Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JohnM who wrote (5497)	8/20/2003 10:52:30 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793624

This will be a good race to watch As Good as It Gets Inez Tenenbaum is Dems' best hope of holding Fritz's seat. - Michael Graham, a radio talk-show host, is author of Redneck Nation: How the South Really Won the War. It's a classic case of "good news/bad news" for South Carolina Democrats. School Superintendent Inez Tenenbaum, their strongest candidate, has decided to enter the race for Fritz Hollings's U.S. Senate seat. If anyone can win that seat for the Democrats, it's her. The bad news: She can't. Winning statewide elections is a tough job for South Carolina Democrats under the best of circumstances. Last year, in one of those infamous off-year elections that was supposed to go against the Republicans, the S.C. GOP won seven of the nine constitutional offices, knocking off incumbent governor Jim Hodges along the way. Congressman Lindsey Graham made easy work of former College of Charleston President Alex Sanders to keep Strom Thurmond's seat for the GOP. The one bright spot for Democrats, however, was vote-magnet Tenenbaum. In 1998, she beat a credible GOP opponent to win the superintendent's job with 58 percent of the vote. In 2002, with the state Democratic party collapsing around her, Tenenbaum's share of the vote actually went up. In fact, Tenenbaum got more votes her last time out than Strom Thurmond did in his. And don't let the name fool you. She gets it from her husband, Sam, a long-time Democratic activist and fundraiser with plenty of political savvy. His only flaw is his insistence that anti-Semitism is a significant force among the South Carolina electorate. Some shortsighted Republicans engaged in wishful thinking privately agree. But even if Inez shared his faith (she's a Methodist), there is no evidence that it would have hurt her political fortunes. And the continuing popularity of Sen. Joe Lieberman in South Carolina supports the notion that being a person of faith is more important for southern voters than being a person of a particular faith. Tenenbaum is smart, she's tough, and she's popular with crossover Republican women. Her camp is also spreading the word about their latest polling: 49 percent-35 percent head-to-head with GOP congressman Jim DeMint and 48 percent-36 percent over former state Attorney General Charlie Condon. Only one problem: She's running for the U.S. Senate as a Democrat in South Carolina in 2004. And that's almost certainly a losing proposition. Forget Tenenbaum's poll numbers against candidates like DeMint and Condon, because DeMint's never run statewide and Condon's the least-electable Republican in the state of South Carolina this side of John McCain. After eight years as attorney general, Condon polled an embarrassing 16 percent in the 2002 gubernatorial primary. More important is Tenenbaum's fundamental political/ideological problem. In California or New York, she might be able to pass herself off as a moderate. (On social issues, she's definitely to the right of a certain Republican gubernatorial candidate and movie star.) But in South Carolina, she and Charleston Mayor Joe Riley represent the liberal wing of the state's Democratic party. In fact, a cursory glance of elected Democrats indicates they are the liberal wing. That fact alone may doom her candidacy. Despite all the positives she has as a person and a candidate, Inez Tenenbaum simply doesn't come close to representing the beliefs of South Carolina voters. It's one thing to be a left-of-center, "for the children" Hillaryite running the state's under-performing school system. It's another thing to ask South Carolina voters to send you to Washington to actually vote with Hillary. Nobody cares what the state schoolmarm's position is on the death penalty, abortion, gun control, judicial nominees, etc., but for a U.S. senator, these are meat-and-potatoes (or perhaps in S.C., "meat-and-three-veg") issues. Oh, and did I mention George W. Bush will be at the top of the ticket? In 1998, I predicted that the voters of South Carolina simply would not elect a woman named Tenenbaum to statewide office, even if she was a quality candidate. I was pleased to be proven wrong. In 2004, with President Bush seeking reelection against the Tenenbaum-endorsed Howard Dean (Inez, you will endorse your party's presidential nominee, won't you?), the voters will reject the idea of a Senator Tenenbaum...and this time, for all the right reasons. nationalreview.com

To: JohnM who wrote (5497)	8/20/2003 11:12:13 AM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 793624

The Bee, being in the Capital of California, has always done the best job of covering Politics. Dan Walters: Davis offers skewed version of history -- but won't apologize By Dan Walters -- Bee Columnist - (Published August 20, 2003) LOS ANGELES -- Gray Davis, who faces the bleak prospect of becoming the first California governor to be ousted from office in midterm because of his handling of two major crises, offered a characteristic quasi-apology to voters Tuesday. Davis, however, skewed historical fact and fundamentally blamed others as he presented his versions of the energy and budget crises that drove his popularity to record-low levels. Clearly Davis, ever the temporizer, could not bring himself to issue the mea culpas on energy and the budget that might have satisfied voter anger. Polls indicate that a strong majority of California voters are inclined to recall Davis at an Oct. 7 special election. There are 135 would-be successors on the same ballot, led by Democratic Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante and Republican movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger. Davis' 20-minute speech to a carefully selected audience of enthusiastic supporters at UCLA was clearly aimed at arresting his popularity plunge -- one that threatens to make him irrelevant as the recall becomes an assumption, and the contest among Bustamante, Schwarzenegger and others takes center stage. And Davis' chief target was Democratic voters, many of whom are ready to jettison him, especially because they have another Democrat in Bustamante waiting in the wings. That's why Davis sought to characterize the recall drive as "part of a national effort to steal elections Republicans cannot win," likening it to the impeachment of President Clinton and the political and judicial battle over voting procedures in Florida. "I'm going to fight this recall and the right-wing forces behind it," Davis pledged to cheers. "You can take that to the bank." The governor described the 2001 energy crisis, which saw Californians experience power blackouts and soaring utility bills, as something foisted on the state by Enron and other greedy energy suppliers. However, Davis glossed over and distorted his refusal early in the crisis to allow utilities to sign long-term supply contracts that would have protected them and their customers from soaring spot market power prices. That refusal has been singled out by even the most objective critics as Davis' chief failure -- one magnified a half-year later when he sought long-term contracts at much-higher prices. Davis cryptic version: "I refused to give in to pressure to raise rates astronomically." Reality: Rates would have risen only slightly had Davis acted earlier, and they did rise astronomically to pay for the much more expensive contracts his administration signed later. Davis' semi-apology about energy was confined to, "We made our share of mistakes." He took much the same tack on the budget, saying only that "I could have been tougher in holding down spending when we had a big surplus" and quickly adding that the $8 billion in extra spending that he and lawmakers of both parties sanctioned in 2000 was to finance vitally needed health and education services. "I make no apology for that," Davis said, adding that it was "preposterous" that he had concealed the size of the state budget deficit when he was running for re-election last year. The record differs markedly from Davis' self-serving version. When the state experienced a $12 billion windfall in 2000, Davis publicly declared that he would stoutly resist pressure from either party to spend it because it likely would be a one-time phenomenon, stemming from a flurry of stock market activity in the volatile high-tech industry. If the money were to be committed to ongoing spending or permanent tax cuts, Davis said then, the state could face massive deficits as future revenues returned to normal levels. In fact, however, Davis and lawmakers quickly agreed to spend about $8 billion of the windfall on ongoing programs -- tax cuts, education and health care primarily -- and when revenues did return to normal, the state had an $8 billion "structural deficit" that was papered over with bookkeeping gimmicks and loans in the ensuing three years. It leaves the state with an immense ongoing deficit and equally massive debts. Davis was right to address his roles in those two crises, but he was wrong to offer such obviously distorted accounts of those roles. It was political propaganda, not straight talk. sacbee.com