Interesting Slate piece on Gray Davis.
Best tidbits include...
Davis copped to the secret of his political success in 1995, shortly after his election as California's lieutenant governor, when he told the Los Angeles Times (quoting former Sen. Alan Cranston), "I have only one skill—I can pick weak opponents." \
Even those who praise Davis couch their admiration in the negative: They like Davis because of what he's not rather than what he is. During Davis' first run for governor in 1998, the New Republic's Peter Beinart lauded him for not being a plutocratic donor-turned-candidate like Checchi or Harman (a character type that Beinart criticized for taking over California politics). Beinart's highest praise for Davis: "[H]is lack of charisma is refreshing." The next year, the Weekly Standard celebrated Davis for not being a lefty, highlighting his "remarkable effort to strip California Democrats of doctrinaire liberalism." Many of Davis' donors, in fact, are Republicans who see him as the best of the bad lot the California Democrats have to offer. If a Democrat is going to win, the thinking goes, it might as well be Davis.
Davis certainly won't ward off a recall by selling his winning personality to voters. If a man is to be judged by the friends he keeps, Davis is hard to judge—because he doesn't have any. "Gray doesn't really have any friends," an anonymous "Davis associate" told the LA Weekly last year. "He has supporters. His friends are his supporters." Or, as one of Davis' Stanford fraternity brothers complained to the Los Angeles Times, "He's a cipher." Unlike the typical gregarious pol, Davis appears to be completely uninterested in people. As a former Davis staffer put it to the Orange County magazine OC Metro, Davis is "not the type of individual who wants to get to know you. He's interested in what you produce, but not interested in you."
Best tidbits include...
Davis copped to the secret of his political success in 1995, shortly after his election as California's lieutenant governor, when he told the Los Angeles Times (quoting former Sen. Alan Cranston), "I have only one skill—I can pick weak opponents." \
Even those who praise Davis couch their admiration in the negative: They like Davis because of what he's not rather than what he is. During Davis' first run for governor in 1998, the New Republic's Peter Beinart lauded him for not being a plutocratic donor-turned-candidate like Checchi or Harman (a character type that Beinart criticized for taking over California politics). Beinart's highest praise for Davis: "[H]is lack of charisma is refreshing." The next year, the Weekly Standard celebrated Davis for not being a lefty, highlighting his "remarkable effort to strip California Democrats of doctrinaire liberalism." Many of Davis' donors, in fact, are Republicans who see him as the best of the bad lot the California Democrats have to offer. If a Democrat is going to win, the thinking goes, it might as well be Davis.
Davis certainly won't ward off a recall by selling his winning personality to voters. If a man is to be judged by the friends he keeps, Davis is hard to judge—because he doesn't have any. "Gray doesn't really have any friends," an anonymous "Davis associate" told the LA Weekly last year. "He has supporters. His friends are his supporters." Or, as one of Davis' Stanford fraternity brothers complained to the Los Angeles Times, "He's a cipher." Unlike the typical gregarious pol, Davis appears to be completely uninterested in people. As a former Davis staffer put it to the Orange County magazine OC Metro, Davis is "not the type of individual who wants to get to know you. He's interested in what you produce, but not interested in you."
posted by Champion at 8:45 PM
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