Talk:Steve Westly

To me, this seems to be written by a publicist, displaying political bias. TROGG 01:09, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I think it is ok. Dapoloplayer 23:10, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree that it sounds too much like a campaign message. "Proud California native"? "He's led the fight against tax swindles"? It appears too NPOV to me. Imdugud 21:33, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Come on! This page is comically biased. "Steve Westly is a proud California native. An innovator throughout his career, Steve was an early executive at eBay, which he helped to build into one of America’s most successful companies. Serving as State Controller of California since 2002, he’s been a tough fiscal watchdog. By championing innovation and accountability in government, Steve is a strong advocate for Democratic values..." Please!! Such "articles" are an insult to all Wikipedians. /Ulrikgade.

• Problem solved. Turns out this was a copyvio added by 206.184.208.50. See page 3 of http://www.westly2006.com/atf/cf/%7BE01F1A71-840E-4CAE-8F78-7ABC0EEA3C2C%7D/STEVE%20WESTLY%20HANDOUT.PDF. OCNative 02:29, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

I made several factual and balancing edits yesterday that were removed by another user. I spent a lot of time yesterday trying to make both this page and the Angelides page fresh and accurate given that the primary election is on Tuesday. I'm puzzled about their removal, but I'm also fairly new to wiki, so maybe I didn't do it in the right way. As others have noted, this page has had a habit of collecting biased rhetoric. For instance, I balanced what sounds like campaign rhetoric about bringing in $4 billion with a source (one of several) that calls this # into question. Here's my deleted addition:

". . . but some--including the state's non-partisan Legislative Analyst's Office--dispute this, pointing to the fact that most of the money would have come in anyway, or will have to be refunded [1]."

Here's the relevant passage from that citation:

"If I can bring in $4 billion without raising taxes, think what I can do as governor, he told an audience in Oroville this year.

But of the $3.8 billion collected under the tax amnesty program, the state Finance Department and the Legislative Analyst's Office estimated that only about $380 million was new money for the state. That means $3.4 billion was either refunded to taxpayers or represented advance payments of tax money California would have received anyway.

Westly's Controller's Office and the Franchise Tax Board put the collections for the program at $4.8 billion, but they agreed that all but $800 million represented advance payments or refunds.

A program easing penalties on people in abusive tax shelters brought in $1.4 billion, about half of which was new money.

I removed the phrase, "His campaign has picked up considerable momentum." That's clearly an opinion, isn't it?

I updated the polls section, but it was reverted to include the phrase "a recent LA Times poll showed Westly up 13 points" despite the fact that a more recent LA Times poll showed him behind by 3 points (http://www.latimes.com/la-me-poll28may28,0,5948271.story?coll=la-home-headlines). Again, I'm not sure why this would get reverted.

Finally, the statement about opposing Schwarzenegger on Prop 98 is vague (and if you're a California voter, virtually worthless, since nearly every Democrat in the state supports funding Prop 98). Rather than delete the phrase, I put it into context by saying that "scores of Democrats" also took this position, and point out that he differs with many other Democrats, including his opponent Phil Angelides, on this issue when it comes to funding schools (there might be a better way to say it). Perhaps someone else can say it better, but I think more info needs to be added.--Caliwiki 05:22, 5 June 2006 (UTC)