Gray Davis
In all the punditry about Gray Davis’ win over the multimillionaires, one factor appears to have been overlooked. It is one of the reasons I would not support Jane Harman or Al Checchi: The amount of money these candidates spent to promote themselves was an ego trip to be compared to the candidacy of Ross Perot. A contrarian consumer, I always choose the generic over the heavily advertised name.
BARBARA SNADER
Los Angeles
* Dan Schnur’s highly loaded questions (“Now, It’s Davis’ Turn to Make Explanations,” Column Right, June 4) remind me of the “push polls” his party is infamous for, in that he sets up a scenario that is misleading and then demands a yes or no answer to his complex and loaded questions.
* “Opportunity scholarships” are a euphemism used to hide the fact that they would pull money and brighter students out of public education, leaving less money and those hardest to educate (i.e., those whom private schools will not accept) behind.
* The poor “working men and women” pay a car tax, on average, of less than $187 per year. It’s the taxes on Mercedes and other high-end vehicles, purchased by high-income people, which would afford the biggest amount of money to “blow,” while eating up the budget surplus for years to come.
* Anyone concerned about good governance would fight Prop. 227 and its ilk in court, because it sets up a simplistic solution to a complex problem and solves it with an emotional, rather than a substantive, solution.
And so on ad nauseam.
LEE PODOLAK
Orange
* I don’t pretend to speak for Davis, but there is one point that as a thinking member of the electorate I’d like to address. Schnur’s first question of Davis was on school vouchers and why “(poor and disadvantaged) young people are not entitled to the same level of educational opportunity that your parents were able to provide you.”
To provide all children, not just the “poor and disadvantaged,” with education is one of the reasons we all pay taxes. That the public school system isn’t doing what it’s supposed to do is the problem that needs to be addressed. Taking money away from that system only exacerbates the situation. The key phrase is “your parents were able to afford.” Anyone affording private school is not precluded from paying taxes to support the public system. Those people continue to pay the taxes that support the public system and then spend the extra money for private education without any detriment to the public system.
Using Schnur’s arguments, it could be said that those people who are compelled to use public transit because they can’t afford a vehicle of their own should be given vouchers to buy new BMWs.
STEVE PETERSON
North Hollywood
* I smiled when I read Jon Kaiser’s letter (June 5). Crossing party lines to vote for Davis, a considerably weaker opponent for governor than Checchi, along with presumably thousands of other Republicans, is exactly what I did! Dan Lungren gets our “real vote in the fall.”
AL KHOLOS
Van Nuys
