Yes! YES! YES!

I left CA only a few months after Arnie took office. I liked to joke that I fled the tyranny of the Governator or joked how its not good when expatriate Austrians take power, but in all seriousness, how was he?

I mean, besides the very obvious deficit issues (OK, you can mention those in your critique).
 
Well, the Terminator has annoyed me by pushing a bill to ban video games (actually, it appears to be broad enough to ban almost anything) that's just now made it in front of the supreme court. A man who made his living in R rated movies is now pushing to limit violence in media.

Other than that potential mess (which he is only partially responsible for), I don't know much about how he's actually done the job.


On the women CEOs... it seems like some of them had baggage from their business careers (The whole HP thing left me with a pretty negative opinion, for example). Whitman probably managed to piss off most of the state through incessant campaigning. I'm actually fairly glad to see that money doesn't necessarily buy your way into an office. Makes me feel a little better about politics that it's not just about who throws the most cash around.
 
The Political anylists are saying that the saturation of ads hurt Whitman. The trick is to spend money buy not look like you are doing. Whitman was way too obvious.

Linda McMahon made the same mistake in Connecticut. Every day there was another flyer in the mail. She was on radio and TV constantly. It backfired, people were making jokes about it. I know a lot of veterans who were PO'd at Blumenthal but finally decided to vote for him anyway because she was 'just buying votes'.

McMahon spent $40+ million in small state with about 3.5 million people. Per capita that has to be one of the most, if not the most, expensive electoral loss in history. Her millions got her 44% of the vote, her opponent got the most votes of any statewide candidate.
 
I left CA only a few months after Arnie took office. I liked to joke that I fled the tyranny of the Governator or joked how its not good when expatriate Austrians take power, but in all seriousness, how was he?

I mean, besides the very obvious deficit issues (OK, you can mention those in your critique).

He was a bit of a klutz. Twice he bet the farm on a raft of propositions when he couldn't get anything done in the state legislature, and both times they were soundly rejected by voters. He had no backup plan either time.

I'll give him a little sympathy because the gridlock may be beyond any one man's power to solve, and this state has stupidly been legislating via referendum and constitutional amendment for decades. It all piled up. With the recent passage of Prop. 25, however, some of the logjam may break. Whether it breaks good or bad remains to be seen, however.
 

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