California: Governor, Simon stump in Bay Area

Simon said Davis was ``shifting the blame'' by calling on him to release his personal financial records. Davis, who voluntarily released his own tax returns, has said that Simon's failure to do so proves that he hasn't paid his ``fair share'' of taxes.

DUMP DAVI$ & the Den of Socialists

GO SIMON

Also, no mention of the AMBER alert system and some questions posed to OberFuehrer Davi$. The Guv was pressed on this by one of the reporters and had Davi$ defending his clunker of an administration and its lack of responsiveness or caring.

``I have kept more people in prison for murder than Bill Simon ever sent to prison. You can bank on that by a factor of about 15,'' Davis said.

Talk about apples and oranges...Whats next, did Davis invent the internet, have a sister in the peace corp, write extemporaneous speeches for Al Gore...What a psycho!

Maybe Davi$ and GoRe met in 'Nam. Davi$ is a whiney self-serving lying sack of %&^$ . He couldn't spell truth much less tell it.

"campaign has shifted focus in the last week from probes into the governor's fundraising practices to questions about his challenger's finances"

The new thing of the left wing: challenge your opponent's business practices....you know, the left CREATED the environment which gave us Enron, Global Crossing and Worldcom....and here the LEFT is, using THEIR screwup AGAINST their opponets! Typical left wing misdirection ploy. Ask any magician...misdirection is the foundation of any good smoke and mirror show.

Everyone in the country (outside of California) can see that Davis is a complete idiot. Californians are complete idiots if they vote for him.

Index Bump

Remove that comma in the title and now you're talking! ;-)

Davis is going to win, because (1) Simon is running a really bad campaign and (2) Californians are voting!

Californians will receive the leaders they deserve.

FROM THE WASHINGTON TIMES 7/18/02

EDITORIAL • July 18, 2002

Bill Simon's non-campaign

What can we say about Bill Simon, the Republican
gubernatorial candidate in California? He makes every
mistake, and then some. In November, we can write a
postmortem on why Mr. Simon lost to Gov. Gray Davis. Or
we can go public now, hoping someone will fix the mess.
After all, Mr. Davis has been a miserable governor. Even
California, liberal as it is, deserves better. Mr. Simon, you
recall, was the surprise winner in California's Republican
primary. He defeated Richard Riordan, the White House
favorite. Unfortunately, all the president's men failed in their
due diligence. The former Los Angeles mayor
self-destructed.
Mr. Simon's first mistake last year was hiring Matt Fong's
campaign team. You may remember Mr. Fong. As California
state treasurer, he was favored to defeat Barbara Boxer. She
remains California's unimpressive junior senator. That's
because something strange happened on the way to Mr.
Fong's easy win. His campaign advisers forgot to define him.
So the Boxer camp did, with help from Mr. Fong's own
campaign team. Running Mr. Fong for senator in the nation's
largest state, they defined him as a mama's boy. Their
signature television spot was an endorsement from Mr.
Fong's mother. Now, they're back. Their primary spots for
Mr. Simon were not much better: A talking head who
removed his glasses for drama (how original). Mr. Simon's
signature television spot called for cutting the state's
capital-gains tax (as if anyone cared).
How, then, did Mr. Simon win?
Mr. Simon long ago was endorsed by Rudy Giuliani.
(Mr. Giuliani held a grudge because liberal Mr. Riordan had
refused to back him over Hillary Clinton.) Suddenly, after
September 11, Mr. Giuliani was an asset to Mr. Simon,
whose campaign then used Mr. Giuliani to introduce Mr.
Simon to the Republican electorate. More importantly, Mr.
Riordan faithfully and systematically alienated that Republican
electorate. And, finally, negative TV ads on Mr. Riordan
saturated the Republican electorate. They were funded not by
Mr. Simon, who never planned to win (Mr. Simon merely
was laying the groundwork for a future statewide race), but
by Mr. Davis, who spent $7 million to savage Mr. Riordan
on Republican issues. Mr. Davis did what Mr. Simon refused
to do — confront Mr. Riordan. But Mr. Davis' ads cleverly
hid the required legal disclaimer, so there was no anti-Davis
backlash among Republicans.
At that point, California Secretary of State Bill Jones
would have won the primary. But Mr. Jones, ever a casualty
of his stupid switch from George W. Bush to John McCain
after New Hampshire, could not raise campaign money. He
spent all of $200,000 on TV spots. So Mr. Simon then spent
his millions and won by default. (In fact, Mr. Simon's
campaign foolishly had Mr. Simon loan the campaign money.
That means if he were governor, Mr. Simon would be paid
back by "special interests." This helps neutralize his attack on
Mr. Davis' aggressive fund raising. Why didn't Mr. Simon's
campaign instruct him to give his campaign the money?)
Actually, Mr. Jones was just what the Republican Party
needed to defeat Mr. Davis — a warm body. Instead,
Republicans got Mr. Simon, and his baggage and campaign
consultants who never helped empty the baggage.
Republicans in California are in disarray. Consider the
president's go-to guy, Gerald Parsky. He feuds with Party
Chairman Shawn Steel over party reorganization. Who
cares? Don't they want to win an election? What an
opportunity for Republicans. Mr. Davis has high negatives
and awful ballot numbers. He's just plain unpopular. But
when Mr. Riordan lost the March 5 primary, Mr. Simon
thought he — Mr. Simon — won.
Since then, it has been downhill for Mr. Simon. While
Mr. Davis struggled with a $20 billion-plus deficit, Mr. Simon
was hardly visible. Worse, there was no concerted attack on
Mr. Davis. Apparently, it never occurred to Mr. Simon's high
command to orchestrate surrogate assaults to keep Mr.
Davis off-balance. Instead, Mr. Simon's top-heavy campaign
added layers of even more "senior strategists." It seemed like
an old-age home, except some of Mr. Simon's senior
advisers are junior, especially in campaign experience.
Mr. Simon's campaign endlessly reorganizes. Four
campaign managers in four months. No wonder. How do you
manage a campaign without a strategy or plan?
Why doesn't he see the obvious? How can he attack Mr.
Davis for mismanagement? Indeed, Mr. Simon's on-again,
off-again TV campaign is quixotic. There is no theme, no
message. Mr. Simon's TV budget? It's even less credible than
Mr. Simon's campaign polls. After all, remember Dan
Lungren? He spent $30 million to lose to Mr. Davis in 1998.
His campaign polls always showed the race as "close" and
"within a few points."
Meanwhile, Mr. Simon remains on defense. He never
decisively answered predictable attacks on his involvement in
a failed S&L. It's as if his campaign never heard of Charles
Keating.
When Mr. Simon was asked to release his tax returns, as
former Republican governors George Deukmejian and Pete
Wilson did, Mr. Simon's inept handlers said they would
check with his accountants — in New Jersey. Now, the IRS
is suing Mr. Simon's accountants for alleged tax scams. That
gives new legs to past attacks on Mr. Simon, who remains
bogged down defending himself. The campaign touts Mr.
Simon's business success but refuses to document it. This is
amateur hour.
Mr. Simon may be an honest and decent man. But
without media-savvy campaign advisers to direct him, what
happens? His conflicted press operation yields this result on
the television news: Mr. Simon looks like he's caught with his
hands in the proverbial cookie jar.
Last year, Mr. Simon could have squared away his
finances. Instead, his campaign advisers avoided asking him
tough questions. They are nice people who make the
candidate feel good. Our guess is that Mr. Simon did not
come clean with them. They and he agreed — don't ask,
don't tell. Rich guys should know better, even before Enron,
Adelphia and WorldCom.
And now, we see the consequences of Team Simon's
unpreparedness. Asked this week whether he had paid
California income taxes, Mr. Simon could not answer. Then,
he called the reporter back to say he had. By all accounts,
Mr. Simon's campaign has had major problems with message
and its press operation. Yet, in the latest curious
development, Mr. Simon has named the head of his troubled
communications shop as the new day-to-day campaign
manager.
The White House raised $5 million for Mr. Simon. Now,
it promises another $15 million if Mr. Simon's campaign
shapes up. What does that mean? That could be money
down the drain unless Mr. Simon really cleans house. Who is
in charge?
And what happens when Mr. Simon loses? Mr. Simon's
original core group of lucky incompetents will blame the
White House. And Republican "moderates" will blame
abortion, a non-issue in this campaign. Everyone loses here,
except Mr. Simon's well-paid campaign bumblers and Gray
Davis. Mr. Simon was never ready for prime time, but he
could have been prepped. Maybe he still can.
There's still time to win this one.

California - the Holland of America.

Simon is running a really bad campaign

Simon is running an ineffective campaign.

Here in central California we haven't seen hide nor hair of Simon, he is not running any ads on television and he is not getting any coverage on the "statewide" portion of the local evening news broadcasts.

There are many political ads running. Almost 3 ads per hour on all broadcast channels. They're Davis' ads blasting Simon. If it wasn't for Davis, 30% of the California voters wouldn't even know who Simon is.