BRIDGET O’BRIEN/Daily Bruin Senior Staff Gov.
Gray Davis gets down and gets funky, "raising the
roof" at the Democratic State Convention in the Bonaventure Hotel
in downtown Los Angeles on Saturday.
By Sara Chon and Kelly Rayburn
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
Gov. Gray Davis said Saturday he is the best candidate for
governor and has delivered on a promise he made four years ago to
build a kinder, stronger and better California.
The Democratic State Convention brought top Democrats from
across the state and nation to Los Angeles’ Bonaventure
Hotel. U.S. Senators Barbara Boxer, D”“Calif., John Kerry,
D”“Mass., Tom Daschle, D”“S.D. and John Edwards,
D”“N.C., joined House representatives and California
politicians in their support of Davis and other Democrats seeking
public office in the Golden State.
Accepting the California Democratic Party’s endorsement,
Davis came out firing at former L.A. mayor Richard Riordan,
Secretary of State Bill Jones and L.A. business tycoon Bill Simon
““ the three top Republicans vying for a chance to challenge
him in November.
The March 5 primary election will decide who the challenger will
be.
“You might think it’s fun to castigate the governor,
guys,” Davis said. “But you can’t govern the
fifth-largest economy in the world with warmed-over
platitudes.”
Davis then turned to the movie “The American
President” for inspiration, saying to his Republican
challengers ““ all three of whom have openly criticized
Davis’ handling of the energy crisis ““ “Your 15
minutes are up.”
“I’m Gray Davis and I am the governor,” he
went on. “And whichever one of you emerges from the
Republican primary ““ you’re in for the fight of your
life.”
At the convention ““ hosted by former state senator and
chairman of the California Democratic Party Art Torres ““ Lt.
Gov Cruz Bustamante, Attorney General Bill Lockyer and State
Treasurer Philip Angelides also received endorsements from
delegates for their re-election attempts.
Seeing Davis take the stage to U2’s “Beautiful
Day,” ““ with nearly 1,000 Democrats chanting
“four more years, four more years” and waving Davis
signs reading “Effectiveness you can count on,” ““
one might not guess that the governor’s approval rating is
far lower than it was after two years in office.
A Jan. 29 Los Angeles Times poll showed that 44 percent of
voters would vote for Davis if he ran against Riordan, who the poll
said would get 43 percent. The remaining 13 percent said they were
undecided or would not vote for either.
 BRIDGET O’BRIEN/Daily Bruin Senior Staff U.S. Senate
Majority leader Tom Daschle challenges Democrats
to stand up against their president when they believe he is wrong.
Riordan, according to the Times poll, held double-digit leads over
Simon and Jones.
Davis’ budget policy has been criticized by even members
of his own party. California State Senate President Pro Tempore
John Burton, D”“San Francisco, for instance, opposes
Davis’ proposed budget, saying Davis does not advocate
raising taxes even in tough fiscal times because he is trying to
get re-elected, not do the best for the state.
As Davis “raised the roof” and touted his success as
governor, campaign aids for Riordan and Jones passed out anti-Davis
literature in the hallways.
State GOP spokesman Rob Stutzman said Davis mishandled the power
crisis and called the convention “monument to
failure.”
But inside, the Democrats would not be discouraged.
“We will come away from here jazzed about Gov. Gray
Davis,” said delegate John R. Smith, 49, of Fremont.
While President Bush has proclaimed his success as an education
president, Davis and other Democrats said their party is the one
with education at the top of its agenda.
“We have to make sure that the country and our state are
making the leading issues our children, our children and our
children,” said Delaine Eastin, superintendent of Public
Institutions, who endorsed Jack O’Connell as her
predecessor.
One key issue for U.S. Congresswoman Maxine Waters, D”“Los
Angeles, meanwhile, was the importance of the government ““
Democrats and Republicans alike ““ standing up to huge
corporations.
“Enron corrupted both the Democrats and the
Republicans,” Waters said. “We can’t sit back and
let corporate America do whatever they want because it will hurt
all of us.”
Californians lost millions of dollars in stock when Enron
collapsed after they allegedly released false financial
statements.
Numerous U.S. Senators not only supported the California
Democrats in their election attempts, but also took the chance to
condemn international terrorism, defend Democratic
legislatures’ position against Bush’s economic stimulus
bill ““ which relies on massive tax cuts to create more jobs
““ and criticize what they called the Bush
Administration’s attempts to restrict a women’s right
to choose.
Boxer was almost teary-eyed when she praised the Californians on
board Flight 93, which crashed in rural Pennsylvania after
passengers over-took hi-jackers. Officials suspect the terrorists
were trying to steer the plane into the Capitol building in
Washington, D.C., where Boxer was working on Sept. 11.
“Those Californians on board Flight 93 that day may well
have made it possible for me to be standing here today as your
California senator,” she said.
While Boxer, Kerry, Edwards and Daschle said the country could
not stand for terrorism, that does not mean people can’t
disagree with the president on other issues ““ most notably
the president’s economic stimulus plan.
Bush has said the stimulus package will return money to
consumers and jump-start the economy out of recession, but
congressional Democrats say it favors the richest tax-payers and
does long-term damage to programs like social security and health
care.
“Fellow Democrats, we’ve got to stand up loudly,
fiercely and clearly for what’s right no matter what the
president’s overnight polls are,” Edwards said.
Kerry couldn’t miss the opportunity for a joke, saying the
president’s stimulus plan is hard to swallow ““ harder
to swallow, he said, than a pretzel.
Addressing Bush, Kerry said: “Your stimulus plan will do
to the country what the pretzel did to you.”
Daschle said unyielding support for the president can be
dangerous.
“When the president is right, we’ll support him.
When he is wrong,we’ll say so,” he said. “Being a
good American does not mean suppressing good debate.”
Daschle, in particular, has been targeted as an obstructionist
by the Republican administration for his ardent stance against the
current stimulus package.
Daschle said he’s been called unpatriotic. A television ad
which ran in his home state, South Dakota, even compared him to
Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
“They can call me whatever they want as long as at the end
of the day they have to call me the majority leader of the United
States Senate,” Daschle said, urging Californians to help
re-elect their two Democratic senators.
With reports from the Associated Press.