Ask the 'Geek Candidate' for California Governor

No, not Arnold Schwarzenegger. We're talking abut Georgy Russell, who studied computer science at UC Berkeley, often wears ThinkGeek clothing, has a blog, reads Slashdot, and knows how to run Linux. Since this California electoral free-for-all has turned into a worldwide spectator sport as bizarre as any other 'Reality TV' show currently airing, Slashdot might as well get in on the media frenzy and interview a candidate, and Georgy is the obvious choice. We'll email Georgy 10 of the highest-moderated questions, and publish her answers (and, yes, the chosen questions in the same post) as soon as she replies.

Comments

Re:Do you think the recall is fair?

[cheezedawg]

The funny thing is that Gray Davis is doing a decent job.

You are definately in a minority if you believe that.

Much of the deficit is Enron's fault (I seem to recall that taking roughly $30 billion to clean up)

I think the upper estimates of the cost of the energy crisis were around $4 billion. That hurts, but that does not bring the deficit from $12 billion (like Davis was claiming during the campaign) to $35 billion. Davis wasn't responsible for creating the energy crisis mess, but he sure didn't handle the situation well when it came up (and signing those overpriced long term contracts in a panic 2 years ago didnt help either).

No, the problem with Davis is deeper than just the energy crisis. In Davis's first years in office, his budgets increased state spending by double digits each year. This was on unsustainable ".com-boom" tax revenue. During this time he also signed anti-business legislation, like the workers compensation act and the paid family leave act. As a result, businesses started leaving California en-masse. In fact, California has lost more jobs so far this year than the rest of the nation combined. As an icing on the cake, Davis went ahead and tripled the vehicle registration taxes a few months ago. In his mind this was going to increase revenue, but in reality it has just killed new car sales and further hurt the economy.

I think the most telling aspect of Davis has been his reaction to this whole thing. After the recall vote was certified, Davis could have gone out and touted his accomplishments to clear his name. After all, if Davis is right and he shouldn't be recalled, then there should be some reasons to keep him in office, right? But no. The first thing he does is huddle in a room with some lawyers for a week to come up with a ridiculous suit against the recall process itself. When that fails, he flies to Chicago to meet with big labor union bosses to negotiate their "support". And instead of campaigning for himself, all he has done so far is belittle his opponents and the recall process in general.

No, I won't miss Davis at all.

Re:More importantly, is the recall legal

[leviramsey]

Davis apparently ran a fraudulent campaign, specifically as regards the expected budget deficit. From other posts in this story, he spent the campaign claiming that the deficit would be $10-12 billion, and claiming that his opponent's claim of $25 billion was wildly exaggerated. There are plausible allegations that he conspired to keep the reports of the actual deficit (which was announced to be $30 billion and is now estimated at $38 billion) unreleased until after the election. In this case, the logic behind the recall is that, had all the facts been known, Davis would not have won.

Re:Do you think the recall is fair?

[Jhon]

I think you missed the point of my message. The state debt isn't related to the energy crisis -- they are unrelated. The cost of electricity has been passed on to the consumer. The $40 billion budget deficit is on TOP of that.

You need to remember, the state's answer to the energy scam was to raise consumer rates to pay the bloated expenses over the next decade or two. This is on top of a nearly 10% state sales tax and over 10% state income tax -- and NOT including the proposed income tax for county and city. How much can a state take away from it's citizins?

This *problem* is more related to the state legislature than Davis alone -- he just SIGNED all the spending bills -- the state house and assembly had to pass them. We need a gov who'll tell them to "get stuffed" -- not someone trying to make EVERYONE happy so he'll have a shot to use california as a spring-board to the whitehouse.

Re:Do you think the recall is fair?

[squiggleslash]

Here's the scenario people are talking about.

Votes for "Do not recall Davis, we want to keep him": 49.9%
Votes for Larry Flynt: 30%

Flynt wins, because:

• Davis is unable to get 50% of the vote, and is thus recalled
• Davis is unable to stand in the election that follows, because he is constitutionally unable to do so
• Of the other candidates, Larry Flynt has the largest share of the vote. (Arnie comes close, at 29.9%. Problem is, that picture of Arnie with the naked woman sitting on his shoulders seriously undermines his credibility, people who would have voted for him go for Larry instead.)

Davis: 49.9% of the vote. Flynt: 30%. How would that be fair?

(All this is, obviously irrelevent if someone actually gets over 50% of the vote, or if Davis wins, but with hundreds of candidates standing, that seems highly unlikely to happen.)

(Oh, and while I know it's not going to happen, I somehow feel that Larry Flynt winning would be the best result for all, I don't think anyone would try to force a recall for a merely unpopular (rather than actually dangerous) governor again, especially on the grounds that the State is economically up shit creek - yeah, like an expensive and unnecessary election is going to help)