Boy, I just have to say it: what a complete load of crap.
Being a native Californian, let me help decode this patriotic-sounding-but-completely-misguided-steaming-pile.
"Folks, let Gray Davis talk about choice all he wants. My campaign - indeed, my administration - will be about real choices. Choices for middle class families overwhelmed by excessive taxes. Choices for immigrants, people relegated to inferior schools and violent neighborhoods. Choices for minorities with too few opportunities. Choices for citizens that, regardless of their race, sex or language, represent the Golden State."
Masked in this paragraph is the issue of school vouchers. Many Republicans are operating under the delusion that the answer to improving schools is to fund private schools through vouchers. Californians are too smart to be duped by this attempt at funding private schools for upper class families through public money. We have rejected previous attempts at undermining our public school system by voting down previous propositions on the subject. I am confident that Californians will continue to see through this sham and work to improve our public schools to include all kids regardless of economic level.
"So, let me be clear: Gray Davis can only win if he destroys me. He can only win if he denies what voters already know - that this great state is ill, because of lights too expensive to turn on and schools too embarrassingly bad to close."
Two issues here: the power crisis and schools again. Now, every Californian knows the origin of the power crisis (deregulation) and the originator (Pete Wilson, former Republican governor). Now, it is coming out that the power bandits had their way with California; Enron and others creating artificial shortages and manipulating the short term power market to take advantage of the flawed deregulated market. Davis did what he thought was right to fix the problem, but was playing from a very weak hand dealt by flawed legislation and money grubbing energy executives.
Our schools are a complex issue. Some of the best public schools in the country are right here in California. Unfortunately, so are some of the worst. The problems in the worst school districts are many: high student turnover, high ratio of ESL kids, poor economic demographics that make parent involvement very difficult. Rather than abandon these kids by funding the fleeing of richer kids to exclusive private schools, Californians consistently support legislation and funding to further improve these schools.
Where I hear Spanish words or Korean expressions or Yiddish declarations, Gray Davis hears division. Division based on fear, and division premised upon the idea that what is different is dangerous and what is similar is boring.
Yet, we all come here for the same reason: freedom. We come from Mexico, having heard illustrious promises and paid impossible prices. We come from China, having bid farewell to communist slavery and moral decay. We come from all over America, having followed the western sun's golden light - where reinvention, the hope of a better tomorrow, is the promise of California.
In a way, we come from the land already here. From the farmland's rich soil, tilled by Mexican heroes - humble men and spiritual women, people with hands that ache and thumbs that bleed. People that work honestly and pray earnestly. People that, in the midst of pain and awful poverty, recite the rosary's fifteen promises.
We come from the tracks of great locomotives. We come from the wood, iron and steel of Asian labor. We come from Chinatown, Koreatown and Little Tokyo.
We come from hardworking neighborhoods. We come from places with genuine problems. We come from towns with unstable jobs and unsuccessful schools. We come from places Gray Davis talks about but never visits.
We come from places that more spending will not help. We come from places that more taxes will not fix. Folks, we come from the real world - a place Gray Davis hardly knows, and one he will return to this November."
Wow, I have no idea what the author's point here is. Past Republican governors and gubernatorial candidates in the state are not exactly known for their support of or by minorities. They have been too busy passing laws or proposing legislature to keep minorities as an underclass: elimination of health care and education access, elimination of access to higher education, raping of the public school system, etc. To claim that the California Republican party has been the champion of minority peoples is like claiming that the Holocaust never happened; revisionist history by those to embarrassed or ashamed to see the truth.
"We come to California for what it must offer: conditions that foster success. Yet, we cannot succeed with taxes that are too high and regulations that are too many. We also cannot educate children in two languages, while they cannot successfully speak either. Nor can we police our streets with laws that do not work and jails that improperly operate."
Taxes are indeed high in California. I believe it is so because the one true fault of most Californians is the desire to do the right thing for all fellow Californians. We want the best schools, the lowest crime, the most diversity, the best transportation, the best ecology. Unfortunately, success in these areas leads to more strains on the very infrastructure that supports such a community. People flock to California for the opportunity, for the culture, for the inclusiveness that we offer. As more people flock, the system is strained. Rather than lock down our borders, most Californians look for real solutions by funding school improvement, transportation funding, law enforcement improvements, etc. At the same time, we recognize that we need to preserve our ecology if we have any hope of turning a liveable world over to our offspring. The result is that we live with higher taxes, but it is a tradeoff that we have made to maintain our standard of living without trading off our sense of right.
Which leads to another issue; illegal immigrants. The sad, cold fact is that if every person not legally in the state were to leave, the economy would collapse overnight. A good percentage of the menial jobs are filled by illegal immigrants. Republicans in the state occasionally use this issue as a conservative call to arms, but they well know that illegal immigrants account for a critical part of our economy. So, they attack illegal immigration as a means of rallying votes, passing mean-spirited propositions to eliminate health aid and education to the children of these essential workers.
On the issue of multilingual education, it is quite a divisive issue in California. One of the recent failed propositions dealt with the elimination of bilingual education. I believe that it would have passed had it been framed differently (it called for a transition that many believed was to be too quick to be successful). Many of us support some transition to a more English-oriented curriculum; it may come up on the ballot again in the future. I believe this is the sole issue in which I agree with the author.
Crime in California is actually quite low, except in parts of Los Angeles and a few other areas. Californians recognize that the causes of crime are many, and therefore the remedies must also be many. We have passed a tough '3 strikes and you're out' law, while at the same time passing laws that help prevent the source of crime. Republicans have a hard time getting any traction on this issue in California, because we are too smart to fall for the typical scare tactics used to pass laws that restrict our freedoms.
"This campaign will be long, expensive, possibly negative and almost always formidable. After all, incumbent politicians do not easily - or willingly - relinquish power. And, as this campaign intensifies, Gray Davis will deny his record and distort mine. He will talk about choice, but ignore opportunities."
Davis did not distort Riordan's record. He merely pointed out what Riordan really was; a waffling politician who takes a stance not for beliefs but for convenience. Davis pointed out that Riordan had previously called abortion "murder" but now supports it. Republicans saw him as a man that might someday become pro-choice, and it scared them. Riordan responded by attacking Simon as a 'non-Republican', but it was a weak attack and simply strengthened Simon's hold on the conservative vote.
Gray Davis is a smart politician. Riordan lost the campaign by being cocky. He figured he had the Republican nomination all tied up, so he attacked Davis. Davis then exploited Riordan's main weakness: conservative Californians. Riordan was actually a good Republican gubernatorial candidate in California because of his moderate views and non-partisan stances, but was fried by the very party that needed him to win. Two thirds of Republicans are conservative in California, but two thirds of all voters in California are liberal. Simon has much of a chance of winning in California as W has of carrying this state in the next 100 years.
California is a unique state in that it is the one true remaining 'melting pot' in America. In my area, we are within 10 miles of dozens of cultural centers: Mexican, Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai, Afghan, Indian, Pakistan, etc. This diversity has bred a tolerant and culturally aware society; what you may label 'liberal', but what we call 'inclusive'. We are proud of our record in supporting minority and gay rights, as well as the ecology. I know many people who, after living in California for a number of years and moving away, were shocked that the rest of the nation does not share the same degree of tolerance towards diversity.
Californians must continue to work hard to maintain our high standard of living and values, side by side. It's funny how so many people outside of California ridicule and sneer, but it seems that 9 out of 10 Californians I know are refugees from those very sources of this disdain. I smell an awful lot of sour grapes out there... |
