Vacation Time

This space is taking a break: off to the Monterrey Peninsula.
Next post July 26, 2010.

California, by the Numbers

This is what comes from electing a RINO!

by Bill Whalen, July 15, 2010

The big buzz today (ok, not a big surprise, but a pretty big thud nonetheless) is the big thumbs-down that is the latest Field Poll – a pox on all their political houses, if you will.

Gov. Schwarzenegger’s approval rating? A personal-worst 22% (and a 70% disapproval rating). 

The State Legislature’s approval rating? 16% — sadly, that’s up 3 points (the last time the Legislature cracked the 20% barrier was two summers ago).

The public’s faith in California? 79% say the state’s on the “wrong track” (about the same as in 2003 and 1994, both of which were good years for conservatives in California).

Two of these numbers are easy to understand. The state’s stuck with double-digit unemployment and an economic rebound will occur slower than in other states. That, in part, explains the wrong-track number.

Meanwhile, the state budget process once again has gone into overtime and lawmakers seemed more interested in trivial matters, like securing Michael Jackson’s Neverland ranch, than more vexing woes like schools and roads.

But Arnold’s tanking numbers? That’s a little more complicated.

I did a little digging into Schwarzenegger’s Field history. It turns out that this governor, despite his celebrity status and unique path to office, is little difference from his gray (in name and style) predecessor.

Let’s start with Arnold’s numbers, beginning with the 2003 recall race. In early August and September 2003, when the thought of a Governor Schwarzenegger is a shaky concept, his numbers show the uncertainty: a 43-40 approve/disapprove in August; a 46-48 split in late September. But right before the recall when it’s becoming clear that Schwarzenegger will win, his numbers surf the wave: 52-41 favorable/unfavorable a week before the vote.

In his honeymoon phase, Schwarzenegger get the benefit of the doubt: 56% approve, only 26% disapprove (btw, the Legislature at this time is the opposite: 26% approve; 56% disapprove). That number tops out at 65% by May 2004. But give voters a chance to bail on Arnold and they do just that. Come September 2005, Schwarzenegger was leading a special election that the electorate didn’t want. His ratings reflect that: 36% approve; 52% disapprove.

Schwarzenegger’s numbers eventually recover — by March 2007, on the heels of a landslide re-election his approval rating is back up to 60%. But the governor’s surfing a bigger wave: the same Field Poll shows that, for the first time during Arnold’s time in office, a majority of Californians believe the state’s on the right track. flash forward to July 2010: only 13% of Californians think the state’s going in the right direction; only 22% approve of their governor.

The funny thing is we’ve seen this movie before — starring . . . Gray Davis.

Check out this chart, from the Sacramento Bee, comparing approval ratings of recent California governors. Davis’ high-water mark is 62% approval in February 2000 — the same year Californians’ “right track” sentiments averaged 58%. In other words, he too surfed the wave. Davis, like Schwarzenegger, bottomed out at 22% in August 2003. The “right track” then: only 16%.

How Schwarzenegger ended up with the same poll numbers as Davis should spark a lot of interesting talk not only about how he ran his administration, but how he handled his celebrity status.

Was it inevitable that, as a second-term governor in a slow economy, Arnold one day would be held in the same contempt as a less-flashy career politician like Davis?

Does this support the idea that a celebrity should only enter politics if they plan to take the James K. Polk approach: one term and out?

For a California governor it’s a cautionary tale: surf the wave and get out of the water . . . before the undertow gets you.

Republican Address

Martin Garrick takes on the tax and spend Democrats in the Statehouse. We’ll need to see a positive vision and some real solutions by Republicans if we ever hope to end the reign of terror by California Democrats.

Don’t Delay It, Terminate It!

Just because the lefties want to destroy California’s economy in favor a universal poverty, it doesn’t mean they’re always wrong! Prop 18 us another boondoggle public works project that does nothing that’s really needed.

by: aghosh  at Calitics, July 10, 2010

If nothing else, Governor Schwarzenegger has given us the gift of the endless parody. Even before he was the Governator, we enjoyed snickering at his larger than life caricature. His performance as Governor, however, has been far from funny. Ratcheting up a $19 Billion deficit while pushing public safety professionals out of their jobs, laying off teachers, slashing health and social services, and kicking family farmers where it hurts most has been a real tear-jerker.

To curb the tears with laughter, Food & Water Watch has compiled a simultaneously funny and sad montage of Arnold’s most memorable film moments to accentuate the devastating consequences that the $11 Billion Water Bond would have on California.  

Unsurprisingly, the bond is unpopular with voters across the state. Seeing the writing on the wall, Schwarzenegger and his cronies — who represent the interest of corporate backers — have asked the legislature to move Prop 18 to the 2012 ballot. Why? So they can spend more money trying to hoodwink the public into believing constructing more dams, putting a down payment on a peripheral canal, and giving corporate interests more control of our water supply is in everyone’s best interest. Is this Arnold’s way of taunting us with his infamous phrase, “I’ll be back” long after he rolls his Hummer out of Sacramento? NOOOOO!

This is our chance to play Terminator and say “hasta la vista, baby” to the water bond. Watch the video. Share it with your friends. Send a strong message to your legislators that the water bond should be sent to the scrap yard to be replaced by solid, equitable water policies that benefit all Californians.

The Obama-Pelosi Lame Duck Strategy

John Fund discusses the Democratic agenda for the lame duck Congress, including cap and trade, card-check, and pork. The Democrats and RINOs can still do lot’s of damage even if we carry the House in November.

By John Fund at WSJ Opinion Journal,
July 9, 2010

Democratic House members are so worried about the fall elections they’re leaving Washington on July 30, a full week earlier than normal—and they won’t return until mid-September. Members gulped when National Journal’s Charlie Cook, the Beltway’s leading political handicapper, predicted last month “the House is gone,” meaning a GOP takeover. He thinks Democrats will hold the Senate, but with a significantly reduced majority.

The rush to recess gives Democrats little time to pass any major laws. That’s why there have been signs in recent weeks that party leaders are planning an ambitious, lame-duck session to muscle through bills in December they don’t want to defend before November. Retiring or defeated members of Congress would then be able to vote for sweeping legislation without any fear of voter retaliation.

“I’ve got lots of things I want to do” in a lame duck, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D., W. Va.) told reporters in mid June. North Dakota’s Kent Conrad, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, wants a lame-duck session to act on the recommendations of President Obama’s deficit commission, which is due to report on Dec. 1. “It could be a huge deal,” he told Roll Call last month. “We could get the country on a sound long-term fiscal path.” By which he undoubtedly means new taxes in exchange for extending some, but not all, of the Bush-era tax reductions that will expire at the end of the year.

In the House, Arizona Rep. Raul Grijalva, co-chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, told reporters last month that for bills like “card check”—the measure to curb secret-ballot union elections—”the lame duck would be the last chance, quite honestly, for the foreseeable future.”

Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, chair of the Senate committee overseeing labor issues, told the Bill Press radio show in June that “to those who think [card check] is dead, I say think again.” He told Mr. Press “we’re still trying to maneuver” a way to pass some parts of the bill before the next Congress is sworn in.

Other lame-duck possibilities? Senate ratification of the New Start nuclear treaty, a federally mandated universal voter registration system to override state laws, and a budget resolution to lock in increased agency spending.

Then there is pork. A Senate aide told me that “some of the biggest porkers on both sides of the aisle are leaving office this year, and a lame-duck session would be their last hurrah for spending.” Likely suspects include key members of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Congress’s “favor factory,” such as Pennsylvania Democrat Arlen Specter and Utah Republican Bob Bennett.

Nancy Pelosi (A.P.)

Conservative groups such as FreedomWorks are alarmed at the potential damage, and they are demanding that everyone in Congress pledge not to take up substantive legislation in a post-election session. “Members of Congress are supposed to represent their constituents, not override them like sore losers in a lame-duck session,” Rep. Tom Price, head of the Republican Study Committee, told me.

It’s been almost 30 years since anything remotely contentious was handled in a lame-duck session, but that doesn’t faze Democrats who have jammed through ObamaCare and are determined to bring the financial system under greater federal control.

Mike Allen of Politico.com reports one reason President Obama failed to mention climate change legislation during his recent, Oval Office speech on the Gulf oil spill was that he wants to pass a modest energy bill this summer, then add carbon taxes or regulations in a conference committee with the House, most likely during a lame-duck session. The result would be a climate bill vastly more ambitious, and costly for American consumers and taxpayers, than moderate “Blue Dogs” in the House would support on the campaign trail. “We have a lot of wiggle room in conference,” a House Democratic aide told the trade publication Environment & Energy Daily last month.

Many Democrats insist there will be no dramatic lame-duck agenda. But a few months ago they also insisted the extraordinary maneuvers used to pass health care wouldn’t be used. Desperate times may be seen as calling for desperate measures, and this November the election results may well make Democrats desperate.