Also, now that I’m posting a link to your blog, since G.S. informed me that it exists, I guess you can’t think of me as too much of a Democrat. After all, I was chair for the Placer County Libertarian Party for about 7 years and was a registered Libertarian up until about 1 year ago. I even registered Republican for 30 days to help Ron Paul’s campaign. You should know that Libertarians are much more conservative and far less socialist than Republicans. Libertarians were way ahead of the Democrats in trying to prevent the Iraq war, which Hillary voted for and Obama went along with.

I know it’s hard for anyone but George Washington to imagine a non-partisan world, but my group of Independent registrations is growing, while it is predicted by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC), which is listened to by both big corrupt parties, that at the current rate of DTS registrations, either the Democratic or the Republican Party won’t even qualify for the ballot in CA by 2015. I aim to keep encouraging folks to register independent and start voting with a brain for better (and hopefully independent) candidates that refuse to take the money and promise to represent their constituents and not lobbyists representing special interests. Now that’s what I’m talking about!

Actually, I turn far more disenchanted Republicans than Democrats into Decline to State voters and I would be curious where you get your facts on that one.

A possible explanation for my success, beyond the dissatisfaction with the Republican leadership, is that Democrats here don’t get much money and are therefore true to their socialist ideas. Republican Candidates get all their big seed money, primarily from developers or developer related contributors. Even the folks in office are often development beneficiaries.

I understand developers, bankers and associated builders. They want to put as much cement as possible on every square inch of land that they can while having the taxpayers fund the amenities, like parks and bike trails, that will make their developments more appealing to new buyers, primarily from the greater LA and San Francisco Bay areas.

I just have a problem when any special interest tries to buy my government, including developers AND environmentalist groups. They have certainly bought Placer County, lock stock and barrel.

Mike

We do not know who Aaron Park is nor do we care very much. We do care if he is going to level charges at a group, that he take the time to get his facts straight. My wife and I are both members of the Steering Committee of Rocklin Citizens For Council Change. We are both in our sixties and have been Republicans since college days. Our group is made up of members from both parties that believe that the Rocklin City Council has lost touch with its constituents and no longer represents the leadership needed to take our community in a positive direction. The fact is, traffic is getting worse by the day, public transportation is almost non existent and our City Manager says that it may take twenty years to develop a downtown core for our city. Instead of name calling and wrongly branding good meaning people we hope that instead that Mr. Park will focus on his own community and leave ours alone.
Gary Susnara

Gary – I am gald you visited. I intend to make my opinion known, it is my right.

You are certainly well within your rights to envoke xenophobia and try to assert that people who don’t live in Rocklin have no voice… you can do that.

What you don’t realize is that I may become a neighbor of yours very soon. What then?

In the mean time, opposing growth hoping that will somehow mitigate traffic is absurd.

Mike, you make some good points and make some interesting comments. I’m tired of the 2 party system and the fact that both are too similar in nature. I would disagree about which party has the money. Democrats are far more wealthy than Republicans. Look at Congress, there are more millionaire Dems than GOP and they are far more wealthy than Republicans, which one could logically make the case that the Dems are more able to buy Congressional seats than their friends on the Right. The media would make people think otherwise.

From an AP article in 2007:

New House Speaker Pelosi, through her investor husband, holds stocks and property worth well into the millions.

Senate Majority Leader Reid, a gold miner’s son, reported property around his hometown of Searchlight, Nev., as well as investments valued at several million dollars.

Sen. Diane Feinstein is worth over $30 million.

Sen. John Edwards is worth close to $100 million.

When Sen. John Kerry was last in the Senate, his net worth approached $200 million.

Sen. Edward Kennedy D-Mass., reported four Kennedy family trust funds worth $20 million to $100 million.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., heir to his family’s oil fortune, has three blind trusts worth more than $80 million.

Sen. Herbert Kohl, D-Wis., listed numerous investments, including stock in the Milwaukee Bucks valued at more than $50 million, the highest category on the forms. Kohl owns the professional basketball team, which Forbes magazine valued at $260 million this year.

Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., who is running for president, reported that her husband, former President Clinton, made more than $10 million for giving speeches last year. The couple held two accounts — a regular bank account and a blind trust, each valued at between $5 million and $25 million. The forms don’t require Congress members to report exact figures, only to note the ranges their holdings fall within.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky, said he held property in the District of Columbia worth $1 million-$5 million. But a large portion of the family assets is held by his wife, Labor Secretary Elaine Chao. She had investments, mostly in index and mutual funds, totaling between roughly $850,000 and $1.9 million, plus retirement accounts valued at between $265,000 and $600,000.

House GOP leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, reported assets of $1 million to $5 million in the retirement plan of a plastics company he previously headed. than $80 million.