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Thursday, October 10, 2002 |
Instant Karma Gonna Get You
Republican William Simon continues his efforts to lose an unlosable race against California Governor Gray Davis.On Monday, Simon charged that Gray Davis had accepted an illegal campaign contribution, and released a photo supposedly showing Davis accepting the check in his state Capitol office. Yesterday, it was revealed that the photo clearly shows that Gray Davis was not in his office, which eliminates the whole basis for the charge. Simon's campaign apparently never bothered to verify the photo. This is particularly embarrassing, as one of Simon's campaign themes has been his skill as a prosecutor (another was his skill as a businessman, which made was damaged when a jury found his company guilty of fraud, although that verdict was later overturned.)
Said Allen Hoffenblum, a Republican political analyst, "How often have we had this conversation -- can he recover from it, can he recover from it? Probably not any longer."
Davis continues to tempt fate, though, calling on Simon to drop out of the race. If Simon did, the Republicans could replace him with the Riordan, who lost to Simon in the primary but who is almost certainly more electable. I don't know what California election law says, but I believe that, just as in New Jersey, the right of the voter to have a choice on the ballot trumps other considerations in a democracy. Like Lautenberg in New Jersey, Davis's best election argument so far has been that his opponent is despised more than he is.
