Wednesday, September 3, 2003

Five Candidates, Few Answers

I'm watching the gubernatorial debate at the moment and a couple of things leap out at me. All five candidates (Bustamante, Huffington, McClintock, Ueberroth and Camejo) agree that there is massive fraud in areas like Medicare and unemployment but cannot say where it is or how to root it out. Also, all five are in favor of medicinal marijuana. Otherwise, I haven't heard a lot of consensus.

Peter Ueberroth, who had impressed me before the debate, has lost me by steering almost every question to two premises: Californians have to expect less, and we have to give businesses enormous financial incentives to relocate here. That sure sounds to me like, "Let's cut education to fund corporate welfare." Arianna Huffington seems more interested in promoting her status as a columnist and Bush-basher than in becoming governor — probably a wise move, given where her future will lie. Tom McClintock is running right down the conservative wishlist while Peter Camejo is handling the liberal one. Cruz Bustamante sounds more like a lieutenant governor than a governor.

But then so did Gray Davis in his part of the debate. As I've said here, I don't think much of him as a governor but I think less of the recall effort. It also bothers me that a lot of his unpopularity may flow, not from anything he's done in office but because he's bad on television. If you just listened to his words, he didn't make a bad case for himself but he just looked awkward and failed to project the image of a guy on top of things. At one point, he made an odd left turn and got onto the notion that people need to vote against the recall to stop the Republican Conspiracy to Steal Elections. I guess surveys are telling him that issue resonates with voters but it would be nice if he could effectively defend his own record.

I don't know if he's going to survive or get tossed out on his ass. But I have an awful feeling that whatever happens, it's not going to be because of how good or bad a governor he's been.

• Posted at 10:51 PM · LINK

Separated at Birth?

Two quotes with one kind of rhetoric...

While there are many reasons young Muslims sacrifice their lives — including the honor and money bestowed onto their families after their death — it is the martyr's afterlife that captures the imagination. [...] Candidates for martyrdom were told the first drop of blood shed by a martyr washes away their sins. They could select 70 of their nearest and dearest to enter Heaven; and they would have at their disposal 72 houris, the beautiful virgins of paradise, Hassan recounted in the New Yorker.

Paul Hill, the unrepentant anti-abortion activist who murdered a doctor and bodyguard at a Florida abortion clinic, was scheduled to die by chemical injection on Wednesday in an execution he said would make him a martyr. [...] "The sooner I am executed ... the sooner I am going to heaven," Hill said in a jailhouse interview. "I expect a great reward in heaven. I am looking forward to glory. I don't feel remorse."

As I once wrote about such folks: If there is an afterlife, I have a feeling they're in for a big surprise when they get there. And if there isn't an afterlife, they're in for a bigger surprise.

• Posted at 12:04 PM · LINK