Tag: California

The Myth of Mitt’s Moderateness

Trish

So much for the arguments by independents that Mitt Romney is a moderate.

Mitt is not a moderate, he’s not a liberal, he’s not a conservative. He’s a rich guy doing whatever he thinks he needs to do to claim the power that rich guys feel entitled to.

Mitt is not a moderate, he’s not a liberal, he’s not a conservative. He’s a rich guy doing whatever he thinks he needs to do to claim the power that rich guys feel entitled to. And if that means saying one thing to these people and the opposite to others, so be it.

Addicting Info on Romney’s reaction to the decision by an appeals court that California’s Proposition 8, which outlawed same-sex marriage in the state, is unconstitutional:

Not long after the ruling was handed down, Mitt Romney, eager to pander to ultra conservative anti-gay hate groups, made a statement, condemning the decision.

[Romney’s statement begins] “Today, unelected judges cast aside the will of the people of California who voted to protect traditional marriage. This decision does not end this fight, and I expect it to go to the Supreme Court. I believe marriage is between a man and a woman and, as president, I will protect traditional marriage and appoint judges who interpret the Constitution as it is written and not according to their own politics and prejudices.” [Romney’s statement ends]

The problem with Mitt’s statement is that the judges did indeed correctly interpret the Constitution. Nowhere in the Constitution does it say anything about marriage. It does not say that straight couples are the only ones who can marry, nor does it say that homosexuals can’t get married. What the Constitution does say is that everyone has the right to personal liberty, privacy, and equality under the law. Laws that ban consenting adults from marrying violates the Equal Protection and Due Process clauses of the Constitution. In other words, the judges made the right call. So basically, Romney is promising to appoint judges who will consistently misinterpret the Constitution, which is similar to what Newt Gingrich has promised to do.

California GOP Loses Again

Jon Ponder

Unpopular: Issa, left, and Lungren
Unpopular: Issa, left, and Lungren
That California Republican Party is so pathetic that it is tempting to bleeding-heart types to feel sad for them. GOP registration is on a years-long downhill slide (it could dip below 30 percent soon), and the state party is so underfunded that it could not afford to buy advertising in the 2008 campaign. In the 2010 midterms, a Republican wave election across the country, every statewide GOP candidate — for U.S. senator, governor, lieutenant governor, treasurer, etc. — but one lost to Democrats by 10 points or more. (The Democratic attorney general candidate won, but by a slim margin.)

The best known California Republicans are also the state’s least-popular politicians, including former Govs. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Pete Wilson and current House members, Rep. Darrell Issa, the wealthiest House member, an accused car thief and arsonist who chairs the House committee that investigates the Obama administration, and Rep. “Styrofoam Dan” Lungren, the former state attorney general and current chairman of the House Administration Committee, who made news recently for rescinding Democrats’ efforts to “green” the Capitol Building.

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Mediocre and Dim: What Passes for Best and Brightest in the GOP

Trish
Mary Bono
Mack and Mary Bono, aka his Gingrich Problem

We’re not the only ones to notice that Connie Mack IV, nee Cornelius Harvey McGillicuddy IV, is one of the lightest weight lightweights ever to run on the Republican ticket for the Senate from Florida, and that’s saying something.

After all, this is the state that sent George LeMieux, whose claim to fame might be only that his last name contains more vowels than consonants, to fill the spot vacated by Mel Martinez, who quit partway through his term to pursue closer family relations.

That tendency seems to be largely Republican in nature, but at least Martinez wasn’t trying to spend more time with Sarah Palin’s family.

I digress.

The point is, someone else is taking a look at Mack IV (R), now running for the seat held by Sen. Bill Nelson (D), and coming up underwhelmed.

Palm Beach Post columnist Frank Cerabino sent a memo to Mack from his fictitious image consulting firm. In it, he presented Mack with answers he might use to address issues uncovered by opposition research.

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You Have to Spend Money to Win Elections

Trish

2

Number of non-competitive state legislative contests, out of 84, won in Florida by the candidate who spent less money in 2010. Non-competitive on a monetary scale means that one side raised more than twice as much as the closest opponent. That comes out to 97.7% of those with a funding advantage winning. Only 16 of 143 races were competitive, or 11%. California had even fewer competitive races, at 4%.

UC Davis Chancellor Faces Silent ‘Walk of Shame’ over Pepper Spray Incident

Jon Ponder

Here are two related, remarkable videos. On the left, UC Davis campus police fire pepper spray into the faces of protesters who are sitting peacefully on the ground. On the right, after facing a barrage of criticism over the incident, the university chancellor walks out of a building to her car at night while hundreds of protesters look on in total silence.

Sacramento Bee:

[University of California-Davis] officials found themselves under a barrage of Internet-driven outrage Saturday, after campus police officers pepper-sprayed protesters at an Occupy UC Davis encampment Friday.

Saturday evening, after holding a news conference to address intense nationwide media interest, UC Davis Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi walked through a blocks-long gantlet of students, who stood silently as she passed to a waiting SUV. Katehi had stayed inside the building for more than two hours after the conference.

Earlier, the crowd of protesters, which grew to 300 or more, had waved signs and chanted “Resignation, Resignation” and “Take Responsibility.” There were no police officers in sight and protesters dispersed shortly after the chancellor departed.

The board of the Davis Faculty Association, among others, has called for her resignation.

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Husband of Sonny Bono’s Widow Announces Run for U.S. Senate in Florida

Jon Ponder

Reps. Mack IV and Bono Mack
Reps. Mack IV and Bono Mack
Or at least that’s how this development in Florida looks from California. Rep. Connie Mack, R-Fla., is married to Rep. Mary Bono Mack, R.-Calif..

Rep. Bono Mack is the widow of Sonny Bono of Sonny and Cher fame, which also makes her Chaz Bono’s stepmother. She represents California’s 36th District, which includes Palm Springs — a demographically odd stew of gays, Republican retirees, gay Republican retirees and, increasingly, Democrats. (And, for the benefit of non-Floridians, Connie Mack is a guy. His real name is Cornelius McGillicuddy IV.)

The story has a much different profile in Florida, of course. The most crucial difference is that the name Connie Mack is extremely well known there. Connie Mack’s great-grandfather, Connie Mack I, was a famous sports figure and his father, Connie Mack III, was a two-term Republican U.S. senator.

Here’s how the Orlando Sentinel, a newspaper that is notoriously in the bag for the GOP, reports Mack IV’s entry into the race:

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We’re Number One! Los Angeles Leads Nation in Gay Couples (Oh, Wait)

Jon Ponder

map-ss-couples-us

New reports from the 2010 Census show that California has nearly twice the number of gay couples than any other state — thanks for playing, New York and Florida! — and that Los Angeles is home to more same-sex couples than any other city:

The Golden State had 98,153 same-sex couples, followed by New York with 48,932, Florida with 48,496 and Texas with 46,401. North Dakota had the fewest same-sex couples with 559, just ahead of Wyoming with 657 and South Dakota with 714.

Among the nation’s largest cities … Los Angeles was No. 1 with 13,292, followed by Chicago with 10,849, San Francisco with 10,461 and Seattle with 6,537. [San Diego was fifth with 5,910 couples.]

The U.S. Census Bureau this week released revised estimates on same-sex married couple and unmarried partner households: There were 131,729 same-sex married couple households and 514,735 same-sex unmarried partner households in the United States.

But wait — uh-oh. Hold the confetti, L.A. Those are aggregate numbers. […]

How to Talk to Republicans

Jon Ponder

Watch a young California liberal go off on GOP Rep. Dan Lungren during a town hall meeting in his district last week. Lungren, a former state attorney general, is widely unpopular in the state, and was one of the few Republican House members who had a tough reelection in 2010, only managing to pull out a win after Karl Rove came in with a big ad buy at the end.

Hey, yelling at congressmen eventually put the tea party in charge of the government, so you can’t say it doesn’t work.

If California’s Republican Counties Want to Secede, Let ‘Em

Jon Ponder

Click to enlarge
Click to enlarge
In California, as a general rule, money, population and scenic beauty are accumulated along the coast — which, as it happens, is also where the liberals live. The vast inland areas are generally poorer, less desirable and, as it happens, predominantly Republican.

Now, a politician from the benighted red region has proposed seceding from the rest of the state:

Riverside County Supervisor Jeff Stone is leading the push to form the new state of “South California.” Made up of 13 conservative-leaning counties, including Fresno, Orange, San Diego and San Bernardino, the 51st state would be the nation’s fifth-largest by population.

Stone told the New York Times he’s fed up with California’s dysfunctional state government, which routinely deadlocks over budget crises. “We have businesses leaving all the time, and we’re just driving down a cliff to become a third-world economy,” he said of a state whose economy is the eighth largest in the world.

“I am tired of California being the laughingstock of late-night jokes,” he added…

The unlikely effort is just the most recent in a long line of bids to split California since it became a state in 1850. The closest call came in 1941, when parts of Northern California and southern Oregon, citing poor infrastructure, pushed to create the new state of Jefferson.

A spokesman for California Governor Jerry Brown, a Democrat, called the latest scheme “a supremely ridiculous waste of everybody’s time,” the Los Angeles Times reported. “If you want to live in a Republican state with very conservative right-wing laws, then there’s a place called Arizona.”

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