CA-SurveyUSA: Gov. Brown's approval rating takes major hit

[muon2]

Democrats are pretty bad at managing states. California? Illinois? Disasters. New York is okay but still has a shortfall. Maryland, too, has a shortfall. While McDonnell's Virginia has a surplus.

Maryland is doing alright.Colorado, Missouri, Arkansas, and Montana have Dem Governors and their balance sheets aren't complete disasters. Shweitzer in Montana is actually a Dem I could see myself voting for.  I agree CA along with Illinois are complete disasters. Maybe Illinois should have gone with Brady last election but he had like a nutty  view on something to do with animals or something. I remember Paul Begala talking about the animal thing on a couple occasions having to with Brady.

Yes, Quinn's approvals in IL have hovered in the 30s, and the perception is usually that he's well meaning but not up to governing. The Brady animal issue is covered here, and can be summed up as a politician running statewide but acting for local constituents regardless of the statewide impact. Once that got out the issue "dogged" him throughout the campaign. Most every observer will say that IL should have gone with Dillard who was 193 votes behind Brady in the primary, losing due a big field splitting his suburban base and attack ads from one of the other suburban contenders (who ignored Brady in those attacks). Watch for both again in the 2014 primary.

[muon2]

They're all bad, but the GOP is less bad. I'd like to hear more of Torie's doom and gloom, seriously, but CA, please don't cut the HSR!

Yeah, how about they spend a few more dozen billion over 20 years without a single millimeter of track being laid down for something that nobody even wants to use anyway.

I would love to use it, actually. LA to SF in under 3 hours? Yes, please.

The only train like this that would be remotely justified is a BoWash one, and that is primarily because that area is literally running out of air space. One storm in the area, and the air lanes get clogged, and chaos ensues. In any event, if one want to experiment with super trains, that is the place where the first one should be built. Why have a train from SF to LA, when you can fly there for 80 bucks in an hour from a host of airports - LAX, John Wayne, Ontario, Burbank, Long Beach in the south, and San Jose, SF and Oakland in the north?  And the air lanes are not clogged over CA.

Anyway, CA is flat ass broke.  If it is built, the Feds will need to pay for this white elephant (training is going to cost more than flying in this instance).

Medium-high speed trains (110-150 mph) may be able to succeed in parts of the Midwest. The airports are not close to the urban centers and a train at that speed over 300 miles is comparable in time when check-in and gate time is factored in. In 2007 IL increased the trains on the Chicago-St Louis run from 3 to 5 a day and saw a large increase in ridership and the increase has been sustained since then.