GAY REPUBLICAN CALLS ON GOVERNOR TO REPLACE SUSAN KENNEDY
After reading in John Fund’s Monday column, Conan the Appeaser, that the Governor allegedly told
Assembly Republicans that their opposition to Democrat Susan Kennedy (pictured to the right advising former Governor Gray Davis, when she was his Deputy Chief of Staff, before being recalled) was based on Kennedy being a lesbian, I was rather taken aback. I have expounded (at length) on all of the reasons why our Republican Governor should not have a former Executive Director of the Democrat Party running his administration. That said, I reached out to a friend of mine, Chris Gilbertson. Chris and I engaged in many battles against the campus Left back in our youth activism days. Chris is gay, and so I thought I would ask him to weigh in on this matter (since, presumably, no one can credibly say that Kennedy’s sexual preference is an issue for him). Here is what Chris had to say on the Governor, and the Kennedy appointment:
That isn’t the answer. Rethink this decision, Governor.
There are hundreds of qualified Republicans, with established Republican credentials, that could, and ought, to fill this position. This Governor was elected to change politics in Sacramento, not mimic the administration he replaced. Like millions of Californians I didn’t vote for a Republican version of the Davis administration, I voted for change, and now all I feel is that I’ve been short changed.
Gay Republican
Perhaps this heartfelt note from Chris will strike a chord with the Governor.
BONDS – BAD POLICY, WORSE POLITICS – REMEMBER THE BASE
What does it mean when caution on issuance of bonds comes from the Democrat Treasurer Phil Angelides? The top political news today is that Angelides has warned that California already has trouble spending the bond funds it has authorized. He warns of the increase of debt-service costs on the state budget. These are all warnings that hopefully will help the administration to veer course on this bond package, or at least severely shrink the proposal.
The biggest political risk to the Governor is that all of this talk of borrowing money for infrastructure flies in the face of the message he brought to the electorate last November. The rhetoric that he used in promoting his measures (especially Proposition 76) was that California needs to "live within its means" — the anology that was repeatedly used by the Governor (and by those of us in the speaker’s bureau) was that if California was a family, the family has a structural problem with too many bills to be paid for the money they make. Now the Governor wants this family, without fixing their deficit spending problems, to take out a huge line-of-credit against their home to fix up the house. This makes no sense. The activists and supporters are going to have just as much trouble swallowing the idea of ‘revenue bonds’ as it starts to become a huge education problem to explain why some borrowing is okay, and other borrowing is not – while at the same time, trying to justify any borrowing in the absence of any meaningful spending reform coming out of the legislature.
Well, I have to run!
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Jon