Silly Season in California: The Warm-Up
Yes, it's an election year, silly season when all sorts of promises are made (soon to be broken) and all sorts of claims are asserted (soon to be debunked). My home state of California is just like every other state in that respect, only we do it with more flair, more style, more pizzazz.
It has started already, and we're not even that close to the state primaries. Jamie Court has an interesting op-ed piece in today's LA Times.
TONIGHT, Arnold Schwarzenegger is to return to the Beverly Hilton for the first time since his contrite apology to voters after the defeat of every single one of his ballot measures in last year's special election. The governor will probably be anything but contrite as he panders to donors who will pony up as much as $100,000 each to fund his reelection campaign. Schwarzenegger has said that he and his party need — and intend to raise — $120 million.
Schwarzenegger, touting the size of his wallet as his qualification to govern, is again misreading the voters who scorned him in November. And at least one of his opponents is making similar boasts. State Controller Steve Westly's campaign recently suggested that his only serious competitor for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, state Treasurer Phil Angelides, was not qualified because Angelides wasn't raising enough dough and was only a multimillionaire, no match for Westly and his $100-million-plus personal fortune. They all sound like bull elephants in rut.
...Money shouldn't be the measure of a governor. According to polls of likely voters, Schwarzenegger's steady decline in popularity last year was fueled in part by his headlong fundraising and the perception that big donors got special favors. So much for Arnold the Reforminator, pledging to rule without money from the special interests.
...In politics you get what you pay for. And when big industries and millionaires gave Schwarzenegger $76 million, they bought their kind of government. When interest groups spend more than $350 million to elect state candidates — as they did during the 2002-2004 election cycle — they get politics as usual. Until the public pays for elections, the public will never truly be represented and citizens' needs will not be met.
The fact that politicians collect so much money to shape their image is, in fact, a stunning acknowledgement of their own failure. Take Schwarzenegger. If he had not bungled his first term, he wouldn't need $120 million to change the public's image of him. Gray Davis didn't have a personal fortune, but he gained office through prodigious pandering to special interests, then disgraced his post through it. Schwarzenegger was worth hundred of millions, but he did the same thing.
Raising money should not be the arbiter of success or failure in politics. But that's just what it has become. With the public paying the bill for elections, candidates and public officials will again be able to stand for something beyond who has the most money.
What Jamie Court is calling for is support for a Clean Election bill, one that would take elections off the special interest auction block. It worked in Arizona. Maybe California should be next.
After that? Well, maybe K Street could be turned into a beautiful green park for the citizens of this country.
It has started already, and we're not even that close to the state primaries. Jamie Court has an interesting op-ed piece in today's LA Times.
TONIGHT, Arnold Schwarzenegger is to return to the Beverly Hilton for the first time since his contrite apology to voters after the defeat of every single one of his ballot measures in last year's special election. The governor will probably be anything but contrite as he panders to donors who will pony up as much as $100,000 each to fund his reelection campaign. Schwarzenegger has said that he and his party need — and intend to raise — $120 million.
Schwarzenegger, touting the size of his wallet as his qualification to govern, is again misreading the voters who scorned him in November. And at least one of his opponents is making similar boasts. State Controller Steve Westly's campaign recently suggested that his only serious competitor for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, state Treasurer Phil Angelides, was not qualified because Angelides wasn't raising enough dough and was only a multimillionaire, no match for Westly and his $100-million-plus personal fortune. They all sound like bull elephants in rut.
...Money shouldn't be the measure of a governor. According to polls of likely voters, Schwarzenegger's steady decline in popularity last year was fueled in part by his headlong fundraising and the perception that big donors got special favors. So much for Arnold the Reforminator, pledging to rule without money from the special interests.
...In politics you get what you pay for. And when big industries and millionaires gave Schwarzenegger $76 million, they bought their kind of government. When interest groups spend more than $350 million to elect state candidates — as they did during the 2002-2004 election cycle — they get politics as usual. Until the public pays for elections, the public will never truly be represented and citizens' needs will not be met.
The fact that politicians collect so much money to shape their image is, in fact, a stunning acknowledgement of their own failure. Take Schwarzenegger. If he had not bungled his first term, he wouldn't need $120 million to change the public's image of him. Gray Davis didn't have a personal fortune, but he gained office through prodigious pandering to special interests, then disgraced his post through it. Schwarzenegger was worth hundred of millions, but he did the same thing.
Raising money should not be the arbiter of success or failure in politics. But that's just what it has become. With the public paying the bill for elections, candidates and public officials will again be able to stand for something beyond who has the most money.
What Jamie Court is calling for is support for a Clean Election bill, one that would take elections off the special interest auction block. It worked in Arizona. Maybe California should be next.
After that? Well, maybe K Street could be turned into a beautiful green park for the citizens of this country.
posted by Diane at 11:18 AM
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