Governor: Arnold Schwarzenegger. The
only candidate with any pizzazz, porn-star Mary Carey (one of her
campaign slogans was “Finally, someone you want to be screwed
by”), dropped out of the race . I’m not voting for
Schwarzenegger because I admire him or I think he’s doing a
swell job, but because he’s just as lame as Angelides, so
there’s really no difference. They’re both in the back
pocket of special interests, and neither of them seem to have a
comprehensive or realistic plan for the state. So I’m taking
this opportunity to send the Democrats the message that
they’ve been running awful candidates lately by casting my
vote in Schwarzenegger’s favor. I’m hoping the Dems
will get the hint when they realize that the state that contains
San Francisco would rather elect a conservative bodybuilder than a
liberal Stanford graduate.
Proposition 87: Yes. At first I was
against Proposition 87 because I didn’t see a way to prevent
the gas companies from raising gas prices. I began to reconsider my
decision when I saw the speech former President Bill Clinton gave
at UCLA a few weeks ago. If the oil companies were going to pass
the costs onto consumers, he pointed out, why would they be against
this proposition? The San Francisco Chronicle reported that most
energy economists believe that the tax imposed on oil companies by
Proposition 87 would slightly lower oil production in California,
but “the drop wouldn’t be big enough to raise gasoline
prices at the pump.” In its editorial opposing Proposition
87, the Los Angeles Times claimed the high cost of oil was already
enough to encourage private investors to develop alternative energy
forms. But these alternative energies are still not being widely
used because gasoline, although more expensive than it once was, is
still cheap enough to be cost-effective. Skeptics also worry that
the revenue will not be used to its full potential and that it may
just get stuck in the bureaucracy created to oversee it. I
contemplated this earlier as I jogged down the streets of Los
Angeles during rush hour. I’ve since decided I’m
willing to take a chance to find out for sure.
Proposition 89: No. I don’t like
this proposition because it thinks I’m stupid. Proposition 89
attempts to create equal funding for candidates and to prevent
special interests from having undue influence on government
officials by providing funding from a tax on corporations. Except
really wealthy candidates can still fund themselves. It also seems
to violate the First Amendment by severely restricting certain
entities ““ corporations ““ from making campaign
contributions and allowing other groups such as labor unions to
spend far more. In other words, Proposition 89 pretends to make
politics better by eliminating special interests when it will
really just allow certain groups to have more control than
corporations. Maybe the fact that special interests control
elections isn’t an indicator of a problem with the process,
but rather a problem with the voters. I doubt that most people take
into consideration which organizations have funded the candidates
they vote for. But if there is going to be a proposition regulating
campaign reform, it should require candidates to accept no
contributions. Each candidate can instead write unlimited letters
to newspapers ““ on the condition that they purchase their own
stamps.