[Reefland]

Well it appears that Arnold Schwartzenegger (ok, that was my best guess at spelling but after looking it up it is Schwarzenegger, not too far off! ) is the new Gov. of CA and I wanted to get some opinions on it from you guys.

Thoughts, concerns?
Scott Z.

[Ninong]

Hi Scott,

Yes, it appears that Ah-nult is now Governator of California.

Check out this map: http://www.sfgate.com/election/races...0/07/map.shtml

The red counties, including even Los Angeles, voted AGAINST the recall. San Francisco voted MORE THAN 80% AGAINST the recall. There are two Californias: The progressive coastal California and the interior. Then there is Orange county, a Republican stronghold below Los Angeles. Orange county and San Diego county tend to go Republican.

The good news is that Ah-nult is not a real Republican. Just compare his views with mainstream Republicans in California or elsewhere. I don't believe he would ever have been nominated by the California Republican Party and I think he realized that and that is why he jumped at the chance that Issa provided with the recall drive.

I wish him well but besides being more likeable and loveable than Gray Davis, we may not see much improvement until the economy in the state improves. About 80% of California's state budget is mandated and virtually impossible to cut. Let's see how popular the Governator will be if he starts terminating thousands of CHP officers and other state employees.

He did announce that he will rescind the increase in auto license fees that Davis put in to raise an extra $4 billion. He said that would be the very first thing he would do when he got to Sacramento. That was an extremely popular pledge but it will make it just that much harder to close the budget deficit next year. During the dot-com boom, California drastically reduced their exhorbitant auto license fees only to restore them when the tax money stopped rolling in. If I remember correctly, California had a problem in 1999 with too much money coming in. They couldn't figure out how to spend it all and some of it was returned to the voters. Then in 2000 Silicon Valley crashed and with it the state's economy.

At least Jay Leno and David Letterman will have lots of material for their opening routines now. Gray Davis was, well, gray! It was a miracle that he was even reelected last November. It only happened because the Republicans ignored Bush's choice, the moderate Dick Riordan, and went with Bill Simon. It wasn't easy for the Republicans to nominate someone who could lose to Gray Davis, but they managed to pull it off anyway.

It will be interesting to see how much influence the California State Republican Party hardliners have on Ah-nult. I have a feeling that they will have a lot less influence than they would like. People like to think of Bill Clinton as being left wing, but he really wasn't. He did a lot of things that the left-wing of the Democratic Party were against. He was much more moderate than perhaps 60% of the Democratic Party at the time. I believe we will see that Ah-nult is much more moderate than 90% of the California State Republican Party. That should make it easier for him to cooperate with the Democrat controlled state house and senate but it will irritate the hell out of the Republican Party. I guess they will have to bite their tongues and go along to get along since they will need his help if they expect to contest California for Bush in 2004.

[blown63chevy]

Well I actually didn't go out and vote yesterday, just moved and didn't have my voting paperwork. However, if I would have voted, it would have been for Arnold or McClintock. I watched the debates and none of the other canidates really impressed me. Even saw a town meeting from Davis and all he did was blame the previous Govoner or the Bush adminstriation. Same thing that Huffington did during the debate, that and try and argue with Arnold of off subject matters. Glad she dropped out but she actually was backing up Davis after she did. My opinon is that they were two peas in a pod, couldn't stand up on their own too feet and had to blame everyone else rather than face the issue. It will be intersting to see what happens with Arnold, him being married into the Kennedy clan and all but being a republican.
I do know that he is verry supportative of the school system and kids and has even spent his own money to help fund some of the after school programs here in the state. My wife met him at the state PTA convention where he was the guest speaker and she said she was very impresssed with what he had to say and how supportave he was of the schools. Let's just hope that he can do what he said and help turn our economy around within the state and continue to support the schools as he has in the past. I think he will as he wasn't bought out by a lot of the "Special Intrest Groups", yea, you know who you are. Just my .02 cents.
Ray

[almostdiva]

I was waiting for this thread to show up!!!!!!

I think Ninong is correct -- about the percentage of the budget which is mandated by all the various ballot initiatives AND about CA having too much $$ on hand pre-dotcom demise.

How do you make line item adjustments in a situation like that??? Will one of you Californians 'splain to this cynical Northeasterner how ANYONE who beat Davis is supposed to change much about the budget situation, given the mandates??? (I'm not getting ugly -- I'd really like to know what can be changed)

And Ah-nult ISN'T a "real" Republican -- just look at his views on the right to choose and other "social conservative" bastions of the national Republican platform for the last 3 national election cycles.

[Bamm Bamm]

TOTAL RECALL 2003 HASTA LA VISTA DAVIS..
I'm happy about Gov Arnold I just hope he lowers our vehicle registration tax that Gov Davis tripled a few months back.. I have 3 vehicles and this sucks!!!!!!!!

[wgscott]

Heir Groping-Fuhrer will be taking control shortly.

Soon he should settle the suit against Enron for $0.02 on the dollar, thus eliminating the possibility of recovering the $9 billion Dick Cheney and his pals looted from our fair state.

[Ninong]

WG,

Herr Groping-Fuhrer. That's a good one!

I don't think Enron has $0.02 left. They're about to cancel the stock. I wish I had shorted it back when it was $30. It would have been even nicer to short it when it was $93 but the first story that I read that said that its off-the-books partnerships were nothing more than smoke and mirrors was when it was down to around $30. I can't remember who wrote that piece but he didn't work for any of the major investment banks or brokerage houses and they all pounced on him to the effect that there were too many big-name money center banks involved in those "accounting arrangements" for there to be any hanky panky going on. Of course we now know that those big-name banks were in on the action. I seriously doubt that Kenny-Boy or Shilling will do any time.

So what do you think about Ah-nult's nominee for the Calif EPA? Or his pledge that half of all new homes in Calif will have solar power by 2005? Or the hydrogen gas stations every 20 miles on the Interstates? I don't think the Bushies thought he was really serious about all that green stuff but maybe he is? This guy's sounding more and more like Al Gore every day. Cheney could have a heart attack any minute now. BTW, is he still alive? Has anyone seen him lately?

Do you think the Greenie candidate in SF has a shot against Billy Getty's pal? If he gets in, SF can finally claim it's more liberal and greener than Beserkeley or Santa Cruz.