TOM MCCLINTOCK DAILY EDITION - 9/20/03 (CA GOVERNOR'S RACE)

[Rabid Dog]

Please post local, regional, national news and views on Tom McClintock. This is a news and info thread. The following guidelines for posting are per DoughtyOne's most excellent suggestion.

McClintock Camp - Supporters or Defenders

Please post positive articles about Tom's policies and leave the Schwarzenegger bashing to the Democrats.

Schwarzenegger Camp - Supporters or Defenders

The call for McClintock to withdraw right now, or the tactic of calling him and his followers names for not doing so, is not productive and isn't good for the party.

Please save the Rino Arnold/Unelectable Tom rants for other threads.

[Rabid Dog]

Good morning everyone! Saw a very amusing quote from Tom in a LA Times article that I will post in just a bit. Expect to hear a lot more flack over the money from the tribes - however, those casting stones had better look at their own glass houses.


Event Details
Anti Car Tax Rally in San Diego
September 20, 2003 at 3:00PM

Anti Car Tax Rally and petition signing - Lemon Grove (San Diego) - Location: McClellan Buick Pontiac GMC. 6828 Federal Blvd, Lemon Grove, CA 91945

Radio KCBQ AM 1170 San Diego
September 20, 2003 at 4:00PM

Radio - San Diego - KCBQ AM 1170 "Good Evening San Diego" with Bill Clark. Live via phone from San Diego. Internet listening available at www.kcbq.com.

National Television FOX News
September 20, 2003 at 5:00PM

National Television FOX News - "From the Heartland with John Kasich." Live via satellite from San Diego.

As an aside, the Davis/Clinton appearance at the AME church is gettng reamed in today's LA Times (and rightfully so). One reader pointed out that the church is specifically forbidden by IRS law to get involved in political issues, another reader asked about separation of Chuch and State, etc.

[Rabid Dog]

From Tom's Webpage:

Orange County Register: Last Governor to Lose an Election over the Car Tax was Bill Clinton
It's hard to figure who triggered car tax

A large and fairly famous cast had roles in the elusive origin of the higher vehicle license fee

By Keith Sharon

Nobody did it.

Critics have called the car tax the "immaculate taxation."

If you haven't followed the recall, make sure you're sitting down when you open your bill from the Department of Motor Vehicles.

Your vehicle license fee has risen, on average, to about $158 per car - back to the level it was before the tax was cut in 1998. It's likely the issue that drove many of you to sign the petition that could lead to the ousting of the governor.

But try to find out who is really responsible for the newly increased car tax.

Finding Nemo, true north, the fountain of youth, weapons of mass destruction and Jimmy Hoffa would be easier.

It's maddening enough to make you want to recall somebody. The people who ran the recall effort say they have two people to thank for their success - Darrell Issa, who funded the signature gathering, and Gov. Gray Davis, who had the car-tax time bomb explode in his hands during the recall signature drive.

Davis says he wasn't the guy who upped the taxes.

He was merely following the advice of his Director of Finance Steve Peace, who was merely following the findings of State Controller Steve Westly, whose financial report merely triggered the tax-raising part of the statute signed by former Gov. Pete Wilson, a Republican, who was merely trying to appease Democrats when he allowed a provision to raise taxes to slip into his 1998 tax-cutting measure.

Take a breath. There's more.

Pete Wilson was pushed to cut the car tax by then-state Assemblyman Tom McClintock (now candidate for governor), who got the idea for cutting the tax by watching a man named Jim Gilmore stage a come-from-behind victory in the race for Virginia governor in 1998, some 18 years after an Arkansas governor was ousted after he dared raise car taxes.

That Arkansas governor was named Bill Clinton, who is now an adviser to Gray Davis, who says he wasn't the guy who upped the taxes.

It comes full circle.

"It's a jigsaw puzzle," said Wes Belt, 67, an angry voter from Huntington Beach, who is about to pay more than $1,200 in fees for his three cars. "But the arrow points to Davis."

The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association has filed a lawsuit saying the car tax should never have been re-raised.

"This is government at its finest," said Jon Coupal, the Jarvis group president. "These people are not standing up for the very policies they're advancing. This is one of the reasons Davis is being recalled."

The ticking on the California car-tax bomb began in 1997 in the ballroom of a Roanoke, Va., hotel. Virginia gubernatorial candidate Jim Gilmore, trailing in the polls, outlined a tax-cut program in a speech. During that speech, he mentioned rolling back vehicle license fees.

The voters went crazy.

"It was a visceral response," said Gilmore. "It surprised me. I thought - we have found something here."

So he moved up the car tax reference in his next speech at an outdoor rally in Fairfax County.

"The response was deeper, louder, an explosion," Gilmore said.

Within a month, Gilmore became the "No Car Tax" candidate. He won by 13 percentage points. For perspective: Gov. Gilmore eventually cut 70 percent from the car tax, but he had to stop his march toward 100 percent when the Virginia economy soured and municipalities needed revenue. One-term limits in Virginia prevented him from running for re-election. The car tax is currently frozen in Virginia at 30 percent of what it was before Gilmore took office.

The ovations from Gilmore's campaign speeches echoed across the country. John Stoos, a longtime friend and adviser of Tom McClintock, heard the noise.

Stoos passed along the idea to McClintock, who started a drive to eliminate the California car tax completely.

"People fixated on the idea," Stoos said.

The idea was gaining so much support, Gov. Pete Wilson included a reduction of the vehicle license fee in his 1998 budget proposal.

In July of 1998, the "Big Five" meeting (which included the state's director of finance and the two Democratic and Republican leaders of the state Senate and Assembly) was held in the Ronald Reagan Cabinet room of the state Capitol.

Wilson's director of finance, Craig Brown, projected a $17 billion surplus by 2003. Wilson intended to give some of that surplus back to the taxpayers.

He wanted to roll back the car tax by 75 percent. The Democrats said no.

Wilson reduced his proposal to a 25 percent tax reduction with "triggers" that would increase the reduction if the economy stayed strong.

Then someone suggested that another trigger be placed in the budget, a trigger that would raise taxes if the economy turned sour.

Today, no one claims responsibility for setting the trigger for it to go back up.

"I don't remember who asked for it," Brown said.

Bill Leonard, then a Republican assemblyman, remembers who did it.

"John Burton did it," Leonard said.

John Burton, still a Democratic state senator, remembers who did it.

"Bill Leonard did it," Burton said.

They weren't joking.

Antonio Villaraigosa, a Democrat, and Rob Hurtt, a Republican, were the only other people in the room. Neither of them returned numerous phone calls about the car tax.

Whoever did it, the trigger was a tiny caveat that no one in the room figured would ever see the light of day.

"That little shred became the fiction that Davis needed to raise taxes by $4 billion," Leonard said.

Burton agreed. "The trigger is there on the absolute off chance that the world goes to hell in a handbasket, which we don't think will happen," he remembers thinking.

In 2001, the handbasket opened and the world slipped inside. Gray Davis was the governor at the time.

"It's like Davis walked into a room and there was a gun," Burton said. "He picked it up and put his fingerprints on it. But he wasn't the one who shot it."

Nobody shot it.

Vehicle license fees dipped 25 percent in 1999. They dipped 35 percent in 2000. They dipped 67 percent in 2001.

In 2002, when Davis faced a $23.6 billion shortfall, no one pulled the trigger - one of the platforms of the Jarvis group's lawsuit. If the trigger was legitimate, why wasn't it pulled in 2002, when the state's ink turned blood red?

The trigger didn't become an issue until 2003 when Davis included the car tax revenues in his budget, even though he hadn't yet informed the public he was raising those taxes.

Legislators asked state Controller Steve Westly to make a ruling that pulled the 1998 trigger and raised taxes.

Westly refused.

"That isn't the controller's decision," said Greg Larson, the chief deputy controller.

The onus then landed on Steve Peace, the state's director of finance. Peace said Westly's dour financial report triggered the car tax.

So Peace told Davis he was bound by the law to sign the tax increase.

On June 20, 2003, Davis signed it.

Before June 20, the recall signature-gathering effort had peaked. Its weekly rate had slipped from 100,000 to 80,000 signatures.

After the car-tax decree, the signatures shot up to 100,000 in the first week, 130,000 in the second week and 160,000 in the third week.

"The last governor to lose an election over a car tax was Bill Clinton," Stoos said.

"The next one will be Gray Davis."

[Rabid Dog]

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/recall/la-me-tribes20sep20,1,6111200.story?coll=la-home-headlines

Excerpt from one article on tribe donations from the LA times today.

And on the hustings, tribes are a dominant force. Since 1998, they have spent more than $120 million on California politics, the bulk of it on propositions to make gambling legal on Indian land.

In the recall campaign, five tribes have spent $6.6 million, making tribes the largest donors in the race. Most of that — $5.1 million — has gone to help Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, an advocate of tribes' right to govern their own affairs and the front-runner to replace Gov. Gray Davis if Davis is recalled.

Tribes have also begun to aid state Sen. Tom McClintock's gubernatorial bid, donating $580,000 to help the Thousand Oaks Republican. A strong showing by McClintock could be a boon to Bustamante. Also an advocate of tribal sovereignty, McClintock could pull support away from Bustamante's closest rival, Republican actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who angered some Indian leaders by calling them "special interests."

[Rabid Dog]

McClintock Fires Away at Schwarzenegger
He labels as hypocritical his GOP rival's stand on special-interest fund- raising. Republican county chairmen scuffle over an endorsement.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-recall20sep20,1,5131273.story

EXCERPT

The rancor among Republican candidates for governor intensified Friday as Tom McClintock described rival Arnold Schwarzenegger as a "vacuum cleaner" for corporate campaign donations and accused the actor of breaking a vow to forgo special-interest money.

[Rabid Dog]

SACBEE Link for details of the debate including the questions:

http://www.sacbee.com/content/politics/recall/story/7449530p-8392247c.html

[Rabid Dog]

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-notebook20sep20,1,4827845.story

EXCERPT FROM LA TIMES ON DEBATE

State Sen. Tom McClintock reversed course Friday on his threat to boycott next week's debate in Sacramento, saying he was satisfied with the format set up by the California Broadcasters Assn.

[Rabid Dog]

From Tom's Website

CBA Commits to Holding a Real Debate, Not Scripted Forum
Sacramento — Senator Tom McClintock is delighted that negotiations on site in Sacramento this morning resulted in the needed commitment by the California Broadcasters Association to ensure a free flowing and open debate on September 24th, 2003 on the campus of California State University, Sacramento.

The CBA has assured the McClintock Campaign that there will be a one minute limit to the scripted answers, followed by an "interactive crossfire" type of exchange. This will ensure sufficient time for the candidates to question each other and have a free spirited debate.

"This is a major victory for the voters of California" said Tom McClintock. "I am looking forward to a very stimulating and open exchange."

[NormsRevenge]

Tom McClintock described rival Arnold Schwarzenegger as a "vacuum cleaner" for corporate campaign donations and accused the actor of breaking a vow to forgo special-interest money.

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[Dave S]

The CBA has assured the McClintock Campaign that there will be a one minute limit to the scripted answers, followed by an "interactive crossfire" type of exchange. This will ensure sufficient time for the candidates to question each other and have a free spirited debate. "This is a major victory for the voters of California" said Tom McClintock. "I am looking forward to a very stimulating and open exchange."

And maybe if Tom was not so incompetent he would have known those were the rules all along. Seems like in addition to being crosseyed, he cant read. Kind of reminds you of when he screwed the Voter Guide application, dont it?

[Dave S]

The CBA has assured the McClintock Campaign that there will be a one minute limit to the scripted answers, followed by an "interactive crossfire" type of exchange. This will ensure sufficient time for the candidates to question each other and have a free spirited debate. "This is a major victory for the voters of California" said Tom McClintock. "I am looking forward to a very stimulating and open exchange."

And maybe if Tom was not so incompetent he would have known those were the rules all along. Seems like in addition to being crosseyed, he cant read. Kind of reminds you of when he screwed the Voter Guide application, dont it?

[Rabid Dog]

Tom is working the machine - just like everyone else does. He got some good publicity out of it and came out smelling like a rose.

[TERMINATTOR]

"Dear Mr. Reagan, it should be obvious to you now that you can never be elected governor. Please put aside your ego, for the good of our party, and get behind the one man who is moderate enough to appeal to California voters - - San Francisco Mayor George Christopher."

Look Magazine 1966

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The myth that a conservative can't win is nothing new!

[Rabid Dog]

Great quote! I think I'll add it to the body of the daily thread post!!

[DoctorZIn]

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[djreece]

Thank you for the wealth of articles! (And thank you for the great job you have done all along.) Now if we could only get some polls :-)

[TERMINATTOR]

CALIFORNIA STATE REPUBLICAN PARTY OVERWHELMINGLY ENDORSES PROP 1A - THE INDIAN SELF RELIANCE AMENDMENT

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California has NO JURISTICTION to meddle in the affairs of the Indian Nations. Tom McClintock understands that. Schwarzenegger, Busty, and the rest of the libs refuse to acknowledge that they have no authority to CONTROL Indian reservations. That upsets these racists terribly.

PUT SOME ICE ON IT!

[Saundra Duffy]

Tom McClintock signed the Marriage Protection Pledge. ALL of the other leading candidates have refused to sign it. Go, McClintock! www.helptom.com

[Rabid Dog]

Can you elaborate on the Marriage Protection Plan? Not familiar with it.

[Rabid Dog]

Thanks for all your help in keeping things "even-keel" around here!