POOCHIGIAN UNVEILS NEW MOVE ON, JERRY WEBSITE
This morning, Attorney General candidate Chuck Poochigian, the Republican, has unveiled a catchy new website entitled, Move On – Jerry! It is Jerry Brown, 3-time unsuccessful presidential candidate, failed worth checking out.
What is MoveonJerry.org all about? This is what they say on the site:
But Jerry Brown’s soft on crime record, his history of extreme and paranoid rants about American society, his exceptionally erratic conduct of public affairs and his long history of detachment and incompetence when it comes to the daily responsibilities of the positions he holds – currently the case again in Oakland as Brown campaigns full-time while the city is engulfed in a public safety crisis – makes him clearly UNFIT to be California’s next Attorney General.
Throughout this campaign, Jerry will attempt to mislead the public about his record. MoveonJerry.org is dedicated to exposing that record and highlighting the exceptional danger of elevating to chief law enforcement officer one whose entire life in politics has reflected repeated contempt for common sense and mainstream views of public safety.
Don’t be fooled California! It’s the same old Jerry Brown. Great at rhetoric. Lousy at results.
Check out the site for videos, as well as sections on "Jerry’s Oakland", "Jerry as Governor", "Jerry and the Death Penalty", and "Jerry Said What?"
The site is a winner for three reasons: 1) It really makes a reader understand exactly how bad Brown has been as a public policy maker, 2) It literally ‘pokes’ at Brown in a sarcastic way that will have people forwarding on the site, and finally, 3) It represents the latest in an aggressive campaign by Poochigian, continuing to use the hi-tech medium of the internet to take on his challenger.
OPPORTUNITY TO PROVE ANGELIDES WRONG
The latest round of criticisms coming from the Phil Angelides campaign seems to be that Arnold has been inconsistent on the issues. While I don’t think that this will be a winning campaign theme for Angelides, who continues to be justifiably stigmatized for the nearly $20 BILLION in tax increases he has proposed, I do think that there is something to be said for his logic.
This is definitely a different Arnold Schwarzenegger. In charging into the center and center-left gap left wide open by the ultra-left-wing Jerry Brown, Governor Schwarzenegger has made a significant policy departure from both the rhetoric and action established both during his recall election and in the first year and a half of his Governorship. While many of these changes appear, based on polling data, to be popular changes with centrist voters, they are not popular with core conservative voters — certainly not this one. It is my hope as someone who has been a strong supporter of this Governor that he will have an about-face this week and realize that there is something terribly wrong when ‘bipartisan’ means "Arnold and the Democrats" — which is what has been happening in Sacramento. A number of policy items that the Governor has been calling "victories" really are nothing more than the Democrats putting some of their liberal policies on his desk (with NO REPUBLICAN VOTES) and him agreeing to sign them. Is a victory if you ask the Democrats to take California on a walk down the road to serfdom, instead of the quick run that they would prefer?
I know that in his heart Arnold Schwarzenegger understands the importance of limited government over the vast welfare state. It is my hope that this very real lurch to the left will end with this legislative session.
I truly believe that the Governor’s re-election is imperiled by his move to the ‘political center’ — because I think that enthusiasm and energy for GOPers to vote are in grave peril — so many grassroots Republicans are disillusioned with the high spending in Washington, and these ‘left-lurches’ by the Governor only feed that problem.
Conservatives need something to be for, not something to be against. The specter of a Phil Angelides Governorship scared the willies out of me. But it doesn’t make me excited to get out and volunteer for Arnold Schwarzenegger. And I used to be excited to do that. I will leave it to the Governor to excite me again as we go into the home stretch…
(Hint: High-profile press conferences signing bills with the liberal Democrats are not a good way to excite the GOP base. If anything, it shows a lack of appreciation for how revolting these alliances with liberals are to core GOP voters.)
(Further Hint: In this modern media world, "targeting message" is not so easy. When the Governor pals up with Don Perata and Fabian Nunez, all of his GOP volunteers see this, and it is not lost on us that the Democrats have not moved to the right on their issues…)
(Final Hint: Polls may show that the vast majority of Republicans will vote for the Governor. Great. That only helps IF those Republicans actually vote.)
The Governor has a chance to prove Phil Angelides wrong — please take out that veto pen and start sending bad big-government bills into the trash-heap. Is it too much to ask the Governor to veto bad legislation that he has already pledged to sign? Of course not. Veto away!
Victory is not defined by the candidates we elect, but by policy achievements. Winning an election is a means to the real goal – which is reigning in the size and scope of the government, at the federal, state and local levels.
Speaking of which…
IS IT ANY WONDER?
If we have to wonder why the Republican majority in the House of Representatives is at risk, look no further than an article in The Hill newspaper today (on the main page) that highlights the, ‘careful rationing of pork’ by the member of the House Appropriations Committee. An analysis shows that 
"Appropriators" pack significantly more pork into their own districts than anyone else. Part of our problem is that with a GOP Majority, Republicans should be taking ‘power and glory’ away from the Appropriations Committee. We should be incorporating spending into an overall budgetary process that significantly decreases the amount of spending by the federal government. I was pleased that my good friend, Congressman John Doolittle, became a member of the House Appropriations Committee. I saw it as an opportunity for a conservative to take on the rotten institution from the inside. Instead, he seems to have comfortably embraced the idea of taking home more pork for his district. Like I said, if we lose our Republican majority in Washington, it will be the fault of Republican hubris. Elected on a mantra of reducing spending, under the GOP watch it has gone up. Apparently even more so in targeted pork to the districts of Appropriators like Doolittle.
OK, today’s commentary has been good therapy for me. I’m outta here. Enjoy your day!
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