CNN.Com: Simon drops out of California recall race

I think someone in the California GOP pointed out to Simon that he lost to Davis last November — before this idiocy even started and that if he was that unpopular then, did he really think he stood a chance now???

California is generally a moderate state politically, which means that Arnold’s platform is really where most people are at politically. The fact that the Republicans are pulling out their other people shows that they must be pretty darn desperate to get the governor’s mansion if they’re going to risk being laughed at for running the Terminator.

Oh… for those who think Arnold will magically solve California’s problems (or who think anyone is going to do better than Davis), you’re in a dream world. A regime change (not even a full one because the other state offices stay the same) isn’t going to fix the budget because THE MONEY ISN’T THERE. State workers are not going to magically get their jobs back and auto taxes are not automatically going to get cut. When the Dot.Com bust happened, the state lost a ton of tax revenue because people lost jobs and those high salaries that used to exist vanished. In other words, a major part of the state economy failed and that revenue stopped coming in. California may be the world’s 6th largest economy, but it’s a depressed economy. Basically, the lives of most normal people are not going to change all that much. Teachers are still going to be out of work and former geeks are still going to be looking for tech jobs in a place that doesn’t have them. (Hint: I hear Austin is prepped to be the new tech capital.) The only difference: a legally elected governor is probably going to be ousted because our idiotic previous governor (Wilson) signed deregulation into law which caused a power crisis 4 years later that crippled the state. (By the way, where was Wilson in 2000 when all this was happening? Yep… hiding because he didn’t want to face that he was responsible for this mess.)

And for the record, I actually have worked on campaigns in local and state government in California, which makes me a whole lot more credible on this subject than some people.