On California Elections/Voting (cont)

On to the elections; this part will be much shorter, since there is much less to say.

Perhaps the most important race is for the governor position, and surprisingly I sorta agree with the characterization made by Jerry Brown's campaign: it's a choice between more of the same [as Arnold], and something new and different. Only sorta, though, cause Jerry Brown was the governor before, so people know exactly what to expect from him (more taxing, more spending, more big government, etc.), and Meg Whitman is sorta untested in public office. However, in terms of big picture, the Brown campaign's characterization is largely accurate: I think Meg Whitman, like Arnold, would take office with a lot of good ideas, and spend the rest of her time there fighting with an intractable state Congress hell-bent on pandering to their union patrons, and basically accomplish nothing. On the other hand, Jerry Brown would pander to those same unions, which (in contrast to the last seven years of relative stability in California politics) would accelerate the decline of the state, both fiscally and otherwise.

No, I don't think Meg Whitman has particularly well-formed plans, but I don't think that matters. The mere fact that she's nominally a Republican ensures that our violently partisan state Congress will not even pay token attention to her proposals, which makes fleshing them out totally irrelevant. On the other hand, unlike Jerry Brown, she probably won't rubber-stamp most of the barrage of garbage regularly extruding from our legislature, and such serve as a check against their malfeasance, which is probably the best we can hope for at the state level (remember, this is the state that will send Pelosi back to Congress; expectations are set accordingly). So Meg Whitman is the clear reasonable choice for governor; let's just hope the anger with incumbent parties doesn't blind voters to common sense.

As for the Senate seat, that one's a bit more interesting. I personally can't see any compelling reason to support Boxer: she's a pompous, arrogant bitch who rubber-stamps the Democratic agenda without a second (or in this case, first) thought. On the other hand, it's not like Fiorina is a model of steadfast integrity either, having basically outsourced all of HP for fat bonuses as her claim-to-fame. Still, when in doubt, I'd have to go with supporting the person I don't know is horrible, so Fiorina it is, but only cause she wins the contest of "less bad" this time (which is not a great way to start a term representing anyone).

As for the other races, meh, who cares. Sure they are important; after all, we could (in theory) replace the entire hopeless corrupt and thoroughly reprehensible state legislature if people could be educated and motivated to defy their basic human greed for immediate gratification and handouts. But nobody's kidding anyone: California will have the same sad bunch of scum in its Congress as it had before, even if a few faces change. After all, we won't even get rid of Pelosi, and she's being disowned by her own party for being too left-wing wacko. As long as people can continue to deceive themselves about the consequences of their votes, and blame it on the other party, we the people will continue to just be abused.

And the beat goes on...