Experts Expound

“Gov. Schwarzenegger, back from vacation, has postponed his State of the State Address until Jan. 15. He’s already unveiled his 2009-10 budget. What’s with the changes in timing — smart politics or a communications blunder?”

Instead of a State of the State speech, couldn’t we just settle for a picture of an empty vault?

There’s only one reason Arnold does anything: for press attention.

Smart politics. Hopefully a budget announcement.

To insiders, the change in timing is significant.  To anyone in the real world, the timing is meaningless.  No one has paid attention to the State of the State address in more than a decade and everyone knows the message:  $40+ billion in the red and no solution in sight.

The Governor has wisely put off his State of the State because of the state of the state. He is hoping the Republicans will come to their senses.  They are the smarter ones with the sense. And he needs to fire Susan Kennedy.

Neither.  He waited a week in hopes of a miracle budget deal.  No such luck.

It’s what you do when you don’t know what to do — stall for time.

It’s smarter PR than it is politics. The delay gives the governor’s team an extra week to build momentum and float trial balloons before the big speech.

Can’t imagine what he will say on the 15th that he can’t say this week. Perhaps he thinks there will be a budget deal by then, but with that logic he might not give the State of the State until February.

He’s probably changing his story in response to the deteriorating circumstances.

We know with this guy, there are TV-friendly theatrics being prepared.

Does it really matter? Normal people don’t pay attention to the State of the State. Unless there’s some BIG ANNOUNCEMENT (good or bad) it will be another boring speech no one-except those reading this-will care about. I’m guessing the delay was in hope of announcing a budget deal and follow-up spin of “laying the foundation for economic recovery”. Would be nice if that actually happened.

What difference does it make? I know, don’t answer a question with a question. So the answer to the second question (mine) is none. When’s the last time anything meaningful was adopted/fixed in the Capitol in five days?

This way he can include a bigger number in the sentence “(blank) days ago, I gave Democratic leaders a plan that will close virtually all of the budget deficit.”

You have to say that Arnold dumping that crappy budget out there on New Year’s eve was about as good as you can get.  As opposed to year’s past, there is no good news.  My bet is that this State of the State will be about 10 minutes long.
Heck, that’s just five more days to factor in more negative revenues for the speech. What’s the next number? $43 billion hole, $45 billion???? Will we get to $50???

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