Mountain Views News          Saturday, October 6, 2012

13

ELECTION 2012

 Mountain Views News Saturday, October 6, 2012 

ONLINE VOTER REGISTRATION 
LAUNCHES IN CALIFORNIA

The Office of the Secretary of the State of California announced 
it will launch the much anticipated California Online 
Voter Registration by noon (PST) Friday. Online Voter 
Registration will offer increased accessibility for the 6.4 million 
unregistered eligible voters in California; 3 million of 
which reside in Los Angeles County.

Dean Logan, Los Angeles County Registrar of Voters, will 
be available to provide comment and expert insight into the 
impacts of California Online Voter Registration for Los Angeles 
County and California voters and elections.

Benefits of Online Voter Registration:

• Paperless online voter registration will save tax payers 
money by reducing the need to process paper forms.

• Approximately 80 percent of Californians already use 
the internet, making Online Voter Registration a fit for the 
Golden State.

• Online Voter Registration will improve the quality and accuracy 
of County Voter Files. Less manual data entry means 
more quality assurance and time to confirm and process paper 
forms.

• The convenience of online voter registration would provide 
for more up to date records, which might also reduce 
the number of provisional ballots cast.

• Online Voter Registration benefits the environment by reducing 
waste.

• Online Voter registration will provide increased registration 
security by ensuring instant delivery.

How does Online Voter Registration work?

• The online registration portal can be accessed at www.
lavote.net or at www.sos.ca.gov

• The process uses your California Driver’s License or Identification 
number to match your voter registration information 
to Department of Motor Vehicles records.

• The Secretary of State obtains the registrants’ signature 
image on file from the DMV. This information will then be 
provided to the counties and added as the official signature 
of record on the voter file. The applicants’ information must 
match in order to complete the registration process providing 
increased registration security.

• Individuals who do not have a California Driver’s License 
or an Identification number can still use the online portal 
but will be required to print the form, sign it and mail it 
back.

FOR MORE INFORMATION OR TO VOTE ONLINE GO 
TO: www.lavote.net

NOVEMBER 2012 LOCAL BALLOT MEASURES 

Measure A Appointment of County Assessor -- County of Los Angeles (Advisory Vote Only - Advisory Vote 
Only) 

Do you support seeking to change the California Constitution and the Los Angeles County Charter to make the 
position of Los Angeles County Assessor an appointed position instead of an elected position? 

Measure B Safer Sex In the Adult Film Industry Act -- County of Los Angeles (Ordinance - Majority Approval 
Required) 

Shall an ordinance be adopted requiring producers of adult films to obtain a County public health permit, to require 
adult film performers to use condoms while engaged in sex acts, to provide proof of blood borne pathogen 
training course, to post permit and notices to performers, and making violations of the ordinance subject to civil 
fines and criminal charges? 

Measure J Accelerating Traffic Relief, Job Creation -- County of Los Angeles (Continuation of Voter-Approved 
Sales Tax Increase - Majority Approval Required) 

To advance Los Angeles County’s traffic relief, economic growth/ job creation, by accelerating construction of light 
rail/ subway/ airport connections within five years not twenty; funding countywide freeway traffic flow/ safety /
bridge improvements, pothole repair; keeping senior/ student/ disabled fares low; Shall Los Angeles County’s 
voter-approved one-half cent traffic relief sales tax continue, without tax rate increase, for another 30 years or until 
voters decide to end it, with audits/ keeping funds local? 

Measure ALF Density Limit re Assisted Living Facility -- City of Sierra Madre (Ordinance - Majority Approval 
Required) 

Shall an Ordinance be adopted to amend Sierra Madre Municipal Code Section 17.35.040 (“Core Density Limit”) 
of the People’s Empowerment Act (aka Measure V) to permit development of an assisted living facility consistent 
with the Kensington Assisted Living Facility Specific Plan not exceeding two stories, thirty feet in height and 
seventy-five assisted living suites, for the parcels located at 33 North Hermosa Avenue an 245 West Sierra Madre 
Boulevard? 

STATEWIDE BALLOT MEASURE

QUICK-REFERENCE GUIDE

30 Temporary Taxes to Fund Education. 
Guaranteed Local Public Safety Funding. 
Initiative Constitutional Amendment.

31 State Budget. State and Local 

Government. Initiative Constitutional 
Amendment and Statute.

32 Political Contributions by Payroll 
Deduction. Contributions to Candidates. 
Initiative Statute.

33 Auto Insurance Companies. Prices 
Based on Driver’s History of Insurance Coverage. 
Initiative Statute.

34 Death Penalty. Initiative Statute.

35 Human Trafficking. Penalties. 

Initiative Statute.

36 Three Strikes Law. Repeat Felony 
Offenders. Penalties. Initiative Statute.

37 Genetically Engineered Foods. 

Labeling. Initiative Statute.

38 Tax to Fund Education and Early 
Childhood Programs. Initiative Statute.

 39 Tax Treatment for Multistate 

Businesses. Clean Energy and Energy 

Efficiency Funding. Initiative Statute.

 40 Redistricting. State Senate Districts. 
Referendum.

WHO IS ON THE BALLOT?

President/Vice President of the United States 

Gary Johnson/James P. Gray, Libertarian 

Mitt Romney/Paul Ryan, Republican 

Roseanne Barr/Cindy Sheehan, Peace and Freedom 

Thomas Hoefling/Robert Ornelas, American Independent 

Jill Stein/Cheri Honkala, Green 

Barack Obama/Joseph Biden, Democratic 

United States Senate

Elizabeth Emken, Republican 

Dianne Feinstein, Democratic

US Congress - District 27

Judy Chu, Democratic 

Jack Orswell, Republican

California Assembly - District 41

Chris Holden, Democratic 

Donna Lowe, Republican

California Senate - District 25

Carol Liu, Democratic 

Gilbert V. Gonzales, Republican 

District Attorney; County of Los Angeles 

Alan Jackson 

Jackie Lacey 


LEFT TURN/RIGHT TURN


HOWARD Hays As I See It

IT AIN’T OVER TIL THE MORMAN GUY 
SINGS

I expected something entirely different in 
Wednesday’s presidential debate. I thought 
it would be a tie or a slight win for Obama, 
and so I decided to focus today’s article on the 
sloppy and misleading polling that’s being fed 
to the electorate. In light of the actual debate 
performance, I think the polling story is a perfect 
prelude to analyzing the debate.

On October 13, 1980, a NY Times poll had Carter 
up 4%, followed a couple weeks later by a Gallup 
poll showing Carter up 8%. At election time, 
Reagan won the election by 10 points. This year, 
over the last 30 days leading up to the first debate, 
there have been 90 polls averaging a 2% lead for 
Obama. The media elite have told us Obama 
is the clear favorite (that story clearly has to 
change). Back in 2004 over the same time period 
there were 40 polls averaging a 5% point lead for 
Bush, yet the media elites told us the Bush/Kerry 
race was “a dead heat”. Why is one president’s 
2% lead a clear advantage, and the other’s 5% lead 
a dead heat? 

Polls will tell you anything you want them to: 
the truth or your version of the truth. It depends 
on what you want to pay the pollster to do. The 
devil is always in the details. Radio talk-show 
host, Hugh Hewitt, interviewed the head of the 
NY Times polling firm. Mr. Hewitt pointed out 
that the Florida poll showed Obama ahead by 9% 
and that the poll included 9% more Democrats 
than Republicans. The pollster was forced to 
admit that it was preposterous to believe the 
Democratic advantage in Florida was 9%, but he 
nonetheless said he believed his poll’s results. I 
guess pollsters have to believe in their own work.

But then there was the debate. It wasn’t just that 
Obama was so bad last night. It was that Mitt 
Romney was so good. This surprised a lot of 
people – Liberals and Conservatives. Romney 
hit the President’s record hard, defended his 
own policy proposals well and drew a sharp 
philosophical distinction between his ideas and 
Obama’s ideas. Many of us have believed that 
Romney would make a great president, but 
worried that he would be a lousy candidate. Mitt 
Romney proved that he was not only worthy of 
the office, but that he was worthy as a candidate. 
So now we have a real election with a real choice of 
candidates to match the real choice in directions 
for this country. 

Obama clearly demonstrated who he is and where 
he is right now. His debate performance revealed 
what many have called his tremendous hubris. As 
president, one must have self confidence, but not 
an absolute conviction in their own infallibility 
or in their own moral superiority and disdain for 
others. Clearly, Obama didn’t prep for the debate 
because he didn’t feel his opponent worthy of the 
effort. This is the same attitude that allowed him 
to publicly berate the Supreme Court Justices at 
his State of the Union address and to publicly 
ridicule Republican leadership in the deficit 
negotiation talks when he told them to attend a 
speech on the pretext of offering a compromise. 
Lastly, there are the public admissions that 
Obama does not consider Romney to even be 
competent.

Most tellingly, President Obama’s demeanor and 
attitude 
in the 
debate showed a man 
who has run out of ideas 
and is flummoxed as 
to why he’s in the spot 
he’s in. He made few 
references to what he 
would do for the next 
four years and tried to 
defend what he has done 
for the last four because 
the last four have been so 
bad, and he has no idea what to do differently for 
the next four. 

That shouldn’t surprise any of us. Even Vice 
President Biden, in a moment of unscripted 
honesty, told us all how miserable the last four 
years have been. The middle class has been 
“buried”, he said, and they’re slipping further 
behind. We have more people in poverty now 
than in a generation. For every 1 person who 
found a job last month, 4 stopped looking. 23 
million are struggling to find work. Household 
income is down $4,000 since Obama took office, 
and the economy continues to slow. Obama’s 
proposed solutions include higher energy taxes, 
which will bury the energy industry, 20 more 
taxes in Obamacare, which will further bury the 
middle class, more spending, which will bury 
all Americans, and more debt, which will bury 
future Americans and anyone foolish enough 
to lend us that money in the first place. If I had 
that track record and future outlook, I’d be tired, 
depressed and detached myself.

Romney, on the other hand, demonstrated who 
he is, as noted above, and provided some real 
answers to the pressing problems we face. He will 
reduce taxes for everyone; he will close loopholes; 
he will cut spending; he will get this country 
growing again so we can pay down the debt 
Obama accumulated; he will replace Obamacare 
with real healthcare reform; and he will work 
with the opposition, unlike Obama’s approach 
which was to freeze the Republicans out of any 
meaningful negotiation over healthcare reform. 
Mitt Romney also gave us some memorable 
lines which helped crystallize the issues for 
us. Wasteful green energy expenditures of $90 
billion could have been 2 million more teachers, 
and in deciding what programs to save he’ll ask 
whether it’s worth borrowing more money from 
China.

No doubt we will see that the first presidential 
debate has changed the public perception of 
the candidates and of the election’s trajectory. 
Obama showed that he’s out of ideas. Romney 
showed he’s up to the job. The whole thing 
showed us that our skepticism of the polls has 
been well founded. Given the debate’s outcome, 
the odds of an October surprise have increased 
markedly, but so too has the public’s distrust of 
any such event. I doubt any “international crisis” 
will allow President Obama to turn the tide back 
in his direction. Americans are waking up.

About the author: Gregory J. Welborn is a freelance writer 
and has spoken to several civic and religious organizations on 
cultural and moral issues. He lives in the Pasadena area with 
his wife and 3 children and is active in the community. He can 
be reached at gregwelborn2@gmail.com

“An error does not become 
truth by reason of multiplied 
propagation”

- Mahatma Gandhi

 “To be persuasive we must be believable; 
to be believable we must 
be credible; to be credible we must 
be truthful. It is as simple as that.”

- Edward R. Murrow

“Truth is the new hate speech.” - Rush Limbaugh

Rich Johnson’s column last week on the year 1962 
inspired me to devote a column of my own on the 
subject. I had it all ready to go, but then I watched 
the debate - and heard the post-debate pontification.

The hyper-ventilating came from the left, with Chris 
Matthews despairing on MSNBC that the President 
didn’t follow the advice Robert Kennedy gave brother 
Jack on his way to debate Vice President Nixon; to 
go out there and “kick his balls.”

Some saw President Obama’s determination to appear 
“Presidential”. Others a rope-a-dope set-up for 
the upcoming “town hall” encounter. It could be the 
president was simply unprepared to deal with a candidate 
who, with tens of millions watching, would 
unabashedly repeat assertions long-debunked as baloney 
(I’d use another term that starts with “b”, but I 
don’t think Susan would let me). 

Mitt Romney became that upside-down Etch-a-
Sketch shaken right before our eyes. There was 
speculation as to how the tea-baggers would react 
to witnessing the Nixonian dictum of running to the 
right in the primaries, then to the center for the general 
election. Here was “their” candidate defending 
healthcare reform, Wall Street regulation and preserving 
Social Security.

I heard a Garden Grove resident on a day-after radio 
call-in show, who recalled experiencing the Kennedy-
Nixon debates on the radio - not on TV. He 
said he went with the candidate who seemed most 
knowledgeable, with the most facts at hand. He cast 
the first presidential vote he was old enough to cast 
for Richard Nixon. Fifty-two years later, he said he 
again heard the debate on the radio – not seeing it on 
TV. And he’ll again vote for the candidate coming 
across as most knowledgeable, with the most facts at 
hand – and will vote for Barack Obama.

A major topic was taxes, with Obama accusing Romney 
of proposing a plan costing $5 trillion over ten 
years. Romney’s response was clear; “That’s not my 
plan”. FactCheck.org found that indeed Romney had 
not proposed a $5 trillion tax cut. They also found 
that what he did propose was mathematically impossible 
to achieve.

For Medicare, Romney used that $716 billion figure 
as an amount Obama wants to “cut” from the program. 
What it is, though, is a cut in future growth 
in spending, achieved by cutting excess payments to 
private insurance companies and payments to hospitals, 
which providers agreed to in anticipation of 
more folks being insured and fewer having to rely 
on emergency room treatment. It’s the same figure 
appearing in running mate Paul Ryan’s Medicare 
proposal.

Romney claims, “Healthcare costs per family have 
gone up by $2,500” under Obama. According to the 
Kaiser Family Foundation, healthcare costs rose 8% 
a year from 2002 through 2008, and an average 4.3% 
a year since Obama’s been in office.

Romeny brings back “death panels”, “an unelected 
board that’s going to tell people, ultimately, what 
kind of treatments they can have.” The Independent 
Payment Advisory Board is prohibited by law from 
dealing with rationing, premiums, benefits or eligibility 
– and any recommendations it does make have 
to go through Congress. 

Regarding oil industry subsidies, Romney asserts, 
“Actually, this $2.8 billion goes largely to small companies, 
to drilling operators and so forth.” Actually, 
the amount is more like $4 billion a year, with $2.4 
going to the five largest companies – which together 
pulled in $137 billion in profits last year.

Romney claims the Dodd-Frank financial regulation 
bill gave a “blank check” to the five biggest “too big to 
fail” banks, “killing regional and small banks”. What 
the bill did was require those banks (thirty-seven, 
not five) to prepare “living wills” so that if they went 
under, taxpayers wouldn’t be stuck with the bill. 
Small bank failures have gone down dramatically 
since enactment of the bill.

Romney complained about companies receiving $90 
billion in green energy investments, and that “half 
of them of the ones that have been invested in, have 
gone out of business.” The actual number is three of 
28 firms going under, fewer than the number anticipated 
when Congress passed the legislation.

On energy, Romney claims, “All the increase in natural 
gas and oil has happened on private land, not on 
government land.” Nation-wide oil production increased 
from 4.9 million barrels a day when Obama 
took office to 5.7 million in 2011. Production on federal 
lands increased 28% from 2008 to 2010.

Romney mentioned “23 million people out of work 
or stopped looking for work”. According to the Bureau 
of Labor Statistics, the number is 15.1 million.

Romney stated, “The CBO says up to 20 million 
people will lose their insurance as Obamacare goes 
into effect next year.” The CBO’s latest estimate is 
that 4 million might lose coverage, while 30 million 
become newly insured. 

Obama complained about tax deductions for “moving 
a plant overseas”. Romney responded, “I have no 
idea what you’re talking about.” Currently, a company 
can deduct expenses for moving overseas just 
as they can for moving from one state to another. A 
move to eliminate that deduction was killed last year 
by Senate Republicans.

 Romney says government spending eats up 42% of 
our economy. The CBO says it’s 23%.

The statement that stayed with me was when, extolling 
free-market healthcare, Romney explained that 
if someone is dissatisfied with their current health 
insurance, they should simply take their money and 
switch to a different carrier.

Whether it’s a disdain for the truth, or not having a 
clue what life is like for most Americans, might be 
open for debate. But at least now we know where 
Mitt Romney stands on Big Bird.