Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder "Carly has a great track record of creating jobs ... in India." Like I said, in Bhopal. I'll say it now- I'm not thrilled about it, nor too pleased, but I'm voting for Brown, and for two main reasons. One, we're now finishing up with a Governor who had to be trained while on the job, and he thought he could run the state like a business. We do NOT need a second one like that, someone who's even more clueless than the incumbent. Which leads to reason two, which is it's better to go with the devil you know versus the one you don't. And I forgot reason three, which is I don't believe there should be any way for Whitman to be rewarded for attacking and lying like she has so far. What she did to "fellow Republican" Steve Poizner was unconscionable. She spent more on media ads in the primary out of her own pocket than the last two party candidtes did combined from all sources in the general election. When it's all said and done, she will have spent $150 million of her own money, by her own estimation. And she has the gall to paint herself as a fiscal conservative and everyone else as a liberal spender, including Poizner in the primaries. If she's that way with her won money, imagine her with everyone else's. Oh yeah, reason four- I've yet to hear one single program from her, some goal or objective, a plan on how to get to pointB from point A. Instead, we hear how much everyone else is horrible.
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder So far, Brown is ahead in the polls after being behind by a similar margin right after the primary- 45% to 39%. Boxer leads Fiorina by 45-41 as well. <a href="http://www.politico.com/2010/pollingcenter/calif-governor.html" target="_blank">http://www.politico.com/2010/p...nor.html</a>
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan >>She spent more on media ads in the primary out of her own pocket than the last two party candidtes did combined from all sources in the general election. When it's all said and done, she will have spent $150 million of her own money, by her own estimation. And she has the gall to paint herself as a fiscal conservative and everyone else as a liberal spender, including Poizner in the primaries. If she's that way with her won money, imagine her with everyone else's.<< LOL! That's a great point, hadn't thought of it that way. Velo also made a great point earlier in the thread, about how Whitman is pinning the problems of Oakland's schools on then-mayor Jerry Brown. Since she really had paid no attention to politics until fairly recently, it wouldn't surprise me that she wouldn't understand that as mayor, Brown had little say in what the school district did. But it sure underscores how little she understands about the basics of how government works. Hopefully people won't fall for it, no matter how much money she pours into this election.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan FWIW, I was working in downtown Oakland for most of the time Jerry Brown was mayor. On any given day, he'd be out and about, walking to get lunch with an associate or two. People would stop him to talk, he never seemed to give them the brush off. One of the first things he did as mayor was have a town hall meeting, where he set up tables for each of the major districts in Oakland. At each table, community members were encouraged to have a seat at that table and discuss the issues of that part of the city. There were tape recorders at each table so that later, the highlights of the conversations, great ideas, issues could be transcribed and the mayor and his staff could look into doing something about them. He was not a perfect mayor, and he was hamstrung by a lack of funds in the city to make major changes, but he was not a failure by any means. He was popular in the city, and he seemed to genuinely try to do his best with what he had to work with. IMHO
Originally Posted By tiggertoo <<He was popular in the city, and he seemed to genuinely try to do his best with what he had to work with.>> That's the impression I get as well. While I never had any firsthand experience to draw upon, a friend of mine was his environmental advisor during his second gubernatorial term (he left prior to the medfly scandal and teaches at UC Davis now) and says that while Brown is certainly eccentric and made some serious errors as governor, he was the nicest politician he had ever worked with (with emphasis on "politician"). I'm sort of wary of voting for him myself, but the more I here from Whitman, the more I fear the alternative. I guess it boils down to the adage: "Better the devil you know, than the devil you don't."
Originally Posted By Goofyernmost I saw a great bumper sticker this week. It read..."Politicians and Diapers should be changed regularly and quite often for the same reasons".
Originally Posted By Dabob2 <"Carly has a great track record of creating jobs ... in India."> Brown would be crazy not to use that as a campaign slogan. It's simple, it's true, it's easily understandable, it speaks to a major concern, and it undercuts one of her primary "qualifications" for Governor. Also, assuming they debate, I'd just wait for her to say something about the Oakland schools. Then I'd have a response waiting: first, patiently explain how the mayor has essentially nothing to do with the school district. Then say "There are pretty much only two possibilities here, Meg. One: you didn't understand how the school districts are run, so you were making a big to-do about something about which you are ignorant. Two: you did understand how they are run, and you were trying to intentionally mislead the voters of California for your own personal gain. So which is it Meg?"
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder "...Then say "There are pretty much only two possibilities here, Meg. One: you didn't understand how the school districts are run, so you were making a big to-do about something about which you are ignorant. Two: you did understand how they are run, and you were trying to intentionally mislead the voters of California for your own personal gain. So which is it Meg?" Heck, her response will be the same as to why she didn't vote for 28 freaking years. Brown supporters are currently running an ad that says Whitman went 28 years without bothering to vote and now she wants to spend $150 million to buy your vote. They play a clip from a reporter asking her why she didn't vote, and her response goes something like: "I, I should have, it was wrong, I should have and I didn't, I should have.... let's move on."
Originally Posted By fkurucz ***<"Carly has a great track record of creating jobs ... in India."> Brown would be crazy not to use that as a campaign slogan. It's simple, it's true, it's easily understandable, it speaks to a major concern, and it undercuts one of her primary "qualifications" for Governor.*** IIRC, Czarly's (that's how we used to call her at HP) words were "Americans don't have a God given right to a job." ***"Carly has a great track record of creating jobs ... in India." Like I said, in Bhopal.*** HP's main campus in India is in Bangalore. IIRC, it's now the largest HP site in the world, and they're still hiring like crazy there, unlike here in the US where rolling layoffs are the norm. HP hardly does any R&D or manufacturing work in the US anymore. To be fair to Czarly, her successor Mark Hurd has taken offshoring to a new level.
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder "Also, assuming they debate, I'd just wait for her to say something about the Oakland schools." He's invited to 10 debates, and she's not accepted. He even invited her to his house today. <a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0710/39341.html" target="_blank">http://www.politico.com/news/s...341.html</a>
Originally Posted By Dabob2 Then he should say it without a debate. It's one thing to say "I guess I shouldn't have voted," and another to say "I guess I shouldn't have lied."
Originally Posted By Dabob2 <IIRC, Czarly's (that's how we used to call her at HP) words were "Americans don't have a God given right to a job."> If that's actually quoted - or even better videotaped - I could create the opposition ad myself. Play those words, then a graphic of how many US jobs were shipped to India under Carly (over a visual of an unemployment line), then play the words again. And BTW, I've been mixing up the CA Gov. and Sen. races here a bit - my bad.
Originally Posted By DyGDisney So there will be no debates? How are we supposed to know who to vote for, just watch the mud-slinging commercials full of lies?? Don't they HAVE to have debates?
Originally Posted By DyGDisney From the above article: >>> "Meg will pass on Governor Brown's gracious invitation to visit his Oakland Hills mansion," said spokeswoman Sarah Pompei. "She doesn't want to distract Brown on the off chance that he actually decides to come up with some policy proposals." <<< Snotty and rude, ugh.
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder "She doesn't want to distract Brown on the off chance that he actually decides to come up with some policy proposals." Isn't this one a riot? He's come up with and carried out and forgotten more policy than she'll ever know, and what's worse, her campaign is completely devoid of any right now.
Originally Posted By fkurucz >>If that's actually quoted - or even better videotaped - I could create the opposition ad myself.<< That should be like shooting fish in a barrel. Here's another Czarly quote I found using Google: <a href="http://www.thenation.com/blog/carly-fiorina-don%E2%80%99t-believe-hype" target="_blank">http://www.thenation.com/blog/...eve-hype</a> "While promoting herself as a job creator, the reality is Fiorina proved much more adept as a jobs killer. In fact, she referred to offshoring as “right-shoring”, and fired at least 18,000 people. Fiorina told Fortune she “should have done them all faster."" The woman was born with her foot in her mouth. If she wins the election that says a lot about California. And here is the doozy: <a href="http://articles.sfgate.com/2004-01-09/news/17407867_1_new-jobs-india-and-china-high-tech" target="_blank">http://articles.sfgate.com/200...igh-tech</a> Fiorina's statement that "there is no job that is America's God-given right anymore" triggered particularly strong reaction. The pair spoke in Washington representing the Computer Systems Policy Project, a group of eight chief executives from the nation's top information technology firms. "
Originally Posted By gadzuux From the topic question ... it's not okay for "politicians" to lie - it's okay for REPUBLICAN politicians to lie. We see the same thing over and over again - the republican base has no expectation of honor or integrity from their own candidates - there's no call for accountability from them. They're okay with "winning dirty". We saw it in 2008 with John McCain, we saw it in 2009 with the wild and ridiculous claims brought forth to oppose health care reform, we saw it in the 2010 primaries with the salacious claims Whitman made against her fellow GOP opponents. Even when they're called on these flat-out lies, they continue to repeat them anyway - because it resonates with uneducated voters who don't read the news, but see the commercials during 'Wheel of Fortune' and 'Entertainment Tonight'. Whitman knows full well these claims she makes are lies falsehoods and distortions - she knew it before she ran the ad. But she doesn't have a single ounce of political experience, so she does whatever her highly paid GOP operatives tell her. And sure as night follows day, the GOP playbook says take the low road - attack your opponent early and often. Plus, she has no record to run on, so her campaign consists solely of smearing her opponent. Only in this case, she's up against one of the most august and principled politicians we've ever had. Think about it - after forty some years in active politics, Jerry Brown has no taint, no 'scandal'. His integrity is and always has been above reproach - so is his honesty, dignity and sense of honor. There's not many politicians you can say that about. If Whitman and her team had any real mud to work with, they'd fling poop in a red hot minute. They don't - so they just make stuff up. When they get called on it, they shrug and continue to repeat the lies anyway. The people who object to such gutter politics are never vote for them anyway, so why not? It's similar to the problem the McCain campaign had with Obama - the record was whistle clean, so the best they could come up with was to slander him by association. Suddenly the campaign became all about Rev. Wright and Bill Ayers - neither of whom had much of anything to do with candidate Obama. BUT - this provide an opportunity to shock people's sensibilities with inflamatory quotes and charges. And then the trick becomes to transfering these shocked sensibilities to the candidate himself. A "bank shot" in pool terms. Fortunately it didn't work - but it did work with the dumb ones, and that's where the gravy is when it comes to rounding up GOP votes. Cat claws and a bundle of money are all Whitman's got to work with. On the other hand we have Jerry Brown. His experience is unquestioned - eight solid years in the governor's office. So is his honesty and integrity - forty years in public office without a whiff of scandal. Plus, the man is practically a jesuit priest. Highly principled, honest, straightforward, savvy, knowlegable, politically well connected, trustworthy. We'll be lucky to have him. Can anyone point to a reason to oppose Brown? I'd like to hear it. Quirky? Eccentric? Egotistical? Sounds like petty foibles to me. This 'should be' an easy choice. But there are those out there who will vote for Whitman because they've been bombarded with her tv ads, and because she has an "R" next to her name. Many won't know that her claims are lies, the others simply don't care.
Originally Posted By Labuda "why she didn't vote for 28 freaking years." Ok, call me crazy, but WTH?!?!?! Me, myself, and I concur that if you don't vote, you get no voice. So, 28 years of not voting means stay the hell out of politics until you've shown you care enough to vote.
Originally Posted By Princessjenn5795 "But, when Whitman says things like "While Gerry Brown was mayor of Oakland, the public schools in Oakland tumbled in quality" (not an actual quote), it may be true in the strictest sense of the word, but there's a clear implication of something that's not true." This is a classic example of one of the most widely used logical fallacies in professional politics: post hoc ergo propter hoc (after this, therefore because of this). The reason it is so commonly used is because it works; if you don't know any better it actually sounds logical to state that because the school system went down hill while Brown was Mayor, he obviously caused the decline. It is most definitely a form of manipulation, used the way it is by our politicians. The only way to stop it, however, is for people to educate themselves so that they can see through the crap. Once politicians are held responsible for lying they will stop doing it. But there seems to be no end to the number of people that feel education is for elitist snobs and so they are not equipped to recognize the manipulations for what they are. To me, it is simultaneously one of the most fascinating and one of the most aggravating aspects of American politics.
