[img]1|left|||no_popup[/img]Given the freezing fiscal environment in Sacramento, how could the voters of this district so smoothly have chosen Curren D. Price Jr. to be their next state Senator last Tuesday?
I spent a late afternoon with Mr. Price in Inglewood a few days before the special election for Mark Ridley-Thomas’s old seat in March.
He is more charming than at least two former Mrs. Noonans.
Urbane and classy, he makes a splendid presentation.
Looks to me like a prominent and deserving candidate for an ambassadorship in a significant world capital.
But, dear reader, Sen. Price is a free-spending liberal. He prefers gray generalities to specifiicity, which is how he became a liberal Democrat.
The spending faucet only works in the On position for him.
When I pressed him to declare himself specifically on issues the one time we were across the table from each other, he skillfully danced away every time.
Not a good sign. That is called Obamaism. Nobly, you tell people, “By golly, Murgatroyd, I am going to save the world before dinner.” Isn’t that impressive? But you have no plan for how to do it. The duped crowd, meanwhile, rises and cheers because it sounds so darned good. Just don’t look closely. Unexamined minds. That is how Democrats get elected.
Since I do not know Sen. Price well, I turned to a mis-spent profile of the gentleman in the Los Angeles Sentinel, always a mistake. Trusting the Sentinel is like driving to Death Valley to cool down.
But state senators in this fiercely competitive neighborhood are unable to be choosy about who interviews them.
The reporter, Yussuf J. Simmonds, never lets intemperate cheerleading slow him in his quest to sell the person he is campaigning for and writing about.
Perhaps we can cull a spot of pragmatic information.
Mr. Simmonds, vague enough as a journalist to pose for a billboard for left-wing politicians, writes:
“Price has a reputation as a strong advocate for investing in public education and getting parents involved in the education of their children.”
That appears commendable, but since Mr. Simmonds and Mr. Price were solely in the business of hawking a candidate, not revealing themselves, neither bothered to explain what the evasive statement meant.
I further quote:
“He has sought to give all high school children the opportunity to go to college and to maximize their skills and abilities to the highest potential.”
I think that means “I can fog you to death with gilded bilge.”
It not only is silly but untrue.
All students are neither qualified nor interested in attending college. Secondly, the high school dropout rate in Los Angeles, especially for minorities, is somewhere up there around the moon. Sen. Price is no more trying to give “all high school children the opportunity to go to college” than I am going to work at Macy’s tonight as a gloves model.
Mr. Simmonds, whom I presume is a laugh-riot face to face, continues to sell his candidate, and we further quote:
“It is no secret that many of Price’s legislative measures are designed to benefit not only his constituents but also all Californians.”
(Here comes the good part.)
“ For example, his legislation to increase opportunities for small and minority businesses to compete for state contracts is but one such initiative.”
Whew. Thank heaven that bigotry — as in “I am too dumb to succeed on my own” — euphemistically cloaked affirmative action, is alive in Sen. Price’s mind.
Thank you Democratic voters for blithely waltzing into a booth and giving us one more bigot in Sacramento. I guess we were running low.
