Which Way Is It?

By Craig Dunkerley, Letter to the Editor

I enjoyed the Tribune's article on the governor's speech at the Commonwealth Club ("Schwarzenegger shows his marketing muscle," July 20). As regards his comments on Proposition 89, I have a couple of thoughts. He says he doesn't support public financing of campaigns but would like to end the money-in, favors-out system now dominating Sacramento. This makes me wonder if he really knows what public financing, or clean money, is about since ending pay-to-play politics is precisely what is has proven to be effective at doing.

I understand he also commented that he had seen public financing in Europe and it didn't work. I wonder if he's seen it in Arizona and Maine, where it's been working for close to a decade. My hope is that his opposition to Prop. 89 is as tepid as his knowledge of it is weak.

Craig Dunkerley
San Jose

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)