Is the Flash Report Threatening the Terminator?


“Beware the Ides of March, as it appears to be the day that the Governor indicates that he is not a team player… “

— Jon Fleischman, Flash Report, 3/15/2007

Et Tu Fleischman?!

I love when Republicans eat their own.  Jon Fleischman’s FlashReport column on the Governor’s approval of moving up the date of the California Presidential Primary is here.  The column’s big complaint is that the Governor signed the legislation without a single Republican vote in favor of the proposal.  I think its fair to say the Honeymoon with Arnold is over.

And then there is this flicker from Fleischman:   
“Instead, the Speaker is doing exactly what I would do if I were him — ignoring his Republican counterparts, and putting legislation on the Governor’s desk that represented no compromise at all.”

So if the shoe was on the other foot and Republicans had the majority in the senate and assembly, Jon would have no problem moving forward on a piece of legislation he favors without opposition party support.  So Jon is being critical of something he’d do himself?

In other words: It’s OK for Republicans to do this, but not Democrats.

By moving up the Primary so voters have an actual say in who the nominee is for both parties, California becomes less of an ATM for the presumptive nominees later.  This weakens the amount of money the Republican candidate would have received in June.  (And the same for the Democratic Candidate too!).  By June, we’lll have a good idea of who the candidates for both parties are, but California would already have given at the office.

When these guys whine about the cost of the special election, remember that they already pushed forward two special elections — the recall election of 2003 and the Governor’s $55 million special election in Fall 2005. So this moved up primary election shouldn’t bother a party so willing to spend state dollars to enanct political change outside of the regularly scheduled election cycle, should it?

 

10 Comments

  1. So if the shoe was on the other foot and Republicans had the majority in the senate and assembly, Jon would have no problem moving forward on a piece of legislation he favors without opposition party support. So Jon is being critical of something he’d do himself?

    In other words: It’s OK for Republicans to do this, but not Democrats.

    Dan:

    You’re building a straw man. Jon isn’t criticizing Nunez, he’s criticizing the Gov for ignoring his fellow Republicans.

  2. Mike:

    How about adding some more anti-spam words like:

    — progressive taxation

    — soak the rich

    — Jimmy Carter

    — teachers union

    — tax and tax, spend and spend, elect and elect

    🙂

  3. Matt —
    The Straw Man is built by Jon. Face it; you guys elected a populist who makes Gray Davis look conservative. Yet no calls to recall this Governor. Since Jon has worked hard against moderate Republicans in the past for not being conservative enough, it has to be awfully hard for him to realize the Governor actually seems to put his own interests ahead of the party.

  4. What’s wrong with Jimmy Carter? The man has been an exceptional individual all of his life.

  5. Yes, Jimmy never seems happier than when cozying up to anti-American dictators.

    As for Jon, your response to my straw man comment was not a response. You accuse Jon of saying something he didn’t say, and then you berate him for the words you put into his mouth.

    As for Arnold, your not going to get any argument out of me — or out of Jon, I suspect — that he’s a lousy Republican. And like Jon, I have worked hard against moderate Republicans and in favor of conservative Republicans. But lambasting Jon, me or any other Republican for not calling for Arnold’s recall is nonsensical, a non sequitur.

    Was Gray Davis recalled for being insufficiently Democratic? No. He was recalled because he lied about the extent of the state’s fiscal meltdown. Davis admitted deliberately suppressing information about the size of the state deficit until after he’d squeaked by the inept Bill Simon campaign. Coming in the wake of the electricity crisis, the pay-for-play policy-making process and a general, deep public dissatisfaction with his governorship, that was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Republicans started the recall, but it would never have succeeded unless a lot of non-Republicans wanted Gray Davis out badly enough that they’d recall him a year after re-electing him — the first time any California constitutional officer had ever been recalled.

    Your attempt to paint Republicans as hypocritical because they aren’t trying to recall Arnold is ridiculous over-reaching.

  6. I quoted Jon directly and interpreted him accurately. Its all about Arnold ignoring the GOP’s will on the vote even though moving up the primary gives California more of a say in who the nominee is. Beware the ides of March is a warning, a threat….

    You had the chnace to remove Davis in 2002; you failed to do so. And you need to place some of the blame on the electrical crisis on Enron and I’d go back and put some of the blame on Pete Wilson who really sold the benefits on de-regulation.

    If you want to recall every politician who withheld information for political purpuses, how do you propose we recall the president? Sorry, I don’t trust government to the party who doesn’t trust government but uses it to enrich business partners.

    I don’t have to paint Republicans as hypocritical; most of them do a pretty good job of doing it themselves.

  7. I don’t find the GOP hypocritical for not trying to recall Arnold–you can’t expect them to take out one of their own. Their job is to elect Republicans and defeat Democrats.

    My problem is I thought the recall was an abuse of the process. We just had an election. The Republicans thought that for the reasons expressed by Jubal Gray would be a dead duck. They didn’t count on the fact that Simon was a weak candidate and too conservative for Blue California. So they decided to take a mulligan figuring a different candidate(most figured it would be Riordan, some were hoping for Arnold) could win in a rematch. The “budget lie” was and is so much bull. If we based recalls on lying we’d be having 3 elections a year every year, not just in presidential election years. It’s true alot of non-republicans threw Gray under the bus….the car tax did him in more then anything I’d say–but the DNA was GOP. A perfect storm happens every once in a while and Arnold was just the anti-politician people were looking for. But it was an abuse of the process–had the Dems done it to Pete Wilson there would be cries of outrage from Red County. Conservative Republicans–who were the heart and soul of this Mulligan Mission–are receiving their karma by first, their 2005 special election butt kicking and second, by Arnold’s sounding and acting more Democrat then many Democrats.

  8. I actually think Arnold is a rare politician who learned from his mistakes; his special election initiatives were way to the right with the full backing of the party. When they went down to defeat, Arnold probably said to himself, “what do I need these guys for?”

    That said, I have other issues with the Governor.

    You read Fleischman’s columns on “his Republican Governor” and it reminds you of a jilted girlfriend that keeps stalking her old boyfriend who is well past moving on. Was it Dennis Leary who joked about the drunken phone call to an ex, “I hate you, you’ve ruined my life, but….I want you to know….. there’s always hope for us.”

    and for Matt on the Jimmy Carter comment on cozying up to anti-American dictators….don’t forget how close our preznit and Veep are to the Saudi Royaly family. You know, the ones backing the Sunnis in the Iraqi Civil War. The war our soliders are getting killed in?

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