An election reflection, guidelines set for letters

regarding the Nov. 4 election

California voters sent a wakeup call—loud and clear—on Tuesday.

Voters expressed their disdain for Gov. Gray Davis. But an equal majority would have replied "Yes" if the question had been "Should the entire state Senate and Assembly be recalled?"

The people have had it with free-wheeling, big-time budget busters. The tax-and-spend crowd should start looking for post-public service employment opportunities if they resist change.

The same bunch that found amazingly creative ways to spend tax dollars can now search for ways to save them.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, like him or not, overcame a last-minute smear campaign. The voters have spoken and he deserves to lead. If he faces resistance, the electorate will get angrier. Legislators should give him the honeymoon that every governor and president gets, they should make the inevitable hard choices and they shouldn’t expect "business as usual" in Sacramento.

Regarding the Nov. 4 election, special guidelines will supersede our normal policies on Letters to the Editor. Election-related letters will have an early deadline of noon, Wed., Oct. 22. After that, they’re too late.

We won’t print negative election letters in the Oct. 29 edition, so if your pen is filled with poison, send us your letter no later than noon Fri., Oct. 17. For the issue of Oct. 29, we’re only printing letters that deal with positives. And please keep letters brief. More people read short ones than long ones.

We’ll print as many as we can, but we can’t print all of them, especially those that say the same things that we’ve heard before.

Elections aren’t won or lost by Letters to the Editor. By now, most people have probably made up their minds.