{"id":1251,"date":"2008-01-25T11:22:00","date_gmt":"2008-01-25T19:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/2008\/01\/25\/ds-california-voter-guide\/"},"modified":"2008-01-25T11:22:00","modified_gmt":"2008-01-25T19:22:00","slug":"ds-california-voter-guide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/2008\/01\/25\/ds-california-voter-guide\/","title":{"rendered":"D&#8217;s California Voter Guide"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s a week and a half before the California primary, but thanks to the magic of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sos.ca.gov\/elections\/elections_m.htm\">vote-by-mail<\/a>, D and I have already completed our ballots.  Since she&#8217;s the one who actually reads the entire voter information guide&#8211;including the actual text of the proposed legislation&#8211;most of the views below are hers.  Your mileage may vary.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:bold;\">President of the United States:  Obama or Clinton.<\/span><br \/>I can&#8217;t speak to the Republican pool, but as far as Democrats go, I would encourage you to vote for Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama (pick one).  Not just because they&#8217;re the only non-white-males, but because, for <span style=\"font-style:italic;\">various<\/span> reasons, <span style=\"font-weight:bold;\">they know what it&#8217;s like to be hated.<\/span>  They&#8217;ve lived with adversity all their lives, and they wouldn&#8217;t have gotten this far if they didn&#8217;t have the strength and the will to keep fighting.  Whether you agree with their particular views is a different issue, but I believe they will get the job done.  D might specifically recommend Hillary, since <a href=\"http:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/history\/presidents\/bc42.html\">Bill<\/a> and Hillary are really a package deal, and D thinks the country did pretty well under Bill Clinton.<\/p>\n<p>Now, a funny story:  I&#8217;m registered as a non-partisan (no party affiliation) voter, but since the Democrats are allowing everyone and anyone to vote in their primary, I received two vote-by-mail ballots&#8211;one non-partisan, with just the propositions, and one Democratic, with the candidates as well.  I&#8217;m only going to send back the Democratic ballot, but I wonder how many other people are in the same boat, and how much confusion and extra work it&#8217;s going to cause our election workers.  Do you really need any more proof that the system is broken?  It&#8217;s a bit depressing, really.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:bold;\">Prop 91, Transportation Funds:  NO.<\/span><br \/>This one&#8217;s a no-brainer.  Even the argument <span style=\"font-style:italic;\">for<\/span> the proposition tells you to vote no, because it&#8217;s been made obsolete by other legislation already.  Did I mention that the system is somewhat broken?<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:bold;\">Prop 92, Community Colleges:  YES.<\/span><br \/>Education is a good thing.  Yes, it will increases taxes, but D&#8217;s okay with that.  She also likes the establishment of an independent Board of Governors.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:bold;\">Prop 93, Term Limits:  NO.<\/span><br \/>There&#8217;s a huge loophole in this proposition, and D doesn&#8217;t like legal trickery.  Check out the <a href=\"http:\/\/voterguide.sos.ca.gov\/text_pdf\/txt_pros_law_93.pdf\">Text of Proposed Law (PDF)<\/a> and see for yourself.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:bold;\">Props 94, 95, 96, and 97, Indian Gaming:  YES, YES, YES, and YES.<\/span><br \/>The primary issue here, in D&#8217;s view, is one of <span style=\"font-style:italic;\">process<\/span>.  Voting down these propositions would overturn an agreement that the Governor has already made with the four tribes in question, and that sets a dangerous precedent.  Two wrongs do not make a right.  Also note that all four compacts still need to be approved by the U.S. Department of the Interior, so if you don&#8217;t like it, you can still make a federal case out of it.  <a href=\"http:\/\/literally.barelyfitz.com\/\">Literally!<\/a><\/p>\n<p>No matter how you vote, the important thing is that you get out to the polls on February 5th and VOTE&#8211;yes, even if it&#8217;s raining, you wimp.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s a week and a half before the California primary, but thanks to the magic of vote-by-mail, D and I have already completed our ballots. Since she&#8217;s the one who actually reads the entire voter information guide&#8211;including the actual text&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1251\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}