{"id":8509,"date":"2009-04-10T22:00:58","date_gmt":"2009-04-10T22:00:58","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2009-04-11T01:22:56","modified_gmt":"2009-04-11T01:22:56","slug":"special-election-fight-becoming-establishment-v-grassroots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/2009\/04\/10\/special-election-fight-becoming-establishment-v-grassroots\/","title":{"rendered":"Special Election Fight Becoming Establishment v. Grassroots"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The establishment in both parties continue to close ranks around the May 19 special election, even as the grassroots continues to reject it. &nbsp;Today <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sacbee.com\/static\/weblogs\/capitolalertlatest\/021434.html?mi_rss=Capitol%20Alert\">Antonio Villaraigosa endorsed all six<\/a> ballot measures, asserting that they will &#8220;bring stability back to California&#8217;s budget system,&#8221; like any artificial spending cap that forces spending $16-$20 billion dollars below initial baseline estimates during an economic crisis where state spending is needed urgently tends to do. &nbsp;Without question, Villaraigosa, a potential candidate for Governor, sees that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sacbee.com\/static\/weblogs\/capitolalertlatest\/021425.html?mi_rss=Capitol%20Alert\">giant pot of CTA money<\/a> being tossed around in support of the measures and figures one of the candidates could draft off of that nicely in the primaries.<\/p>\n<p>At the local level, more and more Democratic clubs are <a href=\"https:\/\/calitics.com\/showDiary.do?diaryId=8498\">opposing<\/a> the <a href=\"https:\/\/calitics.com\/showDiary.do?diaryId=8492\">ballot measures<\/a>, because unlike the establishment, they have read them and calculated that they would put the state in an objectively worse situation, and they are unmoved by the idle threats of <a href=\"https:\/\/calitics.com\/diary\/8488\/arnold-schwarzenegger-presents-apocalypto\">Armageddon<\/a> casually tossed out by the Governor and his minions. &nbsp;The dichotomy is both interesting and revealing.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, in maybe the lamest online initiative effort since the invention of Compuserve, Abel Maldonado&#8217;s tears have created &nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.reformforchange.com\/\">&#8220;Reform For Change,&#8221;<\/a> a site dedicated to the petty, self-righteous, useless Prop. 1F measure that would eliminate raises for lawmakers and staff during an economic downturn. &nbsp;In the silly video accompanying the site, Maldonado&#8217;s tears tell us that &#8220;we can fundamentally reform California and change it forever,&#8221; through apparently passing a .0001% change in funding for state lawmakers that is dealt with through an independent commission and not &#8220;the legislators themselves&#8221; (one of many lies on this site).<\/p>\n<p>Sigh. <\/p>\n<p><b>UPDATE<\/b>: Apparently Antonio <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/KQED_CapNotes\/status\/1493694915\">said this<\/a> today &#8211; &#8220;If we don&#8217;t pass these initiatives CA will go into bankruptcy.&#8221; &nbsp;That&#8217;s just ignorant fearmongering. &nbsp;These people should be ashamed of themselves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The establishment in both parties continue to close ranks around the May 19 special election, even as the grassroots continues to reject it. &nbsp;Today <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sacbee.com\/static\/weblogs\/capitolalertlatest\/021434.html?mi_rss=Capitol%20Alert\">Antonio Villaraigosa endorsed all six<\/a> ballot measures, asserting that they will &#8220;bring stability back to California&#8217;s budget system,&#8221; like any artificial spending cap that forces spending $16-$20 billion dollars below initial baseline estimates during an economic crisis where state spending is needed urgently tends to do. &nbsp;Without question, Villaraigosa, a potential candidate for Governor, sees that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sacbee.com\/static\/weblogs\/capitolalertlatest\/021425.html?mi_rss=Capitol%20Alert\">giant pot of CTA money<\/a> being tossed around in support of the measures and figures one of the candidates could draft off of that nicely in the primaries.<\/p>\n<p>At the local level, more and more Democratic clubs are <a href=\"https:\/\/calitics.com\/showDiary.do?diaryId=8498\">opposing<\/a> the <a href=\"https:\/\/calitics.com\/showDiary.do?diaryId=8492\">ballot measures<\/a>, because unlike the establishment, they have read them and calculated that they would put the state in an objectively worse situation, and they are unmoved by the idle threats of <a href=\"https:\/\/calitics.com\/diary\/8488\/arnold-schwarzenegger-presents-apocalypto\">Armageddon<\/a> casually tossed out by the Governor and his minions. &nbsp;The dichotomy is both interesting and revealing.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, in maybe the lamest online initiative effort since the invention of Compuserve, Abel Maldonado&#8217;s tears have created &nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.reformforchange.com\/\">&#8220;Reform For Change,&#8221;<\/a> a site dedicated to the petty, self-righteous, useless Prop. 1F measure that would eliminate raises for lawmakers and staff during an economic downturn. &nbsp;In the silly video accompanying the site, Maldonado&#8217;s tears tell us that &#8220;we can fundamentally reform California and change it forever,&#8221; through apparently passing a .0001% change in funding for state lawmakers that is dealt with through an independent commission and not &#8220;the legislators themselves&#8221; (one of many lies on this site).<\/p>\n<p>Sigh. <\/p>\n<p><b>UPDATE<\/b>: Apparently Antonio <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/KQED_CapNotes\/status\/1493694915\">said this<\/a> today &#8211; &#8220;If we don&#8217;t pass these initiatives CA will go into bankruptcy.&#8221; &nbsp;That&#8217;s just ignorant fearmongering. &nbsp;These people should be ashamed of themselves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[],"tags":[583,474,4489,121,630,7079,149],"class_list":["post-8509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-583","tag-474","tag-4489","tag-121","tag-630","tag-7079","tag-149"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Pvhz-2df","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/54"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8509\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}