Gray Davis Fights Back

[Timber Loftis]

Today's NY Times:
______________________
Job on the Line, Davis Promises to Fight Recall
By JOHN M. BRODER with DEAN E. MURPHY

LOS ANGELES, Aug. 19 — In a fight for his political life, Gov. Gray Davis pleaded with Californians today to reject the attempt to recall him, describing it as part of a right-wing effort "to steal elections Republicans cannot win."

Mr. Davis, a Democrat elected to a second term only last fall, made a vigorous case for himself in a late-afternoon address at the University of California at Los Angeles that was carried live on several local television stations and cable news networks.

"There are many reasons to be against this recall," he said. "It is expensive, it's undemocratic, it's a bad precedent, and it almost certainly will breed more recalls."

Mr. Davis's speech came at a critical juncture in which he is fighting a growing perception in his party that his ouster is inevitable. In a vivid illustration of the governor's difficulties, Lt. Gov. Cruz M. Bustamante, the only prominent Democrat on the recall ballot, in essence kicked off his own campaign today, appearing outside his home near Sacramento to present a plan raising $8 billion in new income, tobacco and commercial property taxes to solve the state's budget problems.

Mr. Davis's speech was his first full address on a recall election that threatens his political future. He offered apologies to voters for his handling of California's energy and budget crises, but argued that he had been hampered by Republican legislators and a "massive fraud" by energy trading companies and that replacing him would only worsen the state's troubles.

"The Republicans behind this recall say they want you to oust me for past mistakes," he said. "My friends, they don't give a rip about past mistakes. This is all about control in the future, seizing back the governor's chair and believing with so many candidates running for office they can do it with just a handful of California voters. That's what this is all about."

Mr. Davis vowed to devote the next seven weeks to fighting the recall, and the next three years — if he is allowed to serve them — to improving the lot of all Californians.

Today's appearances by the state's two top Democrats came as Mr. Bustamante's campaign appeared to be gaining ground. A recent poll found him running even with Arnold Schwarzenegger, and a state employees' union and the Legislature's Latino caucus have put their weight behind him should voters choose to recall Mr. Davis.

The recall ballot, in a vote scheduled for Oct. 7, will have two parts. Voters first must decide whether to oust Mr. Davis. The second part of the ballot will list 135 candidates running to succeed him.

Mr. Davis once hoped that Democrats would see him as their only choice, and his aides tried to keep other Democrats from putting their names on the ballot. But Mr. Bustamante jumped into the race 12 days ago, and is now walking a tightrope, urging voters to reject the recall but offering himself as a successor to Mr. Davis if it succeeds.

Relations between the two men, which have always been strained, are near the breaking point. Each was aware of the other's plans to stage high-profile events today, but went ahead anyway.

In his appearance, Mr. Bustamante, who has been elected lieutenant governor twice on the same ballot as Mr. Davis but not as part of a ticket, criticized the recall drive as an effort financed by right-wing money to hijack the electoral process.

But he was solicitous of those who had signed petitions seeking a recall vote, saying they were neither conspirators nor dupes but instead voters genuinely unhappy with the direction of the state. And he said he now felt obligated to present a plan to govern the state should he be elected.

His economic plan would right the state's budget problemns largely through new taxes on the rich and big commercial property owners. He challenged everyone running for governor in the recall to come forth with a specific economic program. He also said that if he could not get his program through the Legislature, he would take it directly to the voters through the ballot-initiative process.

In response to a question about his relations with Mr. Davis, Mr. Bustamante deadpanned, "I'd say my relationship with the governor is as good as anybody else's in Sacramento." Strategists and lawmakers say Mr. Davis has few friends or allies in the state capital.

As for Mr. Davis's speech, it clearly reflected the advice he has been receiving from former President Bill Clinton, who has urged him to put the recall in a larger context of aggressive Republican efforts to alter the course of elections.

Trying to rally the Democratic base, Mr. Davis alluded to the impeachment of Mr. Clinton in 1998, the fight over the presidential election in Florida in 2000 and the Republican effort to redraw legislative districts in Texas this year.

Even his wording echoed that of Mr. Clinton, who frequently used the phrase "I don't give a rip."

Aides said Mr. Davis was sending a clear message to California voters that he had heard and understood their frustration with the direction of the state and that he accepted his share of responsibility for it.

One senior adviser said Mr. Davis, who has an aloof image and a generally wooden speaking style, had to find some way to connect with alienated California voters before he could ask for their support in the recall election.

"I know that many of you feel that I was slow to act on the energy crisis," Mr. Davis said early in the address. "I got the message, and I accept that criticism."

But in his own defense he said that his state had been "victimized by a massive fraud" by Enron and other energy trading companies. He said that while large sections of the Northeast and the Upper Midwest suffered a power failure last week, the lights had stayed on in California for the past two years.

Mr. Davis said that while he was grappling with California's energy problems, Vice President Dick Cheney was meeting with executives of some of the companies that contributed to the crisis. And he criticized President Bush's handling of the economy, saying the nation had lost three million jobs and gone from large government surpluses to huge deficits during his administration.

Addressing a budget crisis that forced the state to pare its own $38.2 billion deficit this year, the governor admitted, "I could have been tougher in holding down spending when we had surpluses."

But he said California was a victim of a national recession and the collapse of the dot-com bubble. He noted that 46 other states were in similar fiscal distress. And he said much of the spending that led to the state's deep budget deficits had gone to schools and health care. "I make no apologies for that," he said.

The governor said Republican charges that he hid the depth of the state's fiscal crisis during last fall's race for governor, which he won by a narrow margin, were "preposterous."

He said he would travel the state in coming weeks and "answer all questions" about his job performance. He said the state was solving its energy and budget problems, and predicted that the economy would bounce back.

"But this right-wing power grab is something we won't get over," he said. "It would do lasting damage to our state, our environment and the very fabric of our democracy."

Mr. Bustamante, who spoke to reporters on the sidewalk outside his home in a new housing development in Elk Grove, a suburb about 15 miles south of Sacramento, called his plan "Tough Love for California." He warned Californians that there were more hard times ahead.

"The simple truth is we all got into this mess together," Mr. Bustamante said. "And we're all going to have to get out the same way: together. It is time for everyone to stop blaming everyone else."

Mr. Bustamante said he still believed that his candidacy amounted to a "win-win" alternative for Democrats, in that they would win if Governor Davis survived the recall vote and would also win if Mr. Bustamante was elected in the event that the governor loses.

While the Democrats made dual appearances, the best-known Republican candidate, Mr. Schwarzenegger, released a television advertisement today that his campaign will begin showing across the state on Wednesday. In the advertisement, Mr. Schwarzenegger offers no specific policies, but promises to run a "fiscally responsible government" and to rebuild the state's economy. "I want to be the people's governor," he says.

Peter V. Ueberroth, meanwhile, the former baseball commissioner running as a Republican, will appear publicly on Wednesday to discuss his campaign for the first time. He will meet with reporters and is expected to stress the chief themes of his candidacy: economic development and a sound state budget.

[john]

I voted for Davis before and I'll vote for him again!!

[khazadman]

Has anyone heard about the dems other candidate, Bustamante? He's a real winner. Why does the press harp on about Arnies father (something he could never do anything about) but not about this danger to the nation? Here's something I found at newsmax.com.


"While Katie Couric complains about GOP candidate Arnold Schwarzenegger being 'the son of a Nazi party member' and international media outlets assail Schwarzenegger adviser Pete Wilson as 'anti-immigrant' and 'racially divisive,' the liberal press has been stone-cold silent on [Cruz] Bustamante's connection to one of the nation's most virulently racist organizations," columnist Michelle Malkin writes.

"As a student at Fresno State University in the 1970s, Bustamante was an active member of the Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan, or MEChA, which stands for the Chicano Student Movement of Aztlan. Bustamante repeatedly denies having a 'radical ethnic agenda,' but he has refused to disassociate himself from his Mechista roots. In fact, Bustamante recently returned to Fresno State for a separate Latino commencement ceremony founded by two of his Chicano activist classmates."

Malkin says MEChA "operates an identity politics indoctrination machine on publicly subsidized college and high school campuses nationwide that would make David Duke and the KKK turn green with envy." Consider:


Its members at the University of California have rioted and editorialized that federal immigration "pigs should be killed, every single one."

Its symbol: an eagle clutching a dynamite stick and a machete-like weapon in its claws.

Its motto: "Por La Raza todo. Fuera de La Raza nada (For the Race, everything. For those outside the Race, nothing)."

Its goal: to take over a huge area of the United States from Texas to California to Oregon and Washington and hand over the region to Mexico.

Its admitted agenda: "We do not recognize capricious frontiers on the bronze continent. Brotherhood unites us, and love for our brothers makes us a people whose time has come and who struggles against the foreigner 'gabacho' who exploits our riches and destroys our culture. With our heart in our hands and our hands in the soil, we declare the independence of our mestizo nation. We are a bronze people with a bronze culture."
Malkin notes: "Substitute 'Aryan' for 'mestizo' and 'white' for 'bronze.' Not much difference between the nutty philosophy of Bustamante's MEChA and Papa Schwarzenegger's evil Nazi Party. To date, however, the only exposure Bustamante's MEChA history has received has been on the Internet."

The lieutenant governor's racism does not surprise the well-informed who know about his use of the term "■■■■■■." Luckily for him the media establishment refuses to give Democrats the treatment reserved for Trent Lott and other Republicans.

I guess the dem press feels that some racism is acceptable.

[Rokenn]

Sorry Khaz, but I find that hard to take seriously. The person that wrote that is so far to the right that she makes the Bush Administration look like the Green party.

Link to original column:
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/m...20030820.shtml

Looking over some of her past columns she makes Ann Coulter look resaonable.

[Sir Taliesin]

Rokenn, no one can make Ann Coulter look reasonable! This woman may be a little flaky around the edges, but it got me curious so I went "a'Googlin'". Here are somethings I found about MEChA.

This gives an over view of what this organization is about.
http://www.srjcmecha.org/aboutUs.html

Here is a link to two documents that are the cornerstones of their beliefs.
http://www.yale.edu/mecha/esteaztlan/doc.htm
(They are down in the body of the page. One is called El Plan Espiritual de Aztlán and the other is called El Plan de Santa Barbara

Here is a link to their stated history and philosphy.
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Gallery/1754/mecha.htm

In skimming through this, it seems to me that their goal is to form a new country in the Southwestern part of the US. I'm going to have to read more on this. Sounds interesting! Of course most of this is off topic to some degree. I really don't know if Bustemante is a member of this group or not. Personally, I kind of like the way things are going in California. Means more jobs come here!

[ 08-21-2003, 05:12 PM: Message edited by: Sir Taliesin ]