a $21B deficit.
Not looking good….
Tex, thanks for your kind comments. We native Californians and patriotic Americans lament what the liberal infestation has done to our beautiful state, but many of us choose to stay and fight. This is kind of our Alamo.
For a Houston perspective on the Texas primary results, you might check out these from Houston trial lawyer William Dyer (who blogs under the name “Beldar”):
Beldar on Barone on how Perry’s Harris County showing bodes for White
and
DGA’s Daschle draws wrong lessons from Texas primaries: White has a chance in November, but it’s despite (not due to) Obama and the national Dems
-
“And no, I am not forgetting that there are still millions of sensible people in that state, but they are now vastly outnumbered.”
Vastly outnumbered? I don’t think so. It seems more like these people are sufficiently outnumbered—and their numbers are decreasing on a weekly basis. This is perhaps the biggest question to ask someone still living in California: would you leave if it were possible to sell your property at a decent price? I get the impression that Barbara Boxer will win reelection by a small margin. Just enough. Nothing more. And that is probably what will make it so frustrating.
There are too many Californians who don’t take the crisis seriously. They are similar to the guy who realizes a fire has broken out in the basement. Nonetheless, he still wants to continue watching the rest of the football game on TV. He won’t bother to do anything until the house is collapsing around him.
Perry is a decent governor. While I agree with most Texans that the Trans Texas Corridor was a horrible idea, Perry at least had the good sense to back off and abandon the project once it was demonstrated how unpopular the proposal was. He hasn’t been able to hold to promises to cut property taxes, but considering the dwindling state revenues I don’t see that as a horrible thing. Texas’ solvency has been largely due to the states multi-billion dollar “Rainy Day” fund, built up by surpluses over the past decade. The state keeping extra revenue was unpopular with many conservatives, but now looks like a political bet that will pay off handsomely. I think too many people are giving Perry too much credit as an outsider, he’s taken his fair share of stimulus money and been willing to go to the fed for cash. But overall he’s done a fairly good job, and I don’t think Hutchinson offers anything substantially different and Medina is playing the Tea Party card against a candidate who is largely safe on that. Plus, the one time I met Perry at a social gathering, he stood in line for his drink. Thats good bull.
If California ends up electing a Democrat, I think Jerry Brown is the best pick. At least he’s honest. I pretty much disagree with him on everything, but I think he’s a step ahead of the run of the mill California Dems. Not that it matters, Cali is screwed in the near term. Even the conservatives are barking up the wrong tree, crying for tax cuts and reducing state fees. That would have worked a decade ago, but California put it off too long and now they’re looking at the twin political hits of high taxes and spending cuts. Anybody who takes the Govenator position with the honest intention of fixing the state budget better be willing to commit political suicide, because pretty much every decision necessary is going to be massively unpopular. To even begin to fix California, you are going to make enemies out of every major political faction in the state.
@ 11. Over50: Ca. Dreaming
@ 22. Tex Taylor: The Wall
2 25. Occam’s Beard: Alamo
Ca. leads the nation;
The real-world result will
be socio-economic collapse
followed by the imposition
of an authoritarian regime
‘for the duration of the
emergency’ i.e. forever;
Hopefully the rest of the
nation will take the hint.
David Thompson,
When 61.0% of your citizens vote for Barack Obama, that is vastly outnumbered where I reside. Even taking into account the Obama hoodwink factor, that would tell me that either there is an incredibly large contingent of gullible and willing rubes, or for every three people with their thumbs stuck in the dike trying to prevent the flood, there are five people holding a “Yes We Can!” sign watching the dedicated workers attempt to plug the holes.
Call it as you will, but those results don’t bode well for predicting a huge awakening is around the corner anytime soon.
Nonethless, I hope you’re right and I’m wrong.
“Nonethless, I hope you’re right and I’m wrong.”
You need to reread my comments. We are both pessimistic concerning California’s future. The only real difference is that you think the state will lose by a 61 to 39 score—and I contend it will be by something like 52 to 48. This November the citizens of California will cast their ballots in perhaps the most important election in the state’s entire history. They will unlikely get another chance.
RE: Tex Taylor: “When the dam breaks, and it will, that millions of leeches, slugs and other parasites float down wherever the flood carries them, they end up in locations all across the Southwest…”
That’s my single greatest fear as well. Nothing frustrates me more than people who move out of regions made desolute by progressive policies in search of jobs, get to a place that is still growing because they rejected those policies, and immediately demand those same progressive policies be implemented. I can’t tell you how many of my neighbors are transplants from either California or the North East, rave about how awesome the low cost of living, low taxes and good job market are, and then complain that we need some wasteful policy that helped run other states into the ground. I get into the same argument with an English neighbor. He loves all the freedoms he gets living in Texas, then starts whining about what we really need is (insert wasteful Europrogram).
“But the days for that kind of approach to solving California’s financial problems are as long gone as the Buffalo Springfield from the Sunset Strip. Or should I say Linda Ronstadt?”
I’ll say it. She deserves it. As long gone as Linda Ronstadt’s girlish figure. Take that Linda, you Republican basher.
Many others have listed some of the sins of Governor Moonbeam. I’d like to add one more – the creation of the California Energy Commission.
What a fricking waste of money that institution has been! They spend $500,000,000 a year and produce NO energy. Instead they do their darndist to STOP energy production, especially if it is cheap.
I have the same misgivings about Whitman. Good resume but too RINO and too weak to get the job done.
I support Poizner. The quiet ones are always the most dangerous. This guy has the right instincts and knows what to do. He’s got nothing to lose.
Jerry Brown was against Proposition 13, the only weapon homeowners have to stop government spending from taxing them out of their homes. Sacramento politicians figured out different forms of taxation to take up the slack. That will accelerate if Californians are stupid enough to put Moonbeam back in the governor’s job.
Ended up voting for Rick Perry in the Texas republican primary despite my opposition to the Trans-Texas Corridor. Just need an Austin bypass and an extra lane each way on I-35. Considered a protest vote for Debra Medina the truther meld down.
The good news is the Texas constitution severely limits the power of the governor so none of the Republican candidates would be likely to do much damage if elected. No income tax to fund rapid increase in government spending, short legislative session every other year, and elected judges that can be easily removed if they legislate from the bench. A good constitution is the best defense against Californication.
George B, I generally agree with your comments, but don’t forget that even the Texas Constitution has that terrible typo — the one which specifies that the Legislature shall meet in regular session only once for 180 days every two years, when it was plainly meant, or so say the wags, to be only once for two days every 180 years.
On, ‘Uncivil Society: 1989 and the Implosion of the Communist Establishment’, Kotkin and Gross
Commented upon at Armed and Dangerous (http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=1255)
The U.S.’s very own nomenklatura, our permanent political class and its parasitic allies, has been on a borrowing binge since the Great Society programs of the 1960s. Just like the pre-1989 Communist elites, they’ve been piling up debt in order to buy the consent of the governed with ever-more-generous entitlement programs. It took another twenty years, but the insolvency of California is bringing those chickens home to roost here as well. With the CBO now projecting that Social Security will go cash-flow-negative next year, an equally cataclysmic collapse of the federal government’s finances won’t be long in coming — in fact, I now give it over 50% odds of happening before Obama’s first term ends in 2012.
In The Logic Of Collective Action and later works, Olson developed the thesis that democratic politics must more or less inevitably degenerate into a mad scramble among interest groups seeking to corner ever-higher rents from their ability to swing votes; see my previous post Some Iron Laws of Political Economics for discussion. So, where does it end? Increasingly, it looks like the answer is “when the creditors of the resulting Ponzi scheme decide they’ve had enough”.
Mancur Olson, in his book The Logic Of Collective Action, highlighted the central problem of politics in a democracy. The benefits of political market-rigging can be concentrated to benefit particular special interest groups, while the costs (in higher taxes, slower economic growth, and many other second-order effects) are diffused through the entire population.
The result is a scramble in which individual interest groups perpetually seek to corner more and more rent from the system, while the incremental costs of this behavior rise slowly enough that it is difficult to sustain broad political opposition to the overall system of political privilege and rent-seeking.
When you add to Olson’s model the fact that the professional political class is itself a special interest group which collects concentrated benefits from encouraging rent-seeking behavior in others, it becomes clear why, as Olson pointed out, “good government” is a public good subject to exactly the same underproduction problems as other public goods. Furthermore, as democracies evolve, government activity that might produce “good government” tends to be crowded out by coalitions of rent-seekers and their tribunes.
This general model has consequences. Here are some of them:
There is no form of market failure, however egregious, which is not eventually made worse by the political interventions intended to fix it.
Political demand for income transfers, entitlements and subsidies always rises faster than the economy can generate increased wealth to supply them from.
Although some taxes genuinely begin by being levied for the benefit of the taxed, all taxes end up being levied for the benefit of the political class.
The equilibrium state of a regulatory agency is to have been captured by the entities it is supposed to regulate.
The probability that the actual effects of a political agency or program will bear any relationship to the intentions under which it was designed falls exponentially with the amount of time since it was founded.
The only important class distinction in any advanced democracy is between those who are net producers of tax revenues and those who are net consumers of them.
Corruption is not the exceptional condition of politics, it is the normal one.
David Thompson,
I didn’t misread you and understood what you were saying. I didn’t say the election would be 61-39 this time. But I do think California far more “progressive” than you might believe.
The fact that some idiot like Barbara Boxer in the worst of times with a record of abysmal failure will still get elected, and I agree with you, tells me that time is up for California.
#33 – Maggi: “She deserves it. As long gone as Linda Ronstadt’s girlish figure. Take that Linda, you Republican basher.”
I think the, “Or should I say Linda Ronstadt?” reference was concerning another “relationship” between Brown and Linda. If you weren’t, as the song says, “in 69 I was 21″, you likely wouldn’t tune into this. I believe the song Poor Poor Pitiful Me was dedicated to this relationship.
In other Brown trivia; why not make use of the slogan Republicans appropriated during Browns last run at governor in the mid 70′s. The adage of, “if it’s yellow it’s mellow, If it’s brown it’s down” was advice on toilet etiquette to save water during the ’74-’76 drought. We Republicans liked, “If it’s Brown flush it” much better.
And… she may be tubby now but when I saw her in concert in ’69 she was hot stuff to say the least.
and… quoting one of my favorite people, “I believe the song Poor Poor Pitiful Me was dedicated to this relationship.” Maybe alluded to would be better phrasing as this is a Warren Zevon song. In any event, her point about, “he really worked me over good” is an observation every California voter should take to the voting booth.
Concerning Whitman wielding a budget pencil, “with absolute dtermination,” the problem is that the legislature is completely in charge of appropriations and has a veto proof Democrat majority. Schwarzenegger tried, at first to bring fiscal sanity to the state and was defeated in the legislature. He proposed a set of referena which would have helped reduce the Democrat stranglehold but those were, somewhat to my surprise, also defeated. Until the Democrats in the legislature are forced to act realistically, or Republicans gain control despite the outrageous gerrymandering, no governor is going to be able to do very much about the situation. It should also be noted that various expenditure are required by legislation and constitutional requirements passed in popular referenda which the legislature can not reverse. It’s a bad situation and the governor can’t do much about it.
Jerry Brown…been there, done that…he will not win. Period!
Long-term prediction:
After Meg Whitman serves two successful terms as governor:
She becomes a clear and totally viable candidate for our FIRST WOMAN PRESIDENT!
“Perry is too bloodthirsty, too eager to apply the death penalty even if the man is innocent.”
Boo, hoo. Cry me a river. We’re always hearing that Texas is about to execute an innocent man. Funny, we never hear that Texas actually executed an innocent man. In fact, MOST of the murderers in this state never come close to a date with the needle.
The last “innocent” guy on Texas’ Death Row was some diaper stain who set his house on fire with his kids inside. He was awakened (he says) by his little girl, but somehow managed to get out of the house without her (disobedient child!!) His neighbors saw him pushing his car out of the way, lest it suffer any damage from the fire. The media are now having a field day with claims he’s innocent, because the defense wasn’t allowed to call some “arson expert” who probably does seances on the side. Give me a break.
Gov Perry is a political snake. If the midterms were less critical on a national level, I’d probably sit out of the gubernatorial voting exercise. However, with White being such a good ol’ boy Texan himself, this might actually be an interesting race.
Perry has enough enemies (even on the right) in this state that he could be in jeopardy.
32. Mauther:
That’s my single greatest fear as well. Nothing frustrates me more than people who move out of regions made desolate by progressive policies in search of jobs, get to a place that is still growing because they rejected those policies, and immediately demand those same progressive policies be implemented. I can’t tell you how many of my neighbors are transplants from either California or the North East, rave about how awesome the low cost of living, low taxes and good job market are, and then complain that we need some wasteful policy that helped run other states into the ground. I get into the same argument with an English neighbor. He loves all the freedoms he gets living in Texas, then starts whining about what we really need is (insert wasteful Europrogram).
This also drives me nuts, why did they come to Texas? why not try the NE, more like where they came from. In time Texas will implode under the weight of all the so called progressives and they will stand around scratching their heads wonder what went wrong. Explaining it to them is a waste of perfectly useful CO2.
43. Dave II:
Jerry Brown…been there, done that…he will not win. Period!
Long-term prediction:
After Meg Whitman serves two successful terms as governor:
She becomes a clear and totally viable candidate for our FIRST WOMAN PRESIDENT!
You got me curious so I looked her up. Sounds just like obama with her targeted tax cuts, bjklinton also used to use this scam, targeted tax cuts. Means no one gets a tax cut.
Their is no sink or swim in CA, that are drowning and no one ever taught them to swim. I have been watching CA for a couple of decades and wondering why they have not collapsed, guess the answer is in front of my nose now.
Unless people wake up. Debra Medina is the true freedom candidate which is why Glenn Beck did a hatchet job on her.