mud and snow (M&S) tires?

they sure can. generally though they will tend to give up when pushed really hard. when i had my mustang, i had Michelin Pilot Sport A/S. they were great in rain and great overall. when i took them to the track they squealed when they werent pushed very hard.
 
they'll be squirmy and have poor life with summer temps.
if they are true snow tires they will wear pretty quickly in the summer on dry pavement

I agree with the above statements. And don't do too many long, smokey burn outs with them. It may be tempting, because they'll bellow smoke out the wheel wells like nobodies business, but you won't get too many of them done before the tires are junk. All season tires tend to be next to useless after about 30% of the tread has been used up.
 
I actually have a set of 4 snow tires in my backyard. The soft outter portion of the thread is what is needed for good traction in the snow. When that wears away, they are considered worn and should be discarded.

So my snow tires have deeper thread on them then the summer-only tires on my car now...but are considered worn and unusable. I tried to CL them but nobody wanted them. Tine for some burnouts!
 
So what kind of tires should I get. I don't do street racing or track racing, just cruizing and daily driving (maybe a fast acceleration hear an there)...I'm in california so we don't get snow/mud etc..But it rains heavy once in a while in the winters. I don't want to buy 2 different sets, I'm broke :(
 
If you never have to deal with snow, get performance tires.

I have Bridgestone Potenza S-03's and they are AWESOME in the rain. I've driven in pouring rainstorms on the highway and felt total confidence in them.

The best rain tires i've even had were also some of the better performance tires. They are designed for that stuff.

You don't need an ultimate performance tire, but a decent one should do you fine. Just don't settle for a generic "passenger car tire"