Newsflash: CNN declares Arnold new CA Gov

[Nubclear]

Californian university system the best in the world?

[MichaeltheGreat]

Actually, if you look at the county by county breakdown, I wouldn't be so optimistic about Arnold's chances. Certainly not enough to conclude he has it in the bank.

The only high population urban counties that have reported in heavily as of 8 pm are Contra Costa, San Bernardino and Riverside, which are all relatively conservative. LA and San Francisco, Alameda County (Oakland and Berkeley) Sacramento and San Diego County have 0% of precincts reporting.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Comrade Tassadar
Californian university system the best in the world?

UCLA, San Diego, Stanford and Berkeley are pretty good (Stanford is not part of the system IIRC). But once you go down from them it gets pretty dire pretty quick. Still not a patch on the good schools back east though.

And the high school system is a joke.

[Berzerker]

I thought that the problem with California's energy was deregulation, which the previous governor passed. By allowing middle men to reduce the profits of energy producers deregualtion reduced the incentive to build new power plants.

Who passed the deregulation of the energy industry?

It wasn't "de-regulation". Producers couldn't pass off their costs by charging consumers market rates. How does de-regulation allow middlemen to reduce the profits of producers?

[Agathon]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
Actually, if you look at the county by county breakdown, I wouldn't be so optimistic about Arnold's chances. Certainly not enough to conclude he has it in the bank.

The only high population urban counties that have reported in heavily as of 8 pm are Contra Costa, San Bernardino and Riverside, which are all relatively conservative. LA and San Francisco, Alameda County (Oakland and Berkeley) Sacramento and San Diego County have 0% of precincts reporting.

You're sounding desperately hopeful there Michael.

I wouldn't be too down in the mouth if Arnie wins. It shows that voters will come out to get incompetent economy wreckers and Bush is nothing if not one of those.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove
I thought that the problem with California's energy was deregulation, which the previous governor passed. By allowing middle men to reduce the profits of energy producers deregualtion reduced the incentive to build new power plants.

Who passed the deregulation of the energy industry?

The Democrat dominated legislature and former Governor Wilson.

Deregulation, or realistically, restructuring, did not in the least reduce the incentive to build, and was not a significant contributor to the energy crisis. In California, taking a large, utility scale power plant from internal proposal to commercial operation is about a ten year process, with another five years or so involved in utility resource planning etc. if it's a utility project.

A lot of factors contributed to it, but NIMBY and BANANAs combined with a surplus of importable power prior to deregulating, and poor planning over the previous two decades by the regulated utilities.

[Berzerker]

Bustamante gives a speech rejoicing over the defeat of prop 54 and says we need to strive for a color blind society but we can't put blinders on government. ******* Orwel is alive!
Wtf does that mean? Oh, we want a color blind society but government wants to know the color of everyone's skin? Why? PREFERENTIAL TREATMENT?

[Sava]

sigh... I'm glad I don't live in that dope state... the Repugs succeed in their power grab.

[Berzerker]

My Sis works for PG@E (is that the one? ) and she said the utilities were forced to sell off production assets (breaking up monopolies) and then producers were told how much to charge consumers even if the cost didn't cover their costs. She also said utilities people went to Davis something like 6 months before the crisis began and told him a crisis was coming and he ignored their warning.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Agathon


You're sounding desperately hopeful there Michael.

I wouldn't be too down in the mouth if Arnie wins. It shows that voters will come out to get incompetent economy wreckers and Bush is nothing if not one of those.

Not at all. My absentee ballot (despite being a partisan Democrat) was cast for Arnold.

But it's stupid to predict results while having no info on the most highly populated and several of the most heavily liberal counties.

The Davis campaign, and the California and national Democratic Party Oberkommando just don't ****ing get it. Bringing Gore out here to stand with Davis and whine about the vast right wing conspiracy^TM machine out stealing elections was the worst thing the Dems could have done to either retain Davis or elect Bustamante.

Don't listen to the electorate, don't pay attention to their concerns, avoid taking responsibility, and just get together among your self-appointed party elite and decide what you're going to preach to the electorate while you have a nice little circle-jerk. That's the way the Dems have been doing it for a long time, and the leadership doesn't deserve to be subsidized by people voting for their candidates who toe that party line.

[Dis]

Originally posted by ixnay
I will laugh when it becomes apparent in a few months that Arnold is not going to be any more able to fix the problems in CA than Davis was.

Also, it looks like "being a cast member in Predator" seems to be a good first step towards being elected as a governor.

Carl Weathers for governor!

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by ixnay
I will laugh when it becomes apparent in a few months that Arnold is not going to be any more able to fix the problems in CA than Davis was.

Of course he won't be. He's not God, and he's not a dictator, so he still has the legislature to deal with.

The important part is Davis getting the axe for his non-performance, and hopefully that will send a message to everyone else statewide that you will perform, or be held accountable.

Now we just have to find someone else to recall, just to prove that it wasn't a one-off fluke, so the rest of the elected *******s start looking over their shoulders.

Who's next?

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Sava
sigh... I'm glad I don't live in that dope state... the Repugs succeed in their power grab.

I'm glad you don't live there either. If you think one of eight state offices, and minorities in both legislative houses constitutes a "power grab," then you're the type of gullible voter both parties have fed off of for decades, and California already has plenty of those. Maybe they've awoken for once.

[Sava]

The important part is Davis getting the axe for his non-performance, and hopefully that will send a message to everyone else statewide that you will perform, or be held accountable.

Too bad voters had their chance to do so less than a year ago, and only 6 months before the recall shenanigans began when Californians RE-ELECTED Davis in a legitimate election. I'm not sure 6 months is long enough for Davis to do anything. Sure, he was governor before... but if the people didn't want him, they shouldn't have re-elected him.

There is accountability, that's why we have regular elections... this wasn't about accountability... it's about a popular movie star and a campaign run by savvy, career politicians exploiting a dusty, old recall procedure.

This was an educating experience for me though. I did learn that there are a few conservatives who aren't salivating over a power grab and do have some integrity. George Will, Jesse Ventura, and even Bush were against the recall. Pay attention folks, this is a rare time where I will compliment Bush.

[Dis]

There's no sense voting for Arnold. He won't be able to do anything. I believe he could be effective if he had a majority in the state legislatures. But he doesn't. The democrats will never let him do anything. He will be a worthless governor because of it.

Bustamante was the best way to go. Sure he wouldn't have been a great governor, but he would have been better than Davis.