California Recall
Oct. 9th, 2003 10:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
autographedcatI spent a lot of time yesterday perusing various peoples reactions to the California election. Most of them were remarkably similar:
"Oh my god, I can't believe they elected Arnold" followed by one of a series of predictable Schwarzenegger jokes. The truth of the matter is that Arnold is entirely beside the point.
Yes, the California recall election is a travesty, but not because an action-movie star won. We've put actors in office before. Ben Jones, the guy who played good-ole-boy mechanic "Cooter" on The Dukes of Hazzard was a Congressman. So was Sonny Bono. We sent Ronald Reagan to the White House for goodness sake. The union has survived all this and more.
The recall was a travesty precisely because it allowed a moneyed minority of discontent demagogues to hijack the electoral process. Gray Davis was an unpopular governor, to be sure. And a lot of bad stuff happened on his watch, many of which he could probably be held directly accountable for. Having said that, we already have a process for getting someone you don't like out of office -- they're called elections, and they happen on a regular schedule. As unpopular as Davis was, I don't think you can reasonably claim that he was either criminal or incompetent. And being unpopular shouldn't be enough to hound someone out of office.
As for Arnie, hey, he might even do well. As Republicans go, he's surprisingly palatable to my moderately liberal palate. He's proffered himself to be pro-choice, pro-education, and (reasonably) pro-environment. He has to work with an overwhelming Democratic majority in the legislature. And while he won't win any diction awards, he's not an idiot.
I actually imagine that, while they claim to be pleased, the Republican masterminds behind the recall are secretly furious that they couldn't get one of their frothing wingnut pinheads into the Governor's Mansion -- there was probably only one good shot in that canon, and with it they got -- Arnold. A moderate movie star who is married to a Kennedy. I think I'm almost amused.
But I'm not amused at the lengths the pinheads will go to to undermine the legitimate democratic process. Maybe it's because, unlike the neo-cons, I actually take that whole Constitution thing seriously. I hope there are enough people like me to put an end to this nonsense soon, or we can chalk up the whole Great Experiment as a failure and move on.
"Oh my god, I can't believe they elected Arnold" followed by one of a series of predictable Schwarzenegger jokes. The truth of the matter is that Arnold is entirely beside the point.
Yes, the California recall election is a travesty, but not because an action-movie star won. We've put actors in office before. Ben Jones, the guy who played good-ole-boy mechanic "Cooter" on The Dukes of Hazzard was a Congressman. So was Sonny Bono. We sent Ronald Reagan to the White House for goodness sake. The union has survived all this and more.
The recall was a travesty precisely because it allowed a moneyed minority of discontent demagogues to hijack the electoral process. Gray Davis was an unpopular governor, to be sure. And a lot of bad stuff happened on his watch, many of which he could probably be held directly accountable for. Having said that, we already have a process for getting someone you don't like out of office -- they're called elections, and they happen on a regular schedule. As unpopular as Davis was, I don't think you can reasonably claim that he was either criminal or incompetent. And being unpopular shouldn't be enough to hound someone out of office.
As for Arnie, hey, he might even do well. As Republicans go, he's surprisingly palatable to my moderately liberal palate. He's proffered himself to be pro-choice, pro-education, and (reasonably) pro-environment. He has to work with an overwhelming Democratic majority in the legislature. And while he won't win any diction awards, he's not an idiot.
I actually imagine that, while they claim to be pleased, the Republican masterminds behind the recall are secretly furious that they couldn't get one of their frothing wingnut pinheads into the Governor's Mansion -- there was probably only one good shot in that canon, and with it they got -- Arnold. A moderate movie star who is married to a Kennedy. I think I'm almost amused.
But I'm not amused at the lengths the pinheads will go to to undermine the legitimate democratic process. Maybe it's because, unlike the neo-cons, I actually take that whole Constitution thing seriously. I hope there are enough people like me to put an end to this nonsense soon, or we can chalk up the whole Great Experiment as a failure and move on.
no subject
Date: 2003-10-09 02:54 pm (UTC)Meanwhile, I'll observe that part of the problem in California was that Davis ran attack ads against the more moderate Republican candidate during the Republican primary season in the -- successful! -- hope that he would get to run against the weaker candidate that he thought (accurately) that he could defeat. You'd wish that the voters in the Republican primary there would have seen through this and selected the stronger candidate to face Davis, but...
I wish that we'd been able to recall our previous Republican governor in Illinois. The stench of corruption coming from his administration (and the sheer hamhanded incompetence of the way that he operated) wiped out the Republican party at the state level in the last election.
Sadly, the Democrats around here are (IMO) equally corrupt. But they're better at it. *sigh*
no subject
Date: 2003-10-10 03:46 pm (UTC)And no, I didn't vote for Arnie. But you have to admit he was the closest thing to a moderate the Republicans have fielded in years, and would never have made it through the primary process. He was on the ballot because there was no limit to the number of candidates who could declare for any party, rather than the usual only one of each.
Gray Davis was never all that popular to begin with. He only got in in the first place because the other major party couldn't bring itself to field electable candidates.
And I suspect they still won't be able to, come the next regular election.