Camejo & McClintock Shine, Other Candidates "Get Personal" In Animated Fiv

[citizinemag]

by Rogg McFadden

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- September 24, 2003 -- In a five-way televised debate between gubernatorial hopefuls that got heated and personal, candidates Tom McClintock and Peter Miguel Camejo may have come out with the biggest gains. Both avoided vicious verbal slings from Arianna Stassinopolous Huffington and each responded to questions directly with reasoned solutions to the State's economic and political problems.

Arianna described herself as "a writer" and quickly went on the attack against Arnold Schwarzenegger with her quiver of "code words" and catch phrases such as "Enron", "Global Crossing", and "the Bush Administration" along with a litany of meaningless stats. Early in the debate, the two European-American candidates began exchanging personal insults and interrupting one another before the moderator put an end to it after Arianna's "direct and personal attack" against Arnold S. over his opinion of women.

Republican Arnold S. had a great deal to lose in this, his only debate. He talked about how he "cares about seniors and children" the most, and said vaguely that "we need equality." Despite Arianna's vitriolic screeds against the movie star, the actor's collection of good rehearsed jokes and his ability to regain composure after a shouting match with a woman, enabled the struggling Arnold to come away spared of any seriously damaging "foot-in-mouth" comments that might destroy his insurgent candidacy. Arnold Joiners will continue to believe in their hero.

After Arianna's childish tirade and Arnold S.'s monotone overbearing roar of response, Green Party candidate Peter Camejo did his best to restore a level of levelheadedness to the affair. Through the entire 90-minute event, Camejo made no attacks against any particular candidate, agreed with his opponents on occasion, and kept himself to the topic at hand without meandering into unrelated blather about "Enron" and "Global Crossing" as Arianna did relentlessly.

Camejo called for increased minimum wage (or "living wage") and increased taxes on the financially successful (or "fair taxes") to increase government school budgets. He also pressed for California to become more "modern" with "single-payer" universal health care for all residents. "All advanced industrial countries have universal health care," said Camejo to support his argument with some "international" credibility.

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[Ardee]

1. Having watched the debate twice

I offer the opinion that Huffington's message is terrific but her methods are annoying, Arnold is an empty suit devoid of any real message aside from idiotic buzzwords, so typical of todays neoconservatives (even those who deny being one), Bustamonte, who I will be forced to vote for, dammit!) shows himself to be a conervative democrat enmeshed in machine politics with no real solutions to basic problems (unlike Huffington, by the by). Camejo would earn my vote, as he did in the legal election, but as a protest and without any hope of his election, being convinced that Davis had it won.

Let us all hope that McClintock remains immune to GOP blandishments that he drop out in favor of Ahnold and perhaps he will keep the Terminator from being an embarrassment to all Californians....an official one at any rate.