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Contributor
John
Campbell
John
Campbell (R-Irvine) is an Assemblyman representing the 70th
District
in Orange County. Mr. Campbell is the Vice-Chairman of the Assembly
Budget Committee. He is the only CPA in the California State
legislature
and recently received a national award as Freshman Republican
Legislator of the Year. He represents the cities of Newport
Beach,
Laguna Beach, Irvine, Costa Mesa, Tustin, Aliso Viejo, Laguna
Woods and Lake Forest. He can be reached through his Assembly
website
and through the website
for his California Senate campaign. [go to Campbell index]
 Gray
Davis & John Kerry
Empty at the core...
[John Campbell] 10/14/04
Last Friday
evening, my wife and I were at a friends' house enjoying wine
and watching the Presidential debate. I
don't often comment on federal politics or policy, but some
of what John Kerry said nearly made me choke on the fine California
wine I was drinking.
Over and over again, Kerry took positions that were either unintelligible,
or directly in contrast to the way he has voted for 20 years
in the Senate. It was stunning to see a guy who has voted for
dozens of tax increases to suddenly say that he wouldn't raise
any tax on anyone making less than $200,000 per year. One of
the points that the tax raisers, like John Kerry, always fail
to point out, is that the tax the rich schemes will never work
because even if he could confiscate the top 1% of all incomes,
he would still not get the revenue he needs to spend what he
wants to spend.
But it was all strangely reminiscent for me of Gray Davis. Both
of them are tall. Both are Democrats. Both have perfect hair.
Both served in the military in Vietnam and made a big deal about
it. But more importantly, both seem to be able to take any position
on any issue for the purpose of political expediency. It's what
happens when you are pure ambition. It's what happens when you
have no core beliefs.
It seemed that Gray Davis was a person so consumed with being
Governor that it was an end in itself. Once he achieved the goal,
he didn't do anything with the job except to try to retain it.
We in California have seen the disastrous results of such an
executive as he parsed decisions to not upset anybody and to
please his contributors. John Kerry feels like he is on exactly
the same path as our former Governor.
But one of
the most disturbing policy positions that Kerry outlined in
the Friday
debate was when, in response to a question about
Iran's nuclear weapons program, he said that we cannot ask others
to reduce their weapons if we are still building them. Basically,
he said we should be reducing our military capabilities to convince
other countries to reduce theirs. How dangerous a policy is this?
Is his hero former British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain
who, in 1938, emerged from a meeting after he and the French
cut a deal to appease Hitler and declared that we would now have "peace
in our time"? Hasn't history taught us that peace through
weakness does not work? Doesn't he see that the reason we won
the last 3 wars so convincingly and with historically low casualties
is because we have continued to develop new weapons systems,
not because we stopped doing so?
Republican or Democrat, I admire those who have core beliefs,
stand by them, fight for them, and are consistent with them.
Beware the politician who seems to stand for nothing but his
or her own ambition.
And don't let them spoil a great Cabernet. CRO
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