> >>
> >That doesn't mean I'd even DREAM of voting for Gray Davis for Governor.
> >
> >There IS a difference between flexible and flaccid.
> >
> >--
> >Paul Rosenberg
> >Reason and Democracy
> >rad at gte.net
> >
>
> Thus Dan Lundgren gains half a vote, and moves one step closer to becoming
> Governor of California...
Like Dianne Feinstein and Kathleen Brown before him, Gray Davis began the campaign with a substantial (in almost any other circumstances insurmountable) lead and then proceeded to let the Republican candidate set the terms of debate.
In fact, all 3 have gone further than that, and JUMPED at the chance to define themselves as truly worthy Republican candidates. Democratic issues have all but disappeared from the governors race in recent years (some can be heard from the Green Party's candidate, Dan Hamburg, however!) No Democratic candidate has felt inclined to promote a Democratic agenda, or to fight for the governorship on the basis of Democratic Party values (such as still exist broadly in the party grassroots). It is THEY, not I who have handed the Governorship to the Republicans over and over and over again.
Davis may avoid that fate, since Lundgren lacks Pete Wilson's weasle wits. But if he does ANYTHING resembling a Democratic governor, that will have to come from outside pressure. And voting for Dan Hamburg is certainly one form such pressure can take.
Thus, even your narrowly-defined reformist criteria are served.
-- Paul Rosenberg Reason and Democracy rad at gte.net
"Let's put the information BACK into the information age!"