Political news, analysis, commentary and more about California and beyond

Back in November, Calbuzz spelled out the reasons why President Barack Obama will be re-elected, chief among them the old political writers’ adage: You can’t beat somebody with nobody. And while the Republican knuckleheads fought to a close finish out in Michigan, after a campaign in which they competed to explain their opposition to rescuing the auto industry, Obama, delivered a rousing speech in Washington to the United Auto Workers themselves, showing the wannabe GOP candidates what they’re up against.

It’s been funny to watch some of these folks completely try to rewrite history now that you’re back on your feet.. The same folks who said, if we went forward with our plan to rescue Detroit, “you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye.”  Now they’re saying, we were right all along.

Bada-boom.

Or you’ve got folks saying, “Well, the real problem is — what we really disagreed with was the workers, they all made out like bandits” — that saving the auto industry was just about paying back the unions. Really? I mean, even by the standards of this town, that’s a load of you know what.

Ouch.

Meanwhile Mitt Romney was still trying to clean up his mess after explaining a) that he and his family love cars soooo much his wife drives two Cadillacs and b) that while he doesn’t follow NASCAR as closely as some people do, he is good pals with some racing team owners.

And Rick Santorum was trying to, um, clarify his statement that John F. Kennedy’s famous 1960 speech on the separation of church and state made him want to “throw up,” and to explain away his assertion that Obama is a “snob’ for wanting to give all children in America an opportunity to go to college.

So while the Republicans are busy alienating the vast moderate middle of the electorate, Obama is reaching out to those same voters and including them in the coalition of good will.

This notion that we should have let the auto industry die, that we should pursue anti-worker policies in the hopes that unions like yours will buckle and unravel -– that’s part of that same old “you are on your own” philosophy that says we should just leave everybody to fend for themselves; let the most powerful do whatever they please.

They think the best way to boost the economy is to roll back the reforms we put into place to prevent another crisis, to let Wall Street write the rules again. They think the best way to help families afford health care is to roll back the reforms we passed that’s already lowering costs for millions of Americans. They want to go back to the days when insurance companies could deny your coverage or jack up your rates whenever and however they pleased. They think we should keep cutting taxes for those at the very top, for people like me, even though we don’t need it, just so they can keep paying lower tax rates than their secretaries.

Well, let me tell you something.  Not to put too fine a point on it — they’re wrong. They are wrong. That’s the philosophy that got us into this mess.  We can’t afford to go back to it.  Not now. 

Already, polls show Obama beating the strongest of the Republican general election candidates – Romney. And that’s before the election becomes a choice between two actual individuals – one with strong political skills, the other with an uncanny penchant for unforced errors and foot-in-mouth moments.

Of course, a presidential election isn’t one national contest, as the polls that make up this chart suggest, but a series of statewide contests for electoral votes. That’s why it’s likely to be somewhat close at the end, whoever the GOP nominates. But in the end it’ll be a choice between two candidates and so far it looks like it’ll be a choice between Barack Hussein Obama (BHO) and Whoever They Field (WTF).

We’ll take Obama and give the points.

For the record: Doubling back on our interview with Newt Gingrich, the first in which he was asked extensively about California issues, a correction and some clarification of his comments about offshore oil drilling:

Gingrich took issue with our assertion that opposition to expanded oil drilling off the coast was “a settled issue” in the state, and referenced polling from 2008, the last time gasoline prices spiked dramatically.

A PPIC poll published in July 2008, during the height of the gas price hikes, did show a bare majority of Californians favored offshore drilling, by 51-to-45 percent. It was the first time since PPIC started asking about the issue that more people favored it than opposed; the change was due to overwhelming support among Republicans in the survey, 77% of whom favored it. By contrast, only 35% of Democrats and 44% of decline-to-state independents backed more drilling.

A year later, as the recession deepened, PPIC reported virtually the same numbers – 51-to-43 percent in favor. A year after that, three months after the disastrous 2010 Gulf oil spill, attitudes in California had dramatically changed; by 36-to-59%, those  surveyed opposed offshore drilling. Although 64% of Republicans still supported it, only 25% of Democrats and 31% of decline-to-states did at that time.

We also checked with the Field Poll’s Mark Dicamillo, who said that the only time their polling showed support for drilling off the coast was the in the late 1970s and early 1980s, during the era of odd-even gas rationing. Since 1984, a majority has opposed drilling in every survey in which Field asked the question, most recently in July 2010, by 61-to-31 percent.

Also, Newt’s assertion that 58% of people in Santa Barbara County supported more offshore drilling appears to be a total invention. Neither Baldassare nor Dicamillo even report separate results for Santa Barbara, since the sample size is extremely tiny. Furthermore, senior executives at Calbuzz World Headquarters of Marketing, Water Sports and Tide Pooling, located in Santa Barbara, broke away from a beach volleyball game to report that the claim is absurd on its face.

Quote of the week. Representative Darrell Issa, at the Republican state convention: “I have no problem with contraception.”

And thank God for that.