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Many thanks for posting this. I was not able to see or hear the debate, so this was the next best thing. Sounds like Simon did us proud!

Simon's Opening

Mr. Simon, you have two minutes.

SIMON: Thank you, Hal. And thanks to the Los Angeles Times for
sponsoring today's debate.

Since Mr. Davis has determined that this will be the only debate,
we're going to have a lot of ground to cover today, and so I want
you to hear from me about why my broad experience is ideally
suited for me to be governor of California, and also some of my
ideas with respect to the challenges that face us here in
California.

What the people of California deserve to hear, but what they
probably won't from Mr. Davis, is an apology. First, an apology to
the people for the campaign he's run to date that's been full of
distortions and false attacks against me, my family, and even now
against my late father.

But much more importantly, an apology to all Californians for a
disastrous four years in office. The Wall Street Journal recently
reported, in comparing the nation's governors, and I quote, "Davis
recorded one of the worst performances of any governor in a very
long time," end quote.

Mr. Davis should apologize for failing to act and then panicking
during the energy crisis, which he's now recently acknowledged.
He promised us no bankruptcies, no bailouts, no rate hikes, yet
he's given us all three. And he completely mismanaged the state
budget. He turned a record budget surplus into a record budget
deficit approaching $27 billion, and it's now projected to add
another $50 billion in deficit over the next five years.

Taxes have gone up, services have been cut, hopes have been
crushed. We have schools that are ranked near last in the nation
in math and reading and dead last in science, schools in which
one out of every three classroom don't have enough textbooks,
one out of every four classrooms have rats, mice or cockroaches.
There are 2 million children trapped in failing schools.

Mr. Davis, you owe the people of Cal ifornia an apology for the
awful ethical tone that you've set in your administration, causing
all Californians...

MODERATOR: OK.

SIMON: ... to lose faith in their elected leaders.

MODERATOR: I'm going to have to be strict about time, because
we only have one hour.

If you're in Southern California, you can hear a radio re-broadcast tonight at 9PM on kogo AM-600. John and Ken (kfi AM-640) have Simon and Camejo in studio now, and they're talking about Davis and parts of the debate.