I'd rather we keep the First Ammendment intact, thank you very much!

That's all fine and good, but you have no qualm with the fact that mass media predicting an election while the polls are still open can affect the way people will vote? That fact doesn't bother you at all??

Sure, it bothers me that people are such idiots that they want to vote for a winner and not vote for a loser so much that they'll let the exit polls and media projections influence their behavior. But I'm generally bothered by the level of idiocy in the electorate.

However, what you suggest amounts to saying that there is information out there which the elites have access to but should be kept hidden from the electorate because they're too stupid to use it properly. I find that notion repugnant and totally contrary to the principles of democracy.

And, besides, Peter is right. It's not like the media aren't influencing the elections throughout the process.

I can't pin any of the economic downturn that we've had on him... but i haven't looked into it anymore than figuring out that the power crisis stuff had nothing to do with him.

The power crisis may not have been started by Davis, but I think he completely mishandled it. Even Bustamante said that he should have called the energy companies' bluff. Instead, he let it be known that California would pay any price to avoid blackouts. It's no surprise that the energy suppliers jacked the prices up into the stratosphere. Then Davis locked in those high prices with a bunch of long term contracts.

As for the budget mess, California had a huge increase in revenues due mainly to capital gains realized during the tech bubble. Instead of treating these as the short-term bonus that they were and doing something one-off like investing in infrastructure or paying down some bonds or even returning some money to the taxpayers, Davis and the legislature increased spending in ways that increased the baseline budget. Included in this were a bunch of sweetheart deals with the public-sector unions which have supported him though the years. When the revenues disappeared, we were suddenly left with a massive deficit. While I don't know enough to accurately apportion blame between Davis and the legislature, he has a line-item veto so nothing gets through without his consent.

Definitely. That's how they do the elections over here in louisiana

Hmm. I thought Louisiana featured an open primary with a run-off between the top two if nobody got over 50%.

--John