It’s Now or Never for Poizner
Down by 30 points in the polls? Check.
Being battered by a never-ending barrage of TV and radio ads? Check.
Having trouble raising money? Check.
If you listen to Steve Poizner, all that shows is that he’s got Meg Whitman right where he wants her.
The next four days are Poizner’s best – and possibly last – chance to turn things around if he’s going to make a serious run at victory in June’s GOP primary for governor.
It’s a window of opportunity that opens tonight with the start of the state Republican convention at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Santa Clara and continues through his first face-to-face debate with Whitman Monday evening in Costa Mesa.
Reform Proposals: An Irresistible Force Meets an Immovable Object
There are some good features in the Democratic reform proposals borrowed from California Forward and announced yesterday, but the focus on the package will be the effort to lower the two-thirds vote requirement to pass the budget. And in the California legislature, dealing with the two-thirds vote requirement faces the classic paradox of an irresistible force meets an immovable object.
The Democrats insist the road to better governance and accountability flows through a simple majority budget vote. Republicans say no way will they give up leverage in the budget negotiations and abandon their constituents by turning the budget dealings completely over to the majority Democrats.
One important piece in trying to resolve this deadlock is the issue of raising fees with a simple majority vote, as is now the law. Republicans are concerned that with majority vote power to pass the budget Democrats will simply turn to raising majority vote fees to balance the budget.
Hitting Home…
I have written extensively both here and elsewhere about our economic woes in this 21st Century Depression that has paralyzed the developed world since the end of 2007, the latest watching Europe caught in the throes of what I call the Grecian Formula, and I don’t mean that tube of goo that makes your hair less grey. I have seen in my law practice too many commercial real estate owners now struggling with portfolios that resemble the upside-down cruise ship in the 1972 action flick: The Poseidon Adventure.
I have watched our Congress in gridlock over healthcare while swooning from the attention of financial industry lobbyists, paid beyond handsomely, to stonewall any kind of financial regulation, which could prevent an even worse crisis, ending any further off-the-books gambling by the Masters of the Universe on Wall Street. I have watched our national unemployment hit 10% and now hover just below (9.7% again last Friday), while our California figures are significantly higher and those of the teens and twenty-year olds and some racial groups are, frighteningly, even higher. But, it didn’t truly hit home for me until the last couple of months, during which I have been recovering from a bit of surgery to greet the new year (hence my recent absence as a contributing ‘Hound’ for F&HD).