Sunday, August 31st, 2003

Interesting piece in today’s SF Chronicle…California’s tax myth / Despite complaints, state’s rate is far from highest

posted by @ 12:24 pm | 0 Comments

Thursday, August 28th, 2003

Arnie took an interesting tack yesterday to begin laying out the views he can lay out–he went on talk radio to talk about his social views. Move right, talk left. Talk radio is where right-wingers gather, but Arnie is hoping his star power will woo talk-show hosts who think they’re landing a “get”, and their audiences who might say, “Hey this guy really is cooler than Grim McClintock.” He took a-hair-right-of-Gray Davis-type positions on domestic partnerships, gun control, and medical marijuana but got treated with total kid gloves. McClintock gets to whine, and Arnie steals a few points back. I still don’t think I was far off in yesterday’s post. Maybe the timeline is moved up, but don’t expect anything more substantial from Arnie for Labor Day.

posted by @ 6:31 am | 0 Comments

Wednesday, August 27th, 2003

ARNOLD UNMASKED

While right-wingers and Dems continue to hound Arnie to give up a plan, any plan, he’s been shaking the trees and lining up the old bosses. Not so independent after all, eh, Arnie? In fact, he’s an old insider, making his contacts his context. Even the in-laws are trying to drum up crossover support.

This has all got to be true to plan. They’re taking their time, lining up the Reeps internally and getting the team together. Their bet is that if they can get the money and the marketing together, they’re in there. Until then, it’s all about getting the machine in place, quieting the internal ideologues, and getting Arnie into fighting form.

They may in fact be planning to far ahead–acting as if the election is already won. The strategy has to take into account further bleeding in the polls for the next 2.5 weeks. After that, the after-burners are on, the campaign opens like “Terminator 4”, the hammer comes down, Ueberroth’s moderates are sent packing, and McClintock’s goose-steppers reduced to yelling from outside the barricades. Then, only then, is when we will see “solid proposals” from Arnie.

The X factor is the national media and whether Arnie can withstand 2.5 more weeks of having nothing substantive to say. This week the Dems are looking good. We’ll see come September 15.

posted by @ 12:01 pm | 0 Comments

Friday, August 22nd, 2003

READ MY LIPS: NO NEW IDEAS

Both Arnie and Ueberroth were vague and mush-mouthed on their so-called economic plans on Wednesday. Ueberroth said don’t blame Gray, it’s the structure of the budget, but then vowed to maintain Prop 13.

Arnie vowed to cap spending (hey, that’s a really good idea for a growing state whose biggest expenditure because of Prop 13 is education) without new taxes, but said, hey maybe we’ll need new taxes anyway. “It is not coincidental that Secretary Shultz is on my right and Warren Buffett is on my left,” he said.

On Prop 13, he told Buffett if he mentioned it again, he’d make the flabby dude do 500 sit-ups. Then he buckled like a girly-man to the right and said he wouldn’t change a thing.

posted by @ 10:20 am | 0 Comments

Thursday, August 21st, 2003

This poll released by the Public Policy Institute shows a whopping 72% disapproval rating for Gray, a slight lead for Schwarzenegger over Bustamante, and a weak 50% support for Prop 54. The survey was done between August 8 and 17.

posted by @ 10:01 am | 0 Comments

Wednesday, August 20th, 2003

VIVA CALIFORNIA

Davis came out contrite and confrontational yesterday in his first major speech on the recall.

He apologized again for the energy crisis, and reminded voters that his surplus spending had gone to education–and that test scores had jumped. He took a strong stand against Prop 54–Ward Connerly’s latest ballot-box idiocy–calling it “another Republican effort to divide Californians over race”. He compared himself to Bill Clinton, reminded Dems of Florida, and chalked his recall up to a national Republican conspiracy, a “right-wing power grab”.

Here is the text of Gov. Gray Davis’ Speech at UCLA yesterday.

Aides say he will court progressives, Latinos, African Americans, and gays much more assiduously–something neither he nor the Democratic Party has ever been very good at doing.

How close he stays to this line will be conditioned on how sticky his poll numbers are in 3 weeks or so, how aggressively Arnie touts his social liberal credentials, and how much progress Arianna and Camejo can make.

posted by @ 9:28 am | 0 Comments

Tuesday, August 19th, 2003

So Arnie has announced he will announce his economic plan on Wednesday. Big deal. Without any talk of Prop 13 rollbacks, it’ll probably give Arianna lots of firepower to label him a Bush Reep.

Here’s a piece on Arianna in today’s NY Times A Candidate Who Confounds, Charms and Reaps Publicity.

posted by @ 9:43 am | 0 Comments

Saturday, August 16th, 2003

STILL SINGING THE PROP 13 BLUES

More confusion in the Schwarzenegger camp as his chief economic adviser, the trillionaire Warren Buffett, speaks some sense for once and everyone goes ballistic. Buffett was quoted in the Wall Street Journal as saying Prop 13 had led to an unmanageable tax system–and he is joined by many economists. Many agree that Prop. 13’s tax rollback has in fact been the major structural cause of Cali’s horrible cyclical budget crises.

But both Arnie’s conservative henchmen and Gray “Structural Budget Change” Davis decried Buffett’s comments yesterday. Read about it here, Buffett Property-Tax Remarks Stir Debate.

The article then quotes a number of elderly white pensioners in the Valley as saying overturning Prop 13 would be nuts. This, after describing the economists’ and some Dems’ quite modest perennial proposal of loosening Prop 13 caps on taxes on businesses, not home-owners. Come on now. Let’s get some real debate about the budget crisis, yall. For the last three decades, Cali’s K-12 and higher education systems have been crushed by the politics of elderly white pensioners from places like the Valley. None of the candidates are talking about this, and I’m too cynical by now to think that any of them will…

posted by @ 8:25 am | 0 Comments

Saturday, August 16th, 2003

Bustamante has a slight lead over Arnie, but within the margin of error. Basically they are in a dead heat. Still, it’s all pretty volatile. 44% of voters may change their vote. Arianna at 4% has less than half of Tom McClintock’s share. She and Camejo are polling at 6% combined. Poll results are here.

posted by @ 8:15 am | 0 Comments

Saturday, August 16th, 2003

Hey yall, I’m teaching a class on Music Writing through Media Alliance in November, you can sign up here if you’re interested!

posted by @ 7:11 am | 0 Comments



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