President Obama is coming to LA tomorrow for a rally on the campus of USC, and he is bringing along a nice little endorsement for the people of the state: No on Prop 23.
“The president is opposed to Prop. 23 — a veiled attempt by corporate polluters to block progress towards a clean energy economy,” White House spokesman Adam Abrams announced Wednesday. “If passed, the initiative would stifle innovation, investment in R&D and cost jobs for the state of California.”
But it is not just about the Golden State. Abrams added, “The impacts could affect us all. If successful, corporate special interests will set their sights nationwide.”
The White House might well be worried: Both proponents and opponents of the measure, which would suspend the implementation of California’s sweeping global warming law, say that as California goes, so go national prospects for climate change legislation. (LA Times)
Though nationally Obama may have some approval issues, he is still quite popular here. Prop 23 is looking at an extremely steep hill to climb to get anywhere near passage. And just to make that hill steeper, here comes Bill Gates.
Bill Gates isn’t the world’s richest man anymore, that title belongs to Mexico’s Carlos Slim. (Or at least it did at the time of Forbes’ World Billionares list) At any rate, nobody’s crying for Gates and his $54 Billion net worth built on the Microsoft empire.
But it is nice to see that Gates, beyond his vast network of charitable giving, has found some time for a decent spot of political giving this year:
Bill Gates, the nation’s wealthiest man, has donated $700,000 to the campaign opposing the rollback of the state’s landmark climate change law.
Gates donation comes as the Obama administration has expressed its opposition to the rollback initiative and a poll released today by the Public Policy Institute of California indicates that fewer Californians support the measure.
“This shows that the leaders of the new economy realize just how important clean energy and clean air are to competing in the world economy,” said Steve Maviglio, spokesman for the No on 23 committee.(SacBee)
Just for comparisons sake. If you had $100,000 in savings, his $700,000 of his $54B fortune would be comparable to you putting in $1.29 for No on 23. So…Mr. Gates…$1.29? Really?
At any rate, we really need to be focusing on Props 25/26 at this point. The state desperately needs a government with power to do something. And a Yes vote on 25 for a majority vote budget along with a No on 26 for supermajority on fees, perhaps we can get there.
“At any rate, we really need to be focusing on Props 25/26 at this point. The state desperately needs a government with power to do something. And a Yes vote on 25 for a majority vote budget along with a No on 26 for supermajority on fees, perhaps we can get there.”
Indeed. It would be great to see a headline like “rich person gives big check to Yes on 25, No on 26 campaigns” or “No on 23 teams up with Yes on 25 and No on 26 campaigns.” So much public attention on 23 (Calitics excepted), so little on the others.
A note on politicking: in this day of high quality color printing at home or at a normal office, shouldn’t all campaigns be providing electronic images of posters so that they could be printed at home? Yes on 25 has a web banner graphic that can be embedded, but nothing ready for the printer. No on 26 doesn’t have anything that I can take to the web or a printer. These aren’t expensive things, so I wonder why they aren’t available.