…some good news and some bad news
by Jack Lee
Super Tuesday is over and it shakes out like this, the Republican presidential candidate needs 1191 delegate votes to win the nomination. Currently we have McCain in the lead with 559 and Romney with 265, still plenty of states left to count before we can declare a winner. Mike Huckabee has 169 and if his delegates eventually go to Romney it would be almost a dead heat. On the other side it’s even closer. Hillary Clinton has captured 783 delegates and needs 2025 to win. Obama is right behind her with 709 and of course Edwards is out. Mrs. Clinton got a boost from California with 52% of the vote verses Obama’s 42%. Despite Hillary’s capture of California, this race is considered tied.
On the ballot propositions it appears that Prop 93 (term limits) has failed, although many votes are yet to be counted. 53 percent of voters were opposed to the measure while 47 percent were in favor. This means that local Assemblyman Rick Keene is termed out of office this year. However, he has a contingency. He planned well ahead of this vote and selected Dan Logue of Oliverhurst to be his successor, thus maintaining by proxy his voter control and influence until he can make his bid for the State Senate. It’s only my humble opinion, but I think this plan will only work if it can be kept secret. I have the feeling that voters don’t like being manipulated, they don’t like secret deals for career advancements nor do they like one politician passing his regime on to his chosen successor because it then has the taint of dynasty building or something akin to nepotism, then again I could be wrong (read VOTING below).
Assembly candidate Sue Horne (Grass Valley) has similar backing from Assemblyman Doug LaMalfa who will also be seeking the same Senate seat as Keene. Both Assemblymen are popular and well respected, however this backroom play threatens to tarnish some of their credibility if voters become aware why both men have invested so heavily in supporting Horne and Logue for the 3rd Assembly District. This is perfectly legal, but its an ends justifies the means kind of career move that we see too often in politics and personally, I had hoped for better, because I hold both of these men in high esteem and I wish they had just run straight up for election without trying to use these other candidates for leverage.
Both Horne and Logue have garnered a number of high powered endorsements and hundreds of thousands in big money contributions by riding on the coat tails of the Assemblymen who have selected them.
(Full disclosure – I am the 3rd candidate in this Assembly race for District 3 and therefore you can take my comments with self-serving biased if you wish, I would understand. However, for those who know me well, you know I would still take the same position even if I were not in the running)
The gaming propositions appear to have won with 56% of the vote. A simple majority was needed to win. This now gives 4 Tribes considerably more influence within the Indian Gaming Monopoly that dominates California gaming. They will make billions off the new laws and this totally justifies why these tribes spent over $100 million dollars to buy the votes. It was a smart business move and it worked.
The cash strapped Republican Party received some very generous financial support with promises of more to come to endorse these propositions done under the pretence they will substantially add revenues to the state budget. However, only a fraction of what the casinos will take in will go to the State. The four tribes are now allowed to add up to 17,000 slot machines in addition to the 8,000 they already operate. All the machines will be located on Indian lands in existing casinos. The tribes determine the formula by which the state will receive their cut of the action, which could be anywhere from 15-25% of what is left after all the deductions, overhead and hidden revenues. I’ll bet (no pun intended) the $9 billion figure that was touted as State revenues over the next 10 years come no where close.