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Lucky, Lucky Davis

So it looks like Iran is working actively to undermine Karzai, while his new government is still weak and uncertain. Just when there was hope that maybe, just maybe, Musharraf was reining in the ISI and the extremist madrasas... a new threat appears in the west. Terrific.

Closer to home, the Republicans had themselves a gubernatorial debate. I read this article in the physical SF Chronicle... unfortunately the web version lacks the cute little table comparing Bill, Bill, and Richard on the issues. That's too bad, because in the cute little table's "Energy Policy" column there was a short, simple sentence for all three, "Favors full deregulation and a free market solution" or something along those lines. Well, no shockers there. Although it makes me wonder...

Jones and Riordan clashed most strongly over energy, with the Jones accusing Riordan of overcharging the state when Los Angeles sold electricity at the height of last winter's energy crisis.

"You were busy trying to make sure that Los Angeles made as much money as it could off California," Jones argued, adding that Riordan's expert on energy, S. David Freeman, later joined the governor's staff and contributed to the administration's problems wrestling the energy issue."

Riordan vigorously defended his actions, saying it was his job to protect the interests of residents in Los Angeles, whose electricity rates stayed constant during his tenure.

Strange that Jones, the stalwart free marketeer, would castigate Riordan for simply charging California what the market would bear. (Or possibly less -- according to the SJ Mercury's article, Riordan claimed that the Los Angeles DWP sold the state electricity at cost.) Guess those free market principles are harder to stick to when it's the other guy that holds all the cards.

Well, since I am not one to let Jones, Riordan, and Simon be pigeonholed by our mean nasty rotten inaccurate liberal Bay Area media, I went to each candidate's website to see what their solutions were for the energy crisis. No filtering, no soundbites, no cute little SF Chronicle tables. The straight stuff. Here's what I found as of Jan. 23, 2002:

Bill Jones simply provides a list of op-ed articles by the Mercury, the LA Times, and the Sacramento Bee that criticize Davis. (Pssst, Bill: every link you provided is broken. Neither the Mercury, the Sac Bee, or the LA Times perma-links their articles. Just FYI.) All righty then, moving on to...

Bill Simon. Who, under his "Issues" section, provides... nothing on energy policy whatsoever! Looks like our last hope is...

Richard Riordan. It turns out that Riordan's energy policy consists of a short press release calling for the dissolution of the newly-formed Power Authority. Well, I suppose that's something, anyway. Better than recycling other people's editorials. And definitely better than providing nothing at all.

Now, certainly it's fair to criticize Davis. He was slow to react to the mess he inherited from Wilson. And he might have gotten snookered in those long term power contracts. On the other hand, he was under tremendous pressure to simply keep the lights on... and despite all that the Bush administration and Enron threw at him, he managed to do it.

Davis's challengers have had a year to plan since the height of the crisis. They have the full benefit of 20-20 hindsight -- and then some. So do they have any new ideas? Anything besides attacking the governor and spouting clichés? No. Nothing at all.

Pathetic.

Posted by Evan Goer on Jan. 23, 2002 at 10:40 AM