Tag: Governors

Kaine is Able / Corzine stat!

Now here’s something we haven’t seen in a few years…a good election night for the Dems! Despite — or perhaps because of — Dubya’s last-minute visit to the region, Democrat Tim Kaine has won the Virginia governorship. And, after a truly ugly race against GOP stooge Doug Forrester, Senator Jon Corzine is now governor of New Jersey. On the GOP ledger and closer to home, Republican Mike Bloomberg was re-elected New York City mayor in a foregone conclusion (he was leading by 30 points in the polls.) Update: No love for Schwarzenegger, either.

Delusions of Grandeur.

“Even among many influential conservatives, there has been a growing consensus that the Bush governing theory, at least on Social Security, has been proved wrong.” 100 days into the second term, the Dubya White House starts to realize they may not have received a mandate after all. Meanwhile, on the Left Coast, the Governator is learning much the same lesson.

Hide them votes.

The intro sums it up: “With 573 newly discovered ballots roiling the second recount in the race for governor of Washington, the Republican Party went to court Thursday seeking a restraining order that would halt the counting of those votes.” Ah, the shadiness knows no bounds.

Immigrant Song.

“If you believe that government should be accountable to the people, not the people to the government, then you are a Republican.” If you believe that rich people deserve tax breaks while the middle-class struggle harder and the poor send their kids to war, then you are a Republican. If you believe that cutting First Responder, Homeland Security, and Nunn-Lugar funding, lying bald-faced to our allies before the UN, letting Osama Bin Laden disappear into the caverns of Afghanistan, and contriving a casus belli to start a war in Iraq that has further alienated the moderate Muslim world is sound anti-terror strategy, then you are a Republican. If you believe an extramarital blow job is an impeachable offense, but dissembling to the American people about war is hunky-dory, then you are a Republican. If you believe God loves you, but He hates gays, liberals, and foreigners, then you are a Republican. If you’re an immigrant bodybuilder who made it to the top of his field through hard work, discipline, and the judicious application of enough steroids to kill a small horse, then you are a Republican. And if you’re a serial groper who was befuddled enough to think Nixon was a good idea in 1968 and who somehow earnestly believes that the GOP hasn’t moved much further right since the days of Tricky Dick, then you are Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The Governator.

Lock up your daughters…Arnold wins handily in California. (Gray Davis, contemplate this on the tree of woe.) Y’know, I never figured Predator and The Running Man to be two-Governor pictures, but there you have it. Well, here’s hoping Schwarzenegger can find a way to extricate Cali from its disastrous fiscal quagmire…Somehow I don’t think repealing the car tax is going to help much.

What is best in life?

To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of Gray Davis. His politics something of a mystery, Arnie joins the hunt for California governor. As Joe Conason notes, perhaps Republicans will finally shut up now about Susan Sarandon, the Dixie Chicks, and other left-leaning Hollywood activists (although somehow I doubt it.)

Skipping the Middleman

They may be forced to put up with his budget-busting economic proposals, but they’re drawing the line on global warming. A number of Northeastern states – including several led by Republican governors – break with Dubya and prepare to pass greenhouse-gas emission caps that accord with the Kyoto treaty.