Including myself that your predictions do not bear fruit.
You are entitled to your opinion of course, however, as a signer of the Davis recall petition(as well as a voter of Prop 187) MY opinion is that, if after the dust settles, through what ever set of facts Bustamante becomes Governor nothing(positive at least), will come of this whole sordid mess. Bustamante is a politician pure and simple, and things will be business as usual. What we need in that office is an individual who has some common sense unlike either Joe Gray, or Cruz. I personally really wanted to see Riordan go for it, but one can't have everything. People on both sides are critisizing Arnold for both lack of experience, and his support of Prop 187. As far as lack of experience is concerned, have you all forgotten a guy by the name of Ronald Reagan? While Reagan may, or may not have been one of our better Presidents, and Governors, he too, was completely lacking in experience when he first assumed office. I'm sorry, but I don't consider his serving as the President of SAG as viable political experience. Nevertheless, he did an acceptable enough job to be elected, and RE-Elected to two terms as President of the United States. Arnold has proven himself to be a savvy businessman. Therefore, I find it nothing more than sheer desparation on the part of his detractors to discredit him. In the final analysis my dog could probably do better at running this state than any Democrat currently in Sacramento with the the possible exception of John Garamendi.
Now as to your assessment of Prop 187. Prop 187, while it was ultimatly "gutted" like a fish and failed, it did not fail for the reasons most people imagine.
Prop 187 had the sad misfortune to wind up in Judge Marianne "The Bitch" Pfeallzer's(my apology if the last name is misspelled)court room. Judge Marianne, a Jimmy "the Joke" Carter appointee has been famous for doing what she wants, in spite of what the law says. I had the opportunity to see this abomination of our legal system at work first hand. I spent quit a bit of time in her court room while working for a law firm, which represented a defense contractor appearing before her.
This Judge essentially just let Prop 187 rot on her desk refusing to rule one way or the other, for years, intentionally denying the proponents the opportunity to seek further appeal on the measure. When "Low Beam " Davis took over as Governor he refused to persue the matter.
To her credit though Judge Marriane did make one relevant observation. She agreed that illegal immigration is a serious problem in the state of California, and she was in agreement, in concept at least in what Prop 187 contained. In other words Prop 187 was ruled unconstitutional NOT for what measures it sought to impliment(with a very few notable exceptions), but rather because it was a state measure which was attempting to usurp control of power within the jurisdiction of the federal government. She went on to encourage the federal government to accept it's responsibility and do something about the issues Prop 187 sought to address. Sadly though Billy was too busy getting BBBJ's from Monica to do anything about it.
Prop 187 was NOT anti-immigrant, it was anti ILLEGAL immigrant.
This state and this nation is still wide open for immigrants, but there are those of ALL ethnicities who think that they can just do as they wish, and to hell with the law.
If you want to live here, fine, follow the rules, and apply, and then welcome. If you don't, I am all for kicking your ass all the way back to wherever you came from, be it Tijuana, Toronto, Moscow, Kabul, Frankfurt, etc.
You could well be correct that Bustamante may end up the next governor for a variety of reasons, one of which is that with the Democrats united behind one candidate while other factions are split, it certainly gives him a bit more of a leg up.
But permit me one observation. I have in the past cast my vote based not on ethnicty, gender, party affiliation, charisma, or who has the best ad campaign...I will do the same this time.
I consider that somewhere around 95% of all politicians running for office (except possibly a small local one) are in one way or another political whores. That means they'll all be screwing me (in a bad way) & taking my money to repay their special-interest campain contributors & supporters. Anyone who doesn't think back-room deals are made regarding the introduction/voting legislation to repay them is naive IMO. I have always looked closely at the groups who back each candidate to help determine
my own vote. The candidate who has the least support from those groups whose agenda I most disagree with be the one to get my vote.
Who it will likely be at this time isn't my point at all, but if it is Bustamante it damn well won't be over some single issue like prop 187 or his ethnicity...there are a mulitude of other issues besides a single one from the past, & the last time I looked our elected representatives were supposed to act in the best interests of ALL the people.
