California Gubernatorial Debate
(PS I love saying "gubernatorial")
First, an open letter to the California Broadcaster’s Association:
I wanted to tell you that I thought the debate was very good. This is the most I've watched of ANY political debate. I think it's because there was such a diversity of platforms, so there were more different "big pictures" than normal. Usually it's either "a bunch of Democrats", "a bunch of Republicans", or "one Democrat, one Republican". In other words, a bunch of people saying only slightly different things, or a couple people saying wildly different things. As a non-affiliated voter, I really appreciate hearing how the candidates positions contrast with each other on different issues. I think it was well-managed, time-wise, and because of that, it was also apparent when each candidate was skirting the issue.
Now a quick analysis. I missed about the first 20 minutes or so, so I can't comment on any of that. I think what I'll do is just mention my favorite quotes or other parts, if I can remember them. I’ll take them left-to-right, around the table.
Schwarzenegger: He mentioned his Prop 49 on after-school care, and seemed proud of the 200k students in after-school programs. But when Huffington pointed out that no money had come from Prop 49 for that yet, he said that's exactly right, because it has a “trigger mechanism”, so that only if the state made more money than it’s making now would the money come from that, and how that is “responsible government”. I’m sorry, but that would be like getting a proposition passed that says that the government will give everyone on the planet one million dollars “when pigs fly”, and then take credit for 6 billion millionaires. Long story short, that hasn’t helped a single child. And, he completely slipped the question on healthcare for illegal immigrant children. Kudos to Stan (the moderator) for ad libbing, there! And, he was about as deep as a paper cut on how exactly he plans to fix anything.
McClintock: He seems to have some good ideas on cutting government waste, and increasing business. I even agreed with some of his comments about illegal immigration – how it’s not fair that they jump ahead of people that are following all the legal immigration laws. Almost seemed reasonable. Until his closing statements, when he pointed out that he was pro-life and anti-gun-control.
Peter Camejo: Very good at exposing how the rich pay a lower tax rate than the poor. However, I think his rabid “let all the Mexican immigrants in” comments are not going to bode well for him. I think a better tactic would have been – okay, all you unemployed people, get out into the field and pick fruit. Not willing to do that? Then just shut up and THEN let all the immigrants in.
Stan Statham (moderator): Absolute BEST comment of the night: “I’m going to have to lower my meds.” After calling McClintock “Mr Schwarzenegger”. Or was that after he called Bustamante “Ms Camejo”.
Arianna Huffington: She seems to think either (a) she’s actually running for president, or (b) she and Arnold are battling it out for first place. Or (c) that her only purpose in life is to make sure that Arnold does NOT win. She was all over the place – one minute she had a very detailed plan that “the money for X should come from Y”, and the next minute she’s talking about Bush and how things should work in Washington. I definitely like the fact that she pointed out that California would not be in this mess (or at least not nearly as badly) if Bush hadn’t repealed the estate tax. From the papers this morning, I see that these things were pretty much all part of her plan – to expose the policy ties between Schwarzenegger and Bush. Politics as usual, in other words. Not to mention the fact that I do think she was personally baiting him, which doesn’t look well on anyone.
Cruz Bustamante: He has my second favorite quote of the evening – that when talking about diversity and equal opportunity, we shouldn’t be talking about “tolerance”, we should be talking about “acceptance”. Wow. Now THAT is a powerful statement. Other than that, though, he seemed a bit bland – maybe it’s because he didn’t say anything that this liberal independent found objectionable.
Wow – I didn’t realize I remembered so much of it!
And now my analysis of the analysis. Amazingly enough, both the Democrat and the Republican agreed on pretty much everything, and it’s all pretty much what I said, too. And what the paper said – funny, I don’t remember writing two pages worth of stuff for the San Francisco Chronicle. ;-)
6:15:26 PM 
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