Erik's Rants and Recipes 2004 General Election Endorsements

I finally waded through everything last night, so here are my eleventh hour endorsements. Print this out and take it to the booth with you.

President and Vice President: George W. Bush and Richard Cheney. Note that this is a fairly lukewarm endorsement. Do not think that a vote for Bush is a vote for the Culture of Life. Rather it is a vote against an even bigger player in the Culture of Death. When it comes down to it, all of the third parties are deficient. The Greens, Peace and Freedom, Libertarians and Democrats are obviously out. The American Independent/Constitution Party is profoundly Protestant in its foundation and will do more to harm the common good than the Republicans.

United States Senator: Bill Jones. I do not like the man, but he is not Barbara Boxer.

Ninth Congressional District: Claudia Bermudez. She seems pretty good, but most importantly, she is not Barbara Lee. Come to think of it, I might be calling for a ban on the name Barbara pretty soon, given Boxer, Lee and Streisand.

State Senator, Ninth District: Patricia Deutsche. Fairly wanky, but not nearly as bad as Don Perata.

Member of the State Assembly, Sixteenth Assembly District: Jerald Udinsky.

AC Transit District Director, At Large: H. E. Christian Peeples. This current director is firmly committed to public transit and has a decent record.

AC Transit Disctrict Director, Ward 2: Greg Harper. Doing a good job, and his opponent is the head of the Transit Union, which is akin to asking the fox to guard the henhouse.

East Bay Municipal Utility District Director, Ward 6: no recommendation

Proposition 1A: NO. Watch for hidden items in this bipartisan bill.

Proposition 59: NO. Open meetings sound fine and dandy, but these sorts of propositions are like snakes that come around and bite you when you have them by the tale.

Proposition 60: NO.

Proposition 61: NO. An expensive omnibus of special interests, putting childrens' hospitals on the top in order to twang the heart strings. We have a serious financial crisis in the state, and this will not help.

Proposition 62: NO. This will only encourage more centrism.

Proposition 63: NO. This bill will further erode California's tax base, leaving us holding the bag for programs we can no longer afford.

Proposition 64: YES. Renegade lawyers are destroying small businesses. Put a stop to the John Edwardses of California.

Proposition 65: NO.

Proposition 66: NO. California's Three Strikes law needs fine tuning. This measure proposes surgical changes with a chain saw. Contrary to the Prop 66 propoganda, there is already a lot of discression allowed judges and prosecutors at every level of sentencing as to whether or not to prosecute a third strike. Talking about "bad check writers" being in prison overlooks the other felonies that got them there. We are not talking about the person who once in awhile bounces a check, but a felon who is frauduently undermining our fiscal system on a fairly massive scale. Anyway, most of the people who will be potentially freed by this are not bad check writers, but arsonists, attempted child rapists who were caught before they actually did the deed, and assorted bad lots who need to be locked up.

Proposition 67: NO. Another tax to support a vague list of health-related boondogles. Our health care system needs real fixing, not bandaids like this.

Proposition 68: NO. I don't like the fact that Ahnuld von Kennedy is gubernator, but he has been playing hardball with the Indians, and this could seriously undermine his work in this area.

Proposition 69: YES. A DNA database will help prove the innocence of unfairly incarcerated people. It will help track down serious criminals. It only collects this information from felons, not the general population. Libertarian privacy issues are nothing more than paranoid ravings from the usual suspects.

Proposition 70: NO. 99 Year compacts?!? Forget about it.

Propostion 71: NO. Why can't the public see that the "Nobel Laureates" who support this are basically another special interest looking to line their pockets with $6 billion of public funds at the expense of the most vulnerable members of our society? These Mengeles are taking advantage of liberal pro-abortion pro-endarkenment sentiment to push this wholly evil proposition.

Proposition 72: NO. Another ill-though-out measure that will destroy out economy.

Bay Area Rapid Transit District Measure AA: YES. Arguing that we have not had an earthquake in 30 years is about as dumb as building a village between Mt. Vesuvius and Pompei. We need the seismic upgrades, and soon.

City of Oakland Measure Y: NO. A ludicrously high property tax assessment that will go mostly to a whole host of social workers and their ilk in a bunch of misguided "violence prevention" programs.

City of Oakland Measure Z: NO. Let Soviet Monica do the lobbying for legal marijuana. Oakland has better things to spend its money on.

AC Transit Special District 1 Measure BB: YES. We have a pretty good bus system in the East Bay, and we rely on it heavily, even if we don't use it (think of all the cars that could clog up I-580 at rush hour). This is a very modest parcel tax ($2 per month) to support and improve a good system.

East Bay Regional Park District Zone 1 Measure CC: YES. The Regional Parks are part of what make the East Bay a livable region. I can drive five minutes and be in a redwood forest, looking at fish in the stream where the rainbow trout was first identified as a species. However, the parks need some infrastructural improvement that will benefit all of us. The list of projects that will be funded by this measure are worthy ones, and will make the park experience even better. The modest parcel tax ($1 a month) will come back to property owners, because these parks make our cities much better places to live.

Posted by erik at November 1, 2004 11:05 PM | TrackBack