tuesday, october 14, 2003
news
the university daily kansan
5A
Students from California sent in votes for election
By Steve Schmidt
sschmidt@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
Outsiders might consider electing a movie star governor a bit humorous. But to University of Kansas students from California, it's really no laughing matter.
"I think the state is perceived to be a pretty big mess, I would presume," said Scott Burrage. Palm Desert, Calif., senior. "The economy is just in a horrible, horrible state right now. That's the biggest problem."
Burrage sent an absentee ballot with a vote for the state's new governor elect, Arnold
Schwarzenegger
Schwarzenegger. His vote was in tune of the more than 48 percent of Californians who voted for Schwarzenegger as the
replacement of Democratic governor Gray Davis on Oct. 7. About 55 percent of voters wanted a recall, according to a recent article in The Wall Street Journal.
"I don't know if necessarily he'll be my first choice for governor but I did like the some of the things he had to say, some the issues he stood for." Burrage said
Burrage said he felt Davis ran too much of a smear campaign against his competitors and used too much "dirty politics."
of Schwarzenegger.
"I think he's just not a man of his word," Burrage said.
Marin Peck, Del Mar, Calif., junior, also was not a Davis fan.
"One of the main things that stuck out to me was how he took out funding for education," she said.
Peck's mother, Cinda, works as a teacher in a San Diego area school district that recently suffered a cut in funding of over $4 million. Like Burrage, Peck sent in an absentee vote for Schwarzenegger. Although both
students wanted to vote for another Republican candidate, Thomas McClintock, they said they thought Arnold had the best chance to win.
"If I voted for McClintock, I would have been throwing away my vote," said Burrage, who said he usually leaned to the conservative Republican side. "I would rather have somebody in there who was more of moderate Republican than somebody who is way on the right wing. I think California is more Democratic. He might appeal to more people in the state."
Justin McFarland, Lenexa junior, agreed. He's the chairman of the College Republicans of the
McFarland said even though Schwarzeneger was moderate in his political views he was glad to see a Republican win.
University of Kansas.
"I think he's going to be a pretty charismatic leader who will hopefully do the right thing."
Although Peck voted for Schwarzenegger, she said she wished celebrities would stop running for public office. Arnold wasn't the only famous face found on the ballot. Other names included actor Gary Coleman and Hustler publisher Larry Flvnt.
"I thought that running for governor was an important
thing," she said. "And I think they're making a mockery of it. It almost seems like we're following Minnesota." Peck said, referring to former pro-wrestler and governor Jesse Ventura.
Even with a wife, Maria Shriver, with famous political ties, Peck doesn't know if Schwarzenegger fully understands the role he has landed.
"It's like a lot of actresses saying I can be a singer so I'll start a record deal," she said. "Just because he's married to a Kennedy, doesn't mean he knows everything about politics."
- Edited by Shane Mettlen
Ohio congressman joins crowded Democratic race
The Associated Press
CLEVELAND — Democrat Dennis Kucinich, the liberal fourterm congressman who has been steadfast in his opposition to the Iraq war, formally kicked off his presidential bid Monday with a harsh critique of U.S. foreign policy.
"America cannot put its foot on the accelerator of war and advocate peace," the Ohio lawmaker, who favors a withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq, told several hundred cheering supporters in the chambers of the Cleveland City Council.
His candidacy a long shot at best—Kucinich trails many of his rivals in fund raising and public opinion polls—the White House hopeful used the announcement speech to stress his anti-war stance, his opposition to international trade pacts and his support for a single-payer, universal health care plan.
"Freedom bids us to free ourselves from the shackles of violence," he said. "When peace becomes innermost, it then becomes outermost in our communities and our nation."
Kucinich said that if elected president, he would look for nonviolent ways to solve the world's problems, including the Israeli-Palestinian tensions in the Middle East. The self-described urban
"America cannot put its foot on the accelerator of war and advocate peace."
Dennis Kucinich Presidential candidate
populist also said he would order a study of reparations for African Americans whose ancestors were slaves.
The Democratic candidate called for cutting the Pentagon budget by about 15 percent, arguing that it would free up billions of dollars without undermining national security. "It would instead enhance the economic security of our nation," he said.
Kucinich, who has been campaigning for months, made the announcement in his native Cleveland, the first stop of a multistate tour that will include Michigan, New Hampshire, Wisconsin and Iowa.
The kickoff speech at City Hall served as a reminder of Kucinich's political triumphs and bitter disappointments. Elected in 1977, the 31-year-old "boy mayor" guided a city that two years later became the first since the Depression to go into default.
Kucinich faced death threats.
and was forced to wear a bulletproof vest when he threw out the first ball at a Cleveland Indians game.
He barely survived a recall election but lost his bid for reelection by a landslide. Then, in the 1990s, he made a political comeback, winning a state Senate seat and eventually capturing a U.S. House seat in 1996.
Kucinich began campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination some eight months ago but trails many of his well-established rivals in money and name recognition. He raised $1.7 million during a three-month period ending June 30 and hopes to show an additional $1.5 million when campaign finance reports are filed Wednesday.
"He doesn't have the appeal or the resources. He's just out there on a limb," said Erwin Hargrove, a professor emeritus of political science at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn.
Kucinich vowed to appear not only on the presidential ballot but as a candidate seeking re-election to his House seat. He must file for both by Jan. 2, according to the Ohio Secretary of State's office.
"One way or another, come January 2005, I will be taking an oath of office," said Kucinich, who promised to support the Democratic presidential ticket even if it doesn't include him.
Nation Escaped prison inmate surrenders to police
WILKES-BARRE, Pa. — An escaped prison inmate charged with two murders and suspected of others surrendered to police at his home last night after three days on the run, a state police spokesman said.
Hugo Selenski, who escaped Friday night from the Luzerne County Correctional Facility by climbing down a 60-foot rope of knotted bedsheets, was taken into custody at 8:45 p.m. after his attorney called to arrange the surrender, said Trooper Tom Kelly, spokesman for state police in Wyoming, Pa.
Selenski, 30, was taken to the Wyoming station for processing on escape charges.
Setenski and cellmate Scott Bolton climbed down a rope assembled from 12 prison-issue sheets. Bolton fell and was captured on a rooftop, critically injured.
Selenski is charged with killing two people whose remains were exhumed from the yard of his home outside Wilkes-Barre. He also is a suspect in the deaths of three others whose bodies were also recovered from his property.
Authorities look into deaths of young women
SALINAS, Calif. — Authorities said Monday they were investigating the deaths of two young women found at an oceanside resort with plastic garbage bags
over their heads as suicides
Jacqueline Toves, 26, and Abigail Tapla, 27, left behind notes addressed to their families, said Monterey County Sheriff Mike Kanalakis.
"Based on the information found at the scene ...the sheriff's office is investigating this as a suicide pact." Kanalakis said.
Authorities were awaiting toxicology reports to determine the exact cause of the deaths.
Their hands were bound with duct tape and one of the black bags had a grinning Halloween mask attached to it, the sheriff's department said.
The tape was wound more tightly around one of the woman's wrists, Kanalakis said. "There was no indication of foul play and there was no indication of trauma" to the bodies, he said.
Some residents worried that the deaths were the result of an attack, but Kanalakis said the public was not in any danger.
Mechanics around Los Angeles plan strike
LOS ANGELES — The mechanics who service most of the bus and rail lines in and around Los Angeles planned to strike today, an action that would affect hundreds of thousands of commuters.
"We're going on strike," Neil Silver, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union, said yesterday. The decision was made a day earlier, after negotiations between the union and the Metropolitan Transportation Author-
my broke off with "absolutely no progress" despite a state mediator, Silver said.
"This is a great tragedy for the people of the county of Los Angeles, the people who depend on public transportation to get to work, to get to school," Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said.
The walkout by about 2,500 MTA employees was scheduled to start at 12:01 a.m. Today against the nation's third-largest transit system. The MTA operates 1,900 buses, as well light-rail and subway lines, carrying about 500,000 riders a day.
Eight killed when bus hits tractor-trailer
TALLULAH, La. — A church bus taking senior citizens on a tour of historical sites slammed into a cotton-hauling tractor-trailer on the shoulder of a highway yesterday, killing eight people and injuring seven others, state police said.
The bus driver survived the wreck and told investigators he fell asleep at the wheel before crashing into the truck, authorities said. Someone on the bus yelled, awakening him just before impact, said Trooper Julie Lewis.
Fifteen people were on the bus when it crashed around 11 a.m. on Interstate 20 in northeastern Louisiana. The truck driver, who had pulled onto the shoulder to check his brakes, suffered minor head and neck injuries.
The Associated Press
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