Posted on 11/21/2003 2:55:15 PM PST by ParsifalCA
Can Schwarzenegger restore the Golden State's luster?
Joseph Perkins THE SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE
November 21, 2003
One hundred fifty-five years ago, California was virgin U.S. territory, with a population smaller than that of Rhode Island.
Then came the discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill along the American River in the Sacramento Valley. Suddenly, California became the destination of choice in the land of opportunity.
Filmmakers Michael Trinklein and Steven Boettcher produced an excellent PBS documentary a few years back on the California Gold Rush. They saw it as the singular event that redefined the American Dream.
The nuggets discovered at Sutter's Mill would forever change a young nation, they related. "The simple life would no longer be enough. In its place would come a new kind of lifestyle: entrepreneurial, wide open, free."
That is the ethos for which California has been known through much of its history, from its statehood in 1850 to today.
From the Gold Rush in Sacramento Valley to the birth of the motion picture industry in Hollywood. From the heyday of Southern California's aerospace industry to the go-go days of Silicon Valley.
California is the modern-day promised land, not only to the millions of Americans who've left their home states to take up residence in the Golden State, but also to the millions of immigrants who've left their native countries to live, work and prosper in California.
Like Arnold Schwarzenegger, sworn in this week as California's 38th governor. He arrived from Austria a mere 35 years ago "with absolutely nothing," he said, in his swearing-in remarks. And since then, he has "gained absolutely everything" he could have dreamed of.
Ronald Reagan, the former California governor, the former president, spoke of America as "the shining city on the hill," Schwarzenegger recalled. "I see California as the golden dream by the sea," said the former body building champion, the motion picture star.
Alas, many, if not most, Californians fear that the golden dream of which their new governor spoke may have gotten beyond their reach. It is why they recalled Schwarzenegger's hapless predecessor, making him the first in the state's history to suffer such an ignominy.
"The state of California is in crisis," Schwarzenegger acknowledged. "We spent ourselves into the largest budget deficit in the nation. We have the worst credit rating in the nation.
"We have the worst workers' compensation costs in the nation. Next year, we will have the highest unemployment insurance costs in the nation. And we have the worst business climate in the nation."
He also might mention that the state's electricity costs are among the highest in the nation. And that its public school students are among the worst-performing in the nation.
Some suggest that Schwarzenegger's election was a protest vote by a disgruntled California electorate. But it was more an expression of hope that Schwarzenegger, the living embodiment of the American Dream, can reverse the state's declining fortunes.
California residents do not expect their new governor to solve all of the state's woes in days or weeks or years. They recognize that the crisis in which their state finds itself was many years in the making.
They know they did not elect a technocrat, a person intimately acquainted with the machinations of government. In fact, they purposely got rid of one in Gray Davis.
They also know they did not elect a career politician, one with firsthand experience in the partisan squabbling in the state capitol. In fact, they repudiated two such politicos in Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, a Democrat, and state Sen. Tom McClintock, a Republican.
Californians elected Schwarzenegger because they wanted a leader, because they wanted a governor willing to set party partisanship aside for the good of the state, for the benefit of its 35 million diverse residents.
But most of all, they elected Schwarzenegger because he understands the aspirations of the common man and woman; the aspirations he brought with him to the Golden State three and one-half decades ago.
"California has always glimmered with hope and glowed with opportunity," said Schwarzenegger. That is the luster that has brought so many millions to California since gold was discovered at Sutter's Mill more than a century and half ago."
In recent years, the Golden State has lost much of its luster. It is up to the state's new governor to restore it.
Perkins can be reached via e-mail at joseph.perkins@uniontrib.com.
Copyright 2003 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.
Pure baloney!
The big lie that reveals the agenda of the author is contained in every article. Usually in the first two paragraphs.
Occasionally you have to look as far as paragraph eighteen but you can always find it in any article featured in a major California publication.
Californians want solutions with NO PAIN.
California has payed FAR more than its share of Federal taxes for decades. Tell you what: Let's call it even, and from now on let Californians keep the taxes net of what is returned in Federal expenditures that they send to Washington. That would wipe out the State deficit immediately.
Then there's bearing the brunt of paying for illegals as an unfunded mandate. That's another $8 billion every year. Seeing as you want everybody pulling their own weight, I assume the rest of the country is going to proportionally fund that too.
We don't get better off by collecting on the dole. We do it by being more productve or producing what people want.
Arnold knows that better than pols who just know which voter groups will provide more votes for gov't money.
More baloney!
LOL, We're just getting warmed up. You haven't heard anything yet.
You droids were warned and refused to listen. You bought that bogus campaign of fear about Bustamentalcase and treated McClintock supporters like crap. Now the screw job comes (as it always does from RINOs) and if you don't like it, tough. It's called "accountability." If the State survives this crap, we'll be here to pick up the pieces. Meanwhile, when your golden stud-muffin shows he doesn't have the balls to take the heat from the press for the cuts we all know must be made, don't bitch when he raises taxes. When his regulatory moves show up to be more corporate payola, don't tell us you weren't warned. He's already admitted he was lying through his teeth when he said, "No special interests," just as he was when he said, "I won't raise your taxes."
I can hear it now, "Oh, but he gave us a choice of taxes or debt (with taxes to pay it plus interest), so it wasn't Arnold that raised them," to which I have to answer, BS. That's not what he wanted people to believe when he made the promise. As I told you, FairOpinion, and all you Arnold droids, Schwarzenegger is a dissembling situational panderer. Don't trust a word he says.
If you don't like hearing about it from conservatives, try another forum.
I do have a problem with all their fruits and nuts trying to change the entire culture of our nation.
Ditto.
It's an easy choice. Make the lying SOB do it.
a, a-ahem.
Yes, the lead commentary is misleading and much too glowing. And the droids clearly are, and have much for which to be, defensive.
However, in IMHO, there are still some hopeful signs were Arnold to:
Conservatives have long been skeptical and contested that this is an elitist in populist guise. We were victims of -- at best -- distortions of our position. We have witnessed other RINOs using any excuse to work with the Leftist's nuts to keep their mutual special interests happy while shafting the vast bulk of the population.
Our job is to keep our fellow voters aware, in the face of a hostile to us media, that his failures should not be construed as being the work of conservatives. His position is the result was top-down, media-abettng, hijacking of the recall -- and we conservatives are suffering even more than all the rest of the non-elite, non-nut, non-illegal, non-droids.
And here may be the most critical thing to spot. Watch for smoke and mirrors. Arnold may be allowed the appearence of performing well. As the RINO winner here in October, this likely will be pumped to benefit RINOs in primaries all over the country. Nationally, conservatives must be aware that the RNC will make much of that. Conservatives will find it harder to win slots if (R)nold appears to be making headway.
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