For what it is worth, I give my $0.02 on the California June Primary and its initiatives. I can't say I have much hope, for reasons I have outlined before.
Have you seen the sample ballot? What should be brief and concise, with only 2 Propositions and the usual local and state elections, is thick and rather convoluted. Whatever gains the Republicans could have made, with the new and less gerrymandered districts, have been squandered by this "jungle primary" system, which means the top two vote winners in each district face off in November, regardless of party.
PRESIDENT: Mitt Romney or a protest vote?
At this point, Mitt Romney is the nominee, and frankly, that's good to beat Obama, who has passed Jimmy Carter as most ineffectual President in my lifetime.
I know some of you are tempted to protest vote, because you think that Mitt Romney is a RINO (Republican In Name Only), who will cave us in and give us Obamunism Lite, and you want to send that message with your vote:
But before you protest vote, think about whether or not your protest vote will be properly understood by the GOP Ruling Establishment.
--Will a protest vote for Newt Gingrich, because you like his debating skill, intense ideas and intellect, be misinterpreted to mean that you really don't care about his lack of integrity, fidelity, ethics and honor?
--Will a protest vote for Rick Santorum, because you like his approach of Reaganite supply-side economics for the working class, be misinterpreted to mean that you are fanatical about the abortion issue?
--Will a protest vote for Ron Paul, because you like his sincerity about cutting an overly intrusive and monster government down to size, be misinterpreted to mean that you are isolationist, appeasing to foreign enemies, and even anti-Semitic?
SENATOR: Elizabeth Emken, I guess.
I am not exactly thrilled here, because Ms. Emken, like Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman, appears to be another wealthy dilettante female (for some reason the GOP thinks only another female can defeat Senator Feinstein), who lacks actual California political experience, and will go down to defeat. However, no other Republican Senate Candidate in this jungle primary has the clout, or the organization, that Ms. Emken does.
Election after election, Californians get a choice between some outsider wealthy actor or billionaire CEO who thinks they can run themselves a tidy little state, and a mad Leftist. Billionaire CEOs seem to be attracted to the turnaround challenge while real Conservative principles and real hard knuckle California politics are annoyances they dance around. What we need is a GOP legislator who fought in the trenches and rose up through the legislature, regardless of gender, but alas, those lack the financial clout.
Unfortunately, unless and until the California Republican Party can effectively harness the energy of the Tea Party Movement, it is doomed to failure and Dianne Feinstein will remain Senator until she passes away or retires. To her credit, Dianne Feinstein keeps her mouth shut and is *not* the horrid little harpy that Bolshevik Barbara Boxer is, but they vote the same way.
PROPOSITION 28: Term Limits Gimmick--NO
Proposition 28 will reduce the total time someone can stay in the state legislature from 14 years to 12. How does it do that? By "reducing" the time someone can stay in the State Senate from 8 years to 12. Or alternately, it "reduces" the time the assembly person can serve from 6 years to 12. In other words, by pretending to reduce total legislative office time someone can serve, it actually increases it in either house of the State Legislature.
Frankly, I LIKE it that if an Assembly member is good enough at his job for six years then we can send him or her to State Senator for another eight. Or vice versa. And then he or she can go on to run for Executive Offices after that. Limits their terms, but gives them enough incentive to listen, maybe.
PROPOSITION 29: Yet another Government Research Program--NO
I know, I know, so many of you want more tobacco taxes because smokers are bad, Bad, BAD! and should be punished, Punished, PUNISHED!
But first, THINK. The state is as of now $14 *billion* in the red and has more programs than it can manage, and you want to create *yet another* government program?
If you really want to tax smoking because it is bad and should be punished, how about just having any and all revenue raised go into the General Fund, and not create yet another program / department / agency the state cannot afford?
I would like to see the last two smoking taxes applied in the same way. What we *really* need is a ballot initiative to defund and terminate the mandatory government programs set up by the two previous smoking tax initiatives, and take all of the tax revenues raised and apply them to the $14 billion dollar hole in the General Fund.
The anti-smoking ads that you regularly see, as a result of Proposition 99 (1988), are corporate welfare for admen on Wilshire Boulevard. The wise don't need them and the fools won't heed them. Put the money going to those ads back into the General Fund.
And what happens if you somehow do get everyone to kick the habit? Then that other smoking tax initiative, Proposition 10 (1998), which pays for children's development programs, goes begging to, you guessed it, the General Fund. So you had better *thank* the fools for smoking, because you will have to make up the difference if they don't. So you say that health costs are lowered if they all stop smoking? Not little kiddie health programs. The kids aren't smoking, or at least not yet they aren't.
But this is the unreality all too many duped Californians live in. As it stands, we have been duped into spending billions for a bogus "high-speed" (sic) rail program, which hardly anyone will realistically use, at a time when much of the aging 1950's vintage highway infrastructure needs repair. We have also been duped into spending a few billion dollars of taxpayer money on "Stem cell research" for nearly a decade now, with no results, at a time when the overcrowded public hospitals are stretched to their limits. (I could discuss the effect of indigent illegal aliens on our public health system, but I will leave that for another day).
Have you seen the sample ballot? What should be brief and concise, with only 2 Propositions and the usual local and state elections, is thick and rather convoluted. Whatever gains the Republicans could have made, with the new and less gerrymandered districts, have been squandered by this "jungle primary" system, which means the top two vote winners in each district face off in November, regardless of party.
PRESIDENT: Mitt Romney or a protest vote?
At this point, Mitt Romney is the nominee, and frankly, that's good to beat Obama, who has passed Jimmy Carter as most ineffectual President in my lifetime.
I know some of you are tempted to protest vote, because you think that Mitt Romney is a RINO (Republican In Name Only), who will cave us in and give us Obamunism Lite, and you want to send that message with your vote:
But before you protest vote, think about whether or not your protest vote will be properly understood by the GOP Ruling Establishment.
--Will a protest vote for Newt Gingrich, because you like his debating skill, intense ideas and intellect, be misinterpreted to mean that you really don't care about his lack of integrity, fidelity, ethics and honor?
--Will a protest vote for Rick Santorum, because you like his approach of Reaganite supply-side economics for the working class, be misinterpreted to mean that you are fanatical about the abortion issue?
--Will a protest vote for Ron Paul, because you like his sincerity about cutting an overly intrusive and monster government down to size, be misinterpreted to mean that you are isolationist, appeasing to foreign enemies, and even anti-Semitic?
SENATOR: Elizabeth Emken, I guess.
I am not exactly thrilled here, because Ms. Emken, like Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman, appears to be another wealthy dilettante female (for some reason the GOP thinks only another female can defeat Senator Feinstein), who lacks actual California political experience, and will go down to defeat. However, no other Republican Senate Candidate in this jungle primary has the clout, or the organization, that Ms. Emken does.
Election after election, Californians get a choice between some outsider wealthy actor or billionaire CEO who thinks they can run themselves a tidy little state, and a mad Leftist. Billionaire CEOs seem to be attracted to the turnaround challenge while real Conservative principles and real hard knuckle California politics are annoyances they dance around. What we need is a GOP legislator who fought in the trenches and rose up through the legislature, regardless of gender, but alas, those lack the financial clout.
Unfortunately, unless and until the California Republican Party can effectively harness the energy of the Tea Party Movement, it is doomed to failure and Dianne Feinstein will remain Senator until she passes away or retires. To her credit, Dianne Feinstein keeps her mouth shut and is *not* the horrid little harpy that Bolshevik Barbara Boxer is, but they vote the same way.
PROPOSITION 28: Term Limits Gimmick--NO
Proposition 28 will reduce the total time someone can stay in the state legislature from 14 years to 12. How does it do that? By "reducing" the time someone can stay in the State Senate from 8 years to 12. Or alternately, it "reduces" the time the assembly person can serve from 6 years to 12. In other words, by pretending to reduce total legislative office time someone can serve, it actually increases it in either house of the State Legislature.
Frankly, I LIKE it that if an Assembly member is good enough at his job for six years then we can send him or her to State Senator for another eight. Or vice versa. And then he or she can go on to run for Executive Offices after that. Limits their terms, but gives them enough incentive to listen, maybe.
PROPOSITION 29: Yet another Government Research Program--NO
I know, I know, so many of you want more tobacco taxes because smokers are bad, Bad, BAD! and should be punished, Punished, PUNISHED!
But first, THINK. The state is as of now $14 *billion* in the red and has more programs than it can manage, and you want to create *yet another* government program?
If you really want to tax smoking because it is bad and should be punished, how about just having any and all revenue raised go into the General Fund, and not create yet another program / department / agency the state cannot afford?
I would like to see the last two smoking taxes applied in the same way. What we *really* need is a ballot initiative to defund and terminate the mandatory government programs set up by the two previous smoking tax initiatives, and take all of the tax revenues raised and apply them to the $14 billion dollar hole in the General Fund.
The anti-smoking ads that you regularly see, as a result of Proposition 99 (1988), are corporate welfare for admen on Wilshire Boulevard. The wise don't need them and the fools won't heed them. Put the money going to those ads back into the General Fund.
And what happens if you somehow do get everyone to kick the habit? Then that other smoking tax initiative, Proposition 10 (1998), which pays for children's development programs, goes begging to, you guessed it, the General Fund. So you had better *thank* the fools for smoking, because you will have to make up the difference if they don't. So you say that health costs are lowered if they all stop smoking? Not little kiddie health programs. The kids aren't smoking, or at least not yet they aren't.
But this is the unreality all too many duped Californians live in. As it stands, we have been duped into spending billions for a bogus "high-speed" (sic) rail program, which hardly anyone will realistically use, at a time when much of the aging 1950's vintage highway infrastructure needs repair. We have also been duped into spending a few billion dollars of taxpayer money on "Stem cell research" for nearly a decade now, with no results, at a time when the overcrowded public hospitals are stretched to their limits. (I could discuss the effect of indigent illegal aliens on our public health system, but I will leave that for another day).
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