KC
October 7, 2003, 02:12 PM
From the WSJ Opinion Journal (http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110004126)
__________________________________
The California Stakes
See what happens when you put liberals in charge?
Tuesday, October 7, 2003 12:01 a.m.
As Californians head to the polls today to decide the fate of Governor Gray Davis, we hope all of the sex-related Sturm und Drang of the past few days doesn't obscure the larger picture. What the recall represents is a referendum on the record of modern "progressive" politics.
Not long ago, our friends on the left were hailing Sacramento's liberal-controlled government as the harbinger of a new national Democratic majority. Writing in the June 2001 American Prospect, Harold Meyerson was only mildly more florid than the average pundit in explaining "California's new-found identity as a laboratory of both Democracy and democracy."
In this liberal vision of Eden, where California "is uniformly under Democratic control," Mr. Meyerson noted with approval the enactment of more and more living wage, health-care and worker-rights ordinances. "In city after city," he wrote, "a civic left has emerged in California, with the state's new-model labor movement--the most dynamic in the country--at its core."
In one sense, he was right: The left got what it wanted because much of that agenda has in fact been implemented in California in the past five years. And today, the voting "lab rats" will let Sacramento know what they think of this grand experiment. They've already rendered a verdict of sorts by inviting the recall, and by showing in every poll before the groping and "Hitler" stories broke that they wanted to throw Mr. Davis and his allies out.
What Californians have witnessed is what the modern liberal coalition looks like in power: a gerrymandered majority dominated by the "progressive" special-interest trinity of trial lawyers, unions (especially of public employees) and environmentalists.
Their priorities are the transfer of wealth from working people to an ever-expanding public sector; more mandates and rules on business that enhance union power but reduce the ability to invest at a profit and create new jobs; and of course legal standards and workers' compensation loopholes that create more openings for trial-lawyer assaults.
These columns have recorded the litany of this achievement frequently over the past five years. But note well that even with their Governor at risk of being recalled, these liberal interests have shown no restraint. As their final, pre-recall act, they pushed through a radical new mandate requiring all California businesses with more than 50 employees to provide health insurance. Governor Davis, trying to save his skin by pandering for more liberal votes, signed it during the weekend.
Mr. Davis, we should acknowledge, did not start out on this same left-wing course. For a couple of years he rode the dot-com boom and governed from the middle, as these columns noted with approval. But then the energy crisis hit, and rather than tell voters the truth he embraced his party's anti-business base to survive. The result has been spending that has climbed 40% in four years, a $38 billion budget deficit, and business and energy costs that have caused tens of thousands to flee the state.
Mr. Davis barely survived his re-election in 2002, even with a feckless GOP campaign and friendly media. Both he and Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante looked certain to lose the recall votes before the recent, late media hits on Arnold Schwarzenegger. Perhaps they will luck out one more time.
But if Californians can look past these distractions, they will see a state brought low by deliberate policies and interests that they now have a chance to restrain and repudiate. And whether or not the recall succeeds, the rest of America has had an object lesson in how a liberal Congress and Presidency would govern.
Copyright © 2003 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
__________________________________
A little careless in a couple of assumptions:
-Assuming that all (or even most) voters in this state can remember what happened *last* year, nevermind three years ago
-Assuming that Californians will wake-up and realize exactly what the Fascist Left has done to this state
-Assuming that California voters will remember what the Fascist Left has done to this state in the next round of (normal) elections.
On the gripping hand, I may (hopefully!) be selling my fellow citizens short. Hopefully, they will understand how incredibly dangerous it is to allow Econazis to create enviromental law, how contra-Libertarian it is to permit the Prison Guard Union to become a major influence in the political process, how wasteful it is to allow teacher's unions to remain unaccountable for their actions, and how destructive it is to permit a politically appointed judiciary with deep-seated social-engineering impulses to overturn the democratic processes.
__________________________________
The California Stakes
See what happens when you put liberals in charge?
Tuesday, October 7, 2003 12:01 a.m.
As Californians head to the polls today to decide the fate of Governor Gray Davis, we hope all of the sex-related Sturm und Drang of the past few days doesn't obscure the larger picture. What the recall represents is a referendum on the record of modern "progressive" politics.
Not long ago, our friends on the left were hailing Sacramento's liberal-controlled government as the harbinger of a new national Democratic majority. Writing in the June 2001 American Prospect, Harold Meyerson was only mildly more florid than the average pundit in explaining "California's new-found identity as a laboratory of both Democracy and democracy."
In this liberal vision of Eden, where California "is uniformly under Democratic control," Mr. Meyerson noted with approval the enactment of more and more living wage, health-care and worker-rights ordinances. "In city after city," he wrote, "a civic left has emerged in California, with the state's new-model labor movement--the most dynamic in the country--at its core."
In one sense, he was right: The left got what it wanted because much of that agenda has in fact been implemented in California in the past five years. And today, the voting "lab rats" will let Sacramento know what they think of this grand experiment. They've already rendered a verdict of sorts by inviting the recall, and by showing in every poll before the groping and "Hitler" stories broke that they wanted to throw Mr. Davis and his allies out.
What Californians have witnessed is what the modern liberal coalition looks like in power: a gerrymandered majority dominated by the "progressive" special-interest trinity of trial lawyers, unions (especially of public employees) and environmentalists.
Their priorities are the transfer of wealth from working people to an ever-expanding public sector; more mandates and rules on business that enhance union power but reduce the ability to invest at a profit and create new jobs; and of course legal standards and workers' compensation loopholes that create more openings for trial-lawyer assaults.
These columns have recorded the litany of this achievement frequently over the past five years. But note well that even with their Governor at risk of being recalled, these liberal interests have shown no restraint. As their final, pre-recall act, they pushed through a radical new mandate requiring all California businesses with more than 50 employees to provide health insurance. Governor Davis, trying to save his skin by pandering for more liberal votes, signed it during the weekend.
Mr. Davis, we should acknowledge, did not start out on this same left-wing course. For a couple of years he rode the dot-com boom and governed from the middle, as these columns noted with approval. But then the energy crisis hit, and rather than tell voters the truth he embraced his party's anti-business base to survive. The result has been spending that has climbed 40% in four years, a $38 billion budget deficit, and business and energy costs that have caused tens of thousands to flee the state.
Mr. Davis barely survived his re-election in 2002, even with a feckless GOP campaign and friendly media. Both he and Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante looked certain to lose the recall votes before the recent, late media hits on Arnold Schwarzenegger. Perhaps they will luck out one more time.
But if Californians can look past these distractions, they will see a state brought low by deliberate policies and interests that they now have a chance to restrain and repudiate. And whether or not the recall succeeds, the rest of America has had an object lesson in how a liberal Congress and Presidency would govern.
Copyright © 2003 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
__________________________________
A little careless in a couple of assumptions:
-Assuming that all (or even most) voters in this state can remember what happened *last* year, nevermind three years ago
-Assuming that Californians will wake-up and realize exactly what the Fascist Left has done to this state
-Assuming that California voters will remember what the Fascist Left has done to this state in the next round of (normal) elections.
On the gripping hand, I may (hopefully!) be selling my fellow citizens short. Hopefully, they will understand how incredibly dangerous it is to allow Econazis to create enviromental law, how contra-Libertarian it is to permit the Prison Guard Union to become a major influence in the political process, how wasteful it is to allow teacher's unions to remain unaccountable for their actions, and how destructive it is to permit a politically appointed judiciary with deep-seated social-engineering impulses to overturn the democratic processes.