The Super Tuesday primaries are over and it looks like we will have a Bush, Gore race this election. Pardon me while stifle my excitement. I am afraid this election will go down as the most dull and undemanding one in recent history, let's break down the candidates shall we?

Bush - Here we have a C average overachiever. The era of having our best and brightest running things is over, my friend.

Besides his intelligence problem, Bush has big a credibility problem. On one hand he says he wants campaign reform and limits on special interests at the same time he has raised more campaign contributions than any other candidate. The question is how serious do we think he is when it appears he was completely bought and paid for?

Bush strikes me as a throw away candidate, maybe the Republicans didn't want to waste on really good candidate this election. I think they are letting Bush run in hopes that the economy dies down a bit in the next four years making Gore more vulnerable.

Gore - The best thing I can say about Gore is he probably is not completely full of BS but with a couple a couple of bucks he could top off the tank. I think Gore will do all right as candidate as long as he doesn't take any more huge campaign contributions from Buddhist nuns. The man is smarter the Bush (faint praise indeed) but he will definitely have to deal with a lot of questions about his past campaign contribution ethics.

Then there is the personality question, or Gore's lack thereof. Since elections are more and more a personality race this fact could really hurt Gore.

Summing up I feel very uninspired by the candidates and feel that with the right candidate this may be the election of the third party. To find out more about other candidates and Gore and Bush go to my Get Up - Stand Up page for a list of candidates links.

California Propositions

Here in California we have a interesting exercise in democracy called the proposition system where the voters get to vote on certain matters of law, policy and money issues. Many Californians have problems with this system, the biggest problem I have with this system is that fact that a large percentage of the propositions never make it to being a law. Every proposition that is the least bit controversial and is passed is usually held in court for years and then inevitably thrown out. So basically it is just one big circle jerk.

One use for the propositions that is useful, especially to candidates, is that they are a good measure of what the voters are thinking or feeling. This elections propositions painted a fairly ugly picture of our state. Here is a short rundown.

Proposition 1A - passed - Indian Gaming

This was an initiative to give the local indian tribes the right to have Las Vegas style casinos in California. This is proposition is a perfect example of the screwy proposition process. Not more that two years ago the voters voted a proposition that did fundamentally the same thing but it was overturned in the courts. This time around there were two propositions on the ballot for the same issue. It is supposed be a part of the California constitution now so maybe we won't see this one again, but I'm not holding my breath.

Proposition 21 - passed - Juvenile Crime
Proposition 26 - failed - Bond act for school facilities

This one was true indicator of how the voters feel about juvenile crime - the message sent here, as I see it, is we'd rather make it easier to put kids in jail than actually try to educate them in decent school? I'd love to see statistics on which is cheapest teaching a kid or throwing him in jail.

Proposition 26's failure hurts us locally here in Barstow, we were going to use the money to help out our local high school which was a dump when I graduated in 1984. But hey we might get a juvenile jail out of the situation!

Proposition 22 - passed - restricting gay marriage

Ok let me take a deep breath. Get ready for the rant. . .

. . .I have never been more ashamed of being a Californian than at this moment.

Do we really want the government to have the power to say "you and you, can get married, you two are a little too weird/colored/gay/mixed to get married, sorry."?

One point about this piece of trash proposition is that the proponents of it sound just like the southern rednecks who spout off about mixed marriages. I don't see our society is crumbling because any two people get hooked up.

Another point, there is already a provision in the Californian Constitution that prohibits same sex marriages so this completely redundant.

And lastly, this fourteen word missive was written by a State Senator "Pete" Knight who is estranged from his son and brother who are both gay, so basically this smacks of personal pissing contest with our taxes paying for it.

As the Dead Kennedy's Sang "California Uber Alles".

Proposition 13 - failed - None of the Above Ballot Option

Really sad to see this one fail, it would have given the voters the option of a non-binding vote of "None of the Above". The None of the Above vote would have no real voting power but it would have been a great way to protest the piss poor choices we have nowadays.