I hope California can turn around before it goes in the same direction as the ninnies across the Atlantic.

Annika,

I'm also an admirer of Governor Schwarzenegger and of your state, which I used to visit frequently.

However, the governor made a HUGE strategic mistake during that stupid recall campaign in not calling for a repeal of Proposition 13 under cover of Warren Buffett's public recomendation. That was the last best chance to do so without few, if any, political consequences.

Given the dynamics of the Recall, it was a given that he would win. He didn't face the horrors of California's Republican primary, which is often a contest in who is the craziest and can lose most effectively. The governor will never have the opportunity again, and neither will any Republican. It should go without saying that no Democrat even has the balls to go after Prop 13.

More than anything else, 13 is the root of all of California's evils. More than anything else, and California has been riddled with insane government for nearly a century, Prop 13 has been responsible for starving local public services.

All of the debt ceilings in the world will do nothing to restore fiscal sanity to California with 13 in place. Debt ceilings are easily circumvented by a vote in the legislature, as the national Republicans did three times in the early 1990's with President Clinton's signature.

California's problem is that the state is forced to fund the localities because the state constitution refuses to let them do it for themselves.

Arnold could have chaned that and it is a tragedy that he didn't.

Fuck off Skippy. The cocksuckers (Demoncrats) in the statehouse have too much moolah.

caca is a tough act to follow, but i wanted to tell you annika that i added your button to my blog's side bar.

ive always liked it and your blog and now maybe it will remind me to come here more often because ive liked you for a long time, as ive said before, but im such a stoner i forget to get over here.

lets runaway away together. k?

Annika,

Arnie doing a great job? I must disagree. Any governor, repub or dem, who approves of, supports & signs into law a ban on certain bolt action rifles is doing a terrible job - unless you're a statist (which I know you not to be). Sure, he hasn't done too badly on the econimic tip (which he seems to have borrowed more thna a few ideas from the real republican in that race - McClintock) but on the freedom-meter his job performnce is in the negative.

& no; we're not a democracy. We're a republic. democratic representation & all that - sure. But here are some things even the majority cannot or should not do. Granted, none of the things on the ballot seem out of line, but the point is that a democracy* is NOT a good thing. Hell, I'd wager good confederate money that the majority of Californians would approve of ya'lls head RINO banning those bolt actions. a Democracy is not for a free loving people; those types should seek a constituionally limited republic.

* yes I know - democracy is all too commonly meant to mean a democratically elected government rather than a pure democracy - but it's a dangerous misapplication of the connotation & should be corrected whenever it can be.

Welcome Back Publicola!

Tony, celebrities and stoners are always welcome here!

Uncle Joe, i like Prop 13, but you may be right about Arnold's window of opportunity closing during the election. But there sure was a shit storm after Buffett made that comment, and i'm not so sure Arnold would have won if he had endorsed any change to prop 13. Californians love prop 13 almost as much as they love their abortions, meaning that if anyone tries to do away with either, you'll have revolution.

I'd say if Arnold is even breathing wrong around teacher unions, he's quite a courageous guy. Unions generally are like dragons protecting their pile of gold, and woe to the poor soul who tries to reform anything that threatens their $.

Students and their education be damned. (Time for vouchers.)

Annika,

Therein lies the beauty of the recall, as it didn't allow for a primary, there wasn't enough time for anyone to take down Arnold. Within that time frame, there wasn't anything another Republican could do about it. Besides, Arnold would be more than capable of saying, "I'm not going to run to be the governor of an ungovernable state. Here are the numbers, you do the math. If you don't like it, you can run that brain damaged idiot Bill Simon again. Davis only beat him by five points last time."

Since there are only about four Republicans in California and three of them are batshit, fucking nuts, Arnold calls the shots with the state party. How else do you think he gets away with being pro-choice and for gun control? It's because the state party knows that if they DON'T allow for it, they'll be a rump party that represents about four square blocks of Orange County. Knowing that his election was a sure thing, Arnold had a lot of latitude that other Republicans don't have.

Arnold could have done that during the Recall and can't now. Even if I thought he was going to run for his own term (which I don't), he get annhiliated in the primary if he tried.

The choice in the Recall could have been simply framed: lose 13 or keep Davis in office. Since Davis had the aproval rating of your average pedophile, there wouldn't have been a choice at all.

Although Governor Mary Carey would have been fun, and all things being equal, not notably worse than some of the people California routinely elects anyway.

I'd also like to point out something to Casca that he or she may have forgotten in high school civics. Property taxes generally do not go to Sacramento, they go to city hall.

Now, if I remember my Republican dogma correctly, it is preferable for local communities to control as much government as possible, the theory being that, say, Costa Mesa can run Costa Mesa better than Sacremento or (god forbid) Washington can.

The problem with that theory - as it applies to California - is that you need money to provide for things like schools, police and fire departments. With 13, the local governments can't finance those things, so Sacramento has to. To resort to a cliche, he who pays the piper calls the tune. As a Canadian, I know a lot about how that works.

The effect of 13 has ben to force the state to cover the cost of the municipalities, while the voters complain about service cutbacks and state over-regulation. This is much like desiring a place in heaven without dying. And reserving the right to bitch about how God runs the place.

Assuming that Republicans really like small government, then they should favor repealing 13. Getting rid of a city councillor is a whole hell of a lot easier than icing a state reprenstative or senator. And once you get to the federal level, forget about it. Barbara Boxer is boderline retarded and she won by what last year, 13 points?

Controlling your destiny largely depends on keeping the people who control your money very close to you. The further away they get, the less control they have.

Besides, your paying as much (or more) to the state than you would to your city with 13 as you would without. Where do you think your state taxes and sales taxes go?

Proposition 13 turned out to be a political shell game. It allowed an already big government in Sacramento to become an enormous government.

My money says we (loyal member of CTA writing here) win this one. We'll lose the tenure vote, but we'll win on the budget and we will win on the union dues, just as we did back in 1998. It'll be close, but I think we on the left have a more energized base on this than the right does.

We'll see.

"Hey, what about the fact that this state has been run by the Democrats for decades"

http://www.answers.com/topic/list-of-governors-of-california

Earl Warren 1943 1953 Republican
Goodwin Knight 1953 1959 Republican
Pat Brown Sr. 1959 1967 Democrat
Ronald Reagan 1967 1975 Republican
Jerry Brown Jr. 1975 1983 Democrat
George Deukmejian 1983 1991 Republican
Pete Wilson 1991 1999 Republican
Gray Davis Jr. 1999 2003 Democrat
Arnold Schwarzenegger 2003 - Republican

look at the legislature preston.

"I call dem economic GURRLIE MEHN."