The headline says it all
Today's San Francisco Chronicle features this headline about the Republican governor and the two Democrats who are vying for for their party's nomination to run against him:
"Candidates are strangely quiet as voices of immigrants grow
During the rallies, Schwarzenegger left the state -- and neither Angelides nor Westly issued a statement"
Next to the article, on the front page, are photographs of all three, with these comments: "Arnold Schwarzenegger is an Austrian-born naturalized American", "Steve Westly is married to an immigrant born in China", and "Phil Angelides is the son and grandson of Greek immigrants.
The unwillingness of any of the candidates, especially the Democrats, to take a principled stand on this issue speaks volumes. In a way, there is nothing "strangely" quiet about this--rather than strangely, the more appropriate adverb would be "fittingly."
It is also worth noting that article itself was written by Carla Marinucci, the Chronicle's political reporter who has, over the years, steadfastly served as a shill for the duopoly, and has refused to cover third party candidacies, even when they were polling well enough to merit such attention. For example, during the 2002 gubernatorial election, she repeatedly ignored the candidacy of Peter Camejo in her articles, even though at one point at least one poll was showing support as high as 9% for his candidacy. In September of that year, she began one article about Gray Davis with the words "Under pressure from his political opponent"; the next day, she described the Republican candidate as Gray Davis's "challenger", as if there were only one challenger. The following month, she began one of her stories with a sentence that referred to "the Golden State's candidates for governor", referring only to two of them--the candidates of the duopoly, thus completely ignoring Camejo even though he was also a candidate.
The nature of her shilling for the duopoly was further exposed when the election results came back. In San Francisco, the very city that her newspaper was based in, it turned out that Camejo--a candidate that she pretended didn't even exist--actually got more votes than the Republican candidate did. Camejo got 33, 468 votes, to the Republican's 33,202.
Unfortunately, Marinucci and others in the press will probably continue to shill for the duopoly this year just as she did four years ago, and the headlines of their articles will still use words like "strangely" when describing the behavior of the duopoly's candidates. This year, there are third parties on the ballot, with candidates running for Governor, that have taken strong stands on immigration issues. The Peace and Freedom Party, for example, issued a press release that stated "The Peace and Freedom Party has endorsed the immigrants rights rallies and strike
planned for May 1, 2006". The Green Party's web page states on its web page that "The Green Party of California has officially endorsed - in sharp contrast to the Democratic and Republican parties - the massive rallies planned Monday." Of course, none of gets the slightest attention from Marinucci or anyone else in the mainstream press.
"Candidates are strangely quiet as voices of immigrants grow
During the rallies, Schwarzenegger left the state -- and neither Angelides nor Westly issued a statement"
Next to the article, on the front page, are photographs of all three, with these comments: "Arnold Schwarzenegger is an Austrian-born naturalized American", "Steve Westly is married to an immigrant born in China", and "Phil Angelides is the son and grandson of Greek immigrants.
The unwillingness of any of the candidates, especially the Democrats, to take a principled stand on this issue speaks volumes. In a way, there is nothing "strangely" quiet about this--rather than strangely, the more appropriate adverb would be "fittingly."
It is also worth noting that article itself was written by Carla Marinucci, the Chronicle's political reporter who has, over the years, steadfastly served as a shill for the duopoly, and has refused to cover third party candidacies, even when they were polling well enough to merit such attention. For example, during the 2002 gubernatorial election, she repeatedly ignored the candidacy of Peter Camejo in her articles, even though at one point at least one poll was showing support as high as 9% for his candidacy. In September of that year, she began one article about Gray Davis with the words "Under pressure from his political opponent"; the next day, she described the Republican candidate as Gray Davis's "challenger", as if there were only one challenger. The following month, she began one of her stories with a sentence that referred to "the Golden State's candidates for governor", referring only to two of them--the candidates of the duopoly, thus completely ignoring Camejo even though he was also a candidate.
The nature of her shilling for the duopoly was further exposed when the election results came back. In San Francisco, the very city that her newspaper was based in, it turned out that Camejo--a candidate that she pretended didn't even exist--actually got more votes than the Republican candidate did. Camejo got 33, 468 votes, to the Republican's 33,202.
Unfortunately, Marinucci and others in the press will probably continue to shill for the duopoly this year just as she did four years ago, and the headlines of their articles will still use words like "strangely" when describing the behavior of the duopoly's candidates. This year, there are third parties on the ballot, with candidates running for Governor, that have taken strong stands on immigration issues. The Peace and Freedom Party, for example, issued a press release that stated "The Peace and Freedom Party has endorsed the immigrants rights rallies and strike
planned for May 1, 2006". The Green Party's web page states on its web page that "The Green Party of California has officially endorsed - in sharp contrast to the Democratic and Republican parties - the massive rallies planned Monday." Of course, none of gets the slightest attention from Marinucci or anyone else in the mainstream press.
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