Where Were You?

"In the hallway at KPBS, talking to our editor Nicole Lozare." 

Twenty, 30, 40 years from now -- that's how I'll answer the question about how I heard yesterday's news about the California Supreme Court's decision in In Re Marriage Cases.  Alma, Trina and I had just finished an appearance on These Days with Tom Fudge at 10 a.m. I knew the decision from the court was due at 10:00, and turned on my Blackberry as soon as we left the studio to check the news.

As we were talking I looked down and saw the alert from the New York Times: The ban had been overturned.

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Beyond Electability

"Bored Now."  That immortal quote from Willow Rosenberg pretty much completes my thoughts on the state of the race to be president. Voters from two more states voted on Tuesday to decide, or not decide, who might represent the Democratic Party in November.

If it were a fight about issues, I might be interested. If the two remaining candidates had competing visions for the future, the race might earn some attention. Rather, if anything, the primaries have become a battle of electability, and that doesn't serve the country well.

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Campaign Vertigo

The recent distressing Pew Research Report stating that 1 in every 100 Americans is currently imprisoned got me thinking about how weary I’ve suddenly become of these presidential campaigns.

I know Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are in a tight race for delegates and each need to win big in these delegate-rich states. And that John McCain struggles to gain traction with conservative cultural leaders like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh.  I’ve also become painfully aware that Ron Paul has become even more marginalized in terms of substantive coverage, while Mike Huckabee gets mad-props for his “SNL” appearance, suggesting perhaps that Congressman Paul’s message is too sobering to be taken lightly. 

But we’ve got bigger fish to fry in this country than swallowing story after story about whether Clinton's people leaked “the photo” that repulsed the opposition.

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Blue, Red or Purple?

A funny thing happened on the way to the polling booth in San Diego County. People got lost. I don’t mean they couldn’t find their polling place, although that happened a lot, too. They couldn’t find their political party.

Sure, most everyone had registered to vote under the patriotic flag of their choice, but many I talked to were feeling disenfranchised by their party and wondering where they really belonged.

People are describing themselves as a mixture of parties these days, saying something like “I’m fiscally conservative, but socially liberal.” So does that describe an elephant or a donkey or some new creature?  What do you get when you mix blue states and red states? You get purple. It seems a new purple voter is emerging. A lot of people I talked with on election day expressed frustration with their party and wanted to know how to change their official voter registration card. America is clamoring for change and voters are beginning with whom they want to align themselves.

Some Republicans, for example, claim that John McCain is really a Democrat in disguise. Has the party left the voters or is it the other way around? 

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Getting Beyond Labels

Sometimes it all boils down to labels. 

In high school it was all about having the correct little symbol embroidered on the shirt. Twenty-six years later, it's all about slapping the correct words on your policies. The relevance and symbolism remains the same, with the meanings of our leaders as transparent and obvious as my friend's grandmother who knew how to stitch a certain little pony. 

"No new taxes," as Steven wrote here yesterday - that's the promise of presidential candidate John McCain. As the Union-Tribune reported on Feb. 18, that's also the policy of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration. His fee proposals are detailed in Michael Gardner's article there.  

But where "taxes" won't work, re-label the money grab as "fees" and hold your head high.

Even San Diego's Pacific Beach parking board is interested in the label, or at least the revenue associated with the label. 

While one could go on for volumes trying to distinguish the difference between taxes and fees, I hauled out Black's Law Dictionary to try and make some sense of it. The definitions of the two words ran to more than three pages of tiny little dictionary type, and the closest I could get to a generalized distinction is that fees are imposed on users of privileges, where taxes are imposed equally on all.

I suppose that works if you believe that access to government is a privilege. Government these days is all about the fees, whether it's for access to the civil court system ($320 to file an unlimited civil case in San Diego), or international travel ($100 for a passport), or parking at a California state park ($4-14, depending on the park).  

But regardless of the labels, it's still government taking cash to provide a service.  I wonder if anyone running for election during this cycle will go beyond a "no new taxes" pledge and actually promise to freeze the cost of government, regardless of that label gets slapped on the source of the money. 

- -Citizen Voices blogger Chuck Hartley is an attorney who lives in Escondido.

The Wisdom of King Solomon

Wow, I’m kind of impressed. Mitt Romney has left the race.

 “In this time of war,” he has decided to “stand aside for the good of the country,” and the good of the party so that the Republicans can defeat the Democrats.

You’ve got to admire that. True, he suffered a crushing blow on Super Tuesday with John McCain’s decisive lead, but I’m trying to be less cynical and believe that this was, at least in part, a selfless act. 

McCain has lost a formidable opponent, but he is still opposed by a passionate conservative political movement in his own party.  Hillary Clinton knows a little about that, since a passionate anti-war movement opposes her in her party, a situation that should only strengthen Barack Obama’s position.

Now, if the Democrats can learn something here. I pray that Obama and Clinton are able to conduct themselves with civility as they continue down the rock-strewn path of campaigning. If only they can step over those rocks and resist the temptation to throw them. John McCain is suddenly looking very presidential and both Democrats must immediately drop any inclination to pettiness or smallness of spirit. (And Hillary, stop the eye rolling and smirks; they do not become you, Dear.)

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