Posted on 10/27/2005 10:12:51 AM PDT by calcowgirl
Just don't read too much into a welfare couch potato poll. Prop 226 was supported well by union members, but the ignorant chaff that votes by tv 'news' defeated it.
They called their other members, then they called their members family members. Then they called anyone who had ever been a member of a union, and then their family members by referal. They worked the I'll tell two people and they'll tell two people, etc., that there is a ballot measure worth getting off your A$$ and voting against because they're trying to shut us up and shut us down!!!
They found ways to scare and deceive the Non-Profit Corporations, even charities and churches and had them phonebanking everyone they knew saying that 226 would also take their "voice" away and leave them helpless!!! They spread the lie like wildfire.
It's NOT just the TV ads causing the couch potato(e) voters to get up off the couches to go vote. They stir the emotions to a fever pitch in these emotional people making them feel they'll suffer a huge loss. They build the cresendo right up to election day. Some get so emotional they slip-up and act out violently and nearly hurt the union's cause.
Knowledgeable politicians rightfully fear the GOTV capability of unions and want the unions on their side!!! They are a power to be reckoned with and all Arnold had to say laughingly was... "They don't like me very much, because I'm always kicking their butts!" That's all it took!!!
Arnold is going down in flames and taking the Grand Old Party in CA right down with him and he says at a rally/forum today... it's not his problem!!!
This is quite different than his stem-winding speech at the Republican National Convention, isn't it?
By the way... I don't care what the Capitol of Sierra Republic is, just so long as the boundaries are identical to Schwartzenrenegger's Sierra-Nevada CONservancy!!!
You would write off the rest of the state for them? Only the SF area didn't vote for the recall. Strict social conservatism will not fly in this state. The state is a bit more libertarian but does appreciate a policy fiscal restraint when it isn't being lied to 24/7 in tens of millions in union ads and corrupt media. The People are tough on crime and don't balk at the death penalty. There's low tolerance for sex offenders. Considerably rage over horrible border security. Contempt for Washington D.C. using CA as a cash cow with the money flowing out, not in, leaving us with enormous bills for federal domain items like illegal's incarceration. There is a lot of contempt for the bad quality of education. This state voted for to withhold services from illegals, to traditionally define marriage, enact a three-strikes law, adopt English emersion. Does that sound like a LIBERAL state?
The dirty little secret is that Arnold's approval ratings, while poor, is BETTER than the Dem-run legislature's ratings. Is this a liberal state? Redistricting and competative races with the right candidates can reform the representative make-up of the state. Right now the legislature is full of the ultra-radical and the hyper-extreme, far out of touch with the People. You can't even get an anti-child-rapist bill out of committee while the despised driver's-licenses-for-illegals and even voter-rejected homosexual marriage pop-up like pimples before a prom date!
Boxer wins because her opponents are extremely weak, get no support from the national party and she's able to define them, not the other way around. She is "out of the mainstream" she is "too extreme for CA" and yet she has the campaign war chest to ensure no one finds out. A bit like Daschle until Thune came along and shined the light.
Feinstein wins because at the end of the day she's been more about CA than about ideology but knows when to walk the party line. She's up for reelection in 2006.
It just isn't accurate to describe the generic Californian as liberal. It's more complicated than that simplistic label. You are seeing the high visibility folks, most never outgrowing the 1960s, who are atypical when you see the Hollywood cabal, or tech tycoons like Steve Jobs embrace and espouse notions or candidates ever towards socialist fascism.
(CCG & EGD: Comments, corrections, analysis appreciated.)
I agree with most of what you wrote, but most importantly, I agree with your conclusion: California is not a liberal state overall. I also agree with Elk Grove Dan's posts, above, as to the general population being too busy to pay much attention to politics (I used to be one of them). Folks woke up for major conservative movements--Prop 13, Prop 187, Prop 22, etc.
As you said, San Francisco and Los Angeles cannot be used to gauge the rest of the state.
I can tell you that living here is not exactly as the media portrays it to be. Your perception is false and you are not alone. IMHO
You guys keep telling me that, but when was the last time the GOP controlled your state legislature? When was the last time CA elected a GOP controlled Congressional delegation? When was the last time CA elected a Republican to the US Senate? When was the last time CA elected a conservative governor?
Why do all these conservatives keep electing liberal Democrats?
This way, we would negate the need for a corporate board of directors or even executive management. It would just be a complete democracy, and things would work perfectly...
LOL. Yep. I think you're on to something!
a state as large and politically diverse as California, the state that gave us Free Republic, Janice Rogers Brown and Ronald Reagan, and launched Rush Limbaugh,
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I must say though, in my case, moving to CA from AL made me *more* conservative and more vocal. The reason wasn't because of the political diversity but because I was disgusted and revolted by all the radical left wing nuts I had to deal with. I realized I had to fight them, in some way. But then of course I went to Stanford and work in Silicon Valley so maybe I have a biased sample?
If you can tell me where some of these conservatives live around here I'd appreciate it. :D I saw a picture of Bush in someone's office the other day and almost fell over in disbelief. I had to make sure it wasn't some kind of joke!
The reason that unions should be different from corporations is that unions have an arrangement where if you work somewhere, you must join the union, or at least pay union dues. Joining the union is not a choice, but owning stock in a company is.
That's insightful. Would an adequate analogy be the Gulliver (overwhelmingly not liberal CA populace) held down with the Lilliputians' ropes (bad leaders, high profile leftists, bad law, bad judges)?
location, location, location
...anywhere out side the Bay Area, even the East Bay can be OK in places.
anywhere out side the Bay Area, even the East Bay can be OK in places.
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Thanks for the response! Yeah I remember I was getting my car fixed in Fremont and I just had this gut feeling that people over there weren't quite as nutty. :D
No one said that the vast majority of Californians are conservative. We all took issue with your silly comment that most California business owners are liberal. There's a mile of difference between the two notions and a whole lot of room in between.
As I noted above 80% of Californians did NOT vote for John Kerry. You figure it out. (for clues go back and read my posts again).
Where does it say the law will apply only to CA companies?
I don't think that the California legislature has the power to regulate shareholder and corporate governance requirements for non-CA companies. In any event, it would certainly be very unusual.
He has already taken the party down; that came with his election.
As for the union propagandising, I'm well aware of their methods; my father was a vice president of a UAW local in the east bay when I was a toddler. What I'm trying to say is that I work with lots of union members (engineers, carpenters, plumbers, etc) on construction sites, and most of them seem to want a prohibition against using dues for political purposes. They can't come out and say it publicly without being attacked by the union, but the feeling is clearly there. I think that the biggest problem that we face in the election is deeply entrenched fraud in Alameda, Contra Costa, and Los Angeles counties. They have more than 1,000,000 registered fraudulent votes that can be placed if they can find the people willing to do the voting under fraudulent names.
I have no doubt that as individuals those union members harbor favorable feelings toward Prop 75, however, the "group think" and the fear tactics get awfully strong right around election time. They sure did in '98!!!
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