Megmentum

So I met Meg Whitman yesterday. It was a pretty small rally at a processing plant between Sacramento an Natomas. There were over a hundred people there. After the rally, lots of people were getting autographs, shaking Meg's hand, and sharing their enthusiasm. Meg was really nice, spending a good half hour just talking to people one on one and taking pictures with her. I handed Griff, Meg's husband, my camera so he could take a picture of Meg and I. Meg put her arm around me and smiled for the camera as Griff struggled to figure out how to push a single button.

I was standing there thinking, "Really? It's just a simple camera." Then he thought he had to back way up, so he did. And I was getting a little irritated. Just take the damn picture already! Other people were staring, waiting for their turn. Finally, the little red light flashes, and there... I got a picture next to Meg. She looked great. I looked really irritated and with half closed eyes. Damn it! What's wrong with me? Why couldn't I just relax and smile and be patient? Oh well. I'm a little bummed the picture didn't turn out well and a little irritated at myself for being irritated. I normally have a lot of patience, but when too many people are staring at me and I feel uncomfortable... well, anyways.

There's a lot at stake in this election. I've talked enough about Meg vs Jerry. Let's talk about the scariest thing on the California ballot - Prop 25. The spin: Prop 25 makes it so that the members of the State Legislature do not get paid their salary for each day that the budget is late. And the days of lost wages cannot be recovered. Sounds great, right? Oh, and by the way, it also makes it so the State Legislators only need a simple majority to pass the budget, instead of the 2/3rds vote. But don't you worry your pretty little heads about that part.

So the Democrats have controlled the State Legislature for the last 40 years. Regardless of what you might think of Republicans, I think all voices should be heard. The Dems are pushing Prop 25 pretty hard, because it would completely take Republicans out of the equation and mean that we, the Minority party in California, would no longer have a voice and that the Dems can do to us whatever they want. The mob should not rule. This Proposition would greatly aid in the decline of California.

Remember, we have one of the highest dollars per student education cost in the world, one of the lowest test scores of industrialized countries in the world, one of the highest unemployment rates in the country, the second highest sales tax in the country, and one of the highest state taxes in the country. Despite being one of the most resource intensive areas in the world, California is the shining, crowning achievement of failure on almost every measurable front. The central valley provides 20% of the food consumed by the rest of the country. We have redwoods and logging fields in the north, oil wells in the south, gold in the eastern mountains, and to the west, ports that trade goods from around the world.

My point is that California might be chugging along, struggling through the recession like the other states with half the resources and opportunities, but we should be leading the county. We're trailing behind. We need to radically change the direction we're on.

In either case, it's baffling that the Governor and jr Senate Seat is close at all. I don't get what there is about Boxer and Brown that there is to get excited about. This notion that Meg and Carly are only running to make their billionaire buddies rich... hmm. Rich people are going to get rich either way. If you took all the money in the world away from everyone, then gave it all back, evenly distributed: the formerly rich would be rich again, the formerly poor would be poor again, and the middle class would stay the same. This is fundamentally why I will always disagree with Moderate to Liberal Democrats. Lower expectations leads to lower results. Baby people long enough and they will eventually need to be babied. If you're so mad that rich people keep getting richer, then go to school, get a degree in business and go out and do the same. But don't sit there with your degree in something unmarketable like Philosophy or something, whining about people that have things you're too lazy to work for. Hey, I have a degree in Anthropology. I didn't do myself any favors either. But I'm not going to whine about it.