As elections are drawing near, some Yuba College students have already selected their favorite candidate for governor. Darcy Manning, a 25-year old Social Services major, favors the current governor, Gray Davis.
“He has good intentions for California,” said Manning.
Other students like Jessie Bridges, 26, and Danny Sinclair, 18, do not know whom to trust. Polls indicate that these students are not alone. Many California voters are dissatisfied with both major-party choices for governor and remain undecided.
Twenty-two percent of voters remain undecided, according to an early September Field Poll, and 9 percent collectively support a third-party candidate. A Public Policy Institute of California poll, also released in early September, showed that third-party support could be as high as 11 percent.
In California, American Independents make up 2 percent of registered voters, Greens 1 percent, and Libertarians and Natural Law members about 1 percent combined, according to the Secretary of State’s office. None of this year’s third party candidates has experience in elective office.
Green Party’s Peter Miguel Camejo leads third-party candidates in the polls. Camejo, a former Vietnam War protestor and current businessman, supports solar power and opposes globalization.
Libertarian Gary David Copeland, a member of the Celtic Druid faith, believes in decriminalizing drugs and abolishing the state income tax.
Natural Law’s Iris Adam wants more preventive health care, renewable energy and a state-program to label genetically engineered food.
American Independent Reinhold Gulke would seek to abolish abortion, deport illegal immigrants, expand offshore drilling to reduce dependence on foreign oil, and slash vehicle license fees.
None of the third-party candidates is raising or spending much money for their campaigns, leaving Gray Davis and Bill Simon the favored candidates this November. The negative ads both Davis and Simon have run do little to dissuade voters.
Although student Darcy Manning feels that the negative ads are a “grown-up version of the blame game,” she remains constant in her decision to vote for Davis. Other students, like Arlo Sanchez, 29, feel that the ads are an inseparable part of politics.
Throwing the first political punch, Davis exposed Simon’s careless leadership with his savings and loan. Simon retaliated by accusing Davis of “minimizing the real issues” such as California’s $24 billion budget deficit.
Simon has received support from the Major Latino Organization’s Chapters and political figures such as former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and President George W. Bush.
Davis, who showed a 7 percent lead over Simon in recent nonpartisan polls, has received support from the Faculty Association of California Community Colleges, California Association of Highway Patrolmen, California Young Democrats, California Nurses Association’s Political Action Committee, and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.
No poll indicates enough support to make any individual minor-party candidate viable as California’s next governor, but growing dissatisfaction with major-party candidates could add up to one of the larger protest votes in California since Raymond Haight took 13 percent of the votes in 1934 and cost Democrat Upton Sinclair the governorship.
Students can register to vote online through October 21, 2002, at http://www.ss.ca.gov/elections/elections_vr.htm
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