Schwarzenegger
 

He'll win.

"Let me ask you about his, his baggage, if you will. He's admitted smoking marijuana, using steroids during his body-building career. He's the son of a Nazi Party member. He said he was prejudiced before overcoming those feelings by working with the Simon Weisenthal Center in Los Angeles and the Dean of the Center said an investigation of Schwarzenegger's late father, conducted at the actor's request, found no evidence of war crimes. Through his publicist he's denied allegations published in Premiere magazine in March 2001, that he sexually harassed women and committed infidelity. All those things, are they gonna be front and center, Darry, if you, do you think in this campaign?" -- Katie Couric, 8/7/2003

Jesus, think of all the news she could have reported instead of asking that "question". The thing she misses, along with the rest of the stupid sucking media, is that this sort of thing sticks like glue to politicians, because we are desperately seeking reasons NOT to trust them. It never sticks to celebrities, because we treat them exactly the opposite way: we are desperately seeking reasons to trust them.

I don't know why it is that way, but it just is.

Watching Arnie yesterday, he imparts a degree of trust that no politician has ever EVER matched. In his announcement press conference he was asked about environmental concerns, his answer:

"I've always been environment-friendly and I will fight for the environment. Nothing to worry about that."

His political enemies will seek to make hay out of that. But unlike practically every other politician who's made a statement like that, Arnie is different. No politician could just say "Nothing to worry" and expect two-thirds of the audience to respond by not worrying.

I watched Dianne Feinstein doing her best to slyly discredit Arnie. But the language that she uses doesn't work on real people. Like most pols, it's all big words, a furrowed brow, a schoolmarmish attitude: all this stuff is important, it's all best left to us in the ivory tower. Compared to Arnie, her stuff sounded like "blah blah blah blah."

Arnie has found exactly the right notes to start with, too: his initial message was absolutely appealing, a form of semi-liberal populism. It's not identifiable as populism because we are used to populism coming from conservatism. His main message: "I want to make government work so we can afford these important programs." True-blue conservatives, underwhelmed because Arnie isn't running like the Republican he is, rushed hurriedly to their microphones to tell the world Arnie is not one of them... thus making him even more palatable to Californians.

I will be amazed if he doesn't pull this off.

Paul and I were talking about it a few weeks ago, and we both agree: Arnold would be the mack daddy governor.

Plus, think of all the great headlines.

"Gray Davis, You are TERMINATED!"

Oh boy. I wish I lived in CA so I could vote for him. Hopefully Paul and Jen will.

I can't help but think of the hope that Jesse Ventura brought to the voters only to have it dashed by the political machines. They showed the voters who's boss.:(

Ventura made his mark on election day, winning the largest 3rd of votes (the majority of total voters did not support him) and shocking the system. It was the days,years after that, when he had to actually work, that were a bit rough. Looked to me like he done dashed hisself. He wasnt prepared/skilled to actually govern. One gets the impression that he was never so happy for a gig to be over with as it interferred with his media career. He would not have won reelection. The voters would have dashed him.

But I agree that, like his Predator costar, Arnold will win. An Maria an da kids will be happy an haff a nice pahdy.

Personally, I'm rooting for the sumo wrestler.

On the surface, I find the recall moronic. If you didn't like Gray Davis, why the fuck did you re-elect him only 9 months ago? Shit's been bad in Cali for what? Over 2 years now?

Having said that, I think Arnold has a decent chance. Hopefully he has learned from the problems that Jesse Ventura encountered: both intentional and unintentional.

It seems to me that Arnold is a tad smarter and better able to work well with others.

They say Ventura didn't know who to pick fights with so he picked fights with everybody -- would you say that would be right about the Ventura years, warch?

Today I received a spam mail selling T-shirts promoting Arnie's political campaign - "Hasta la vista, Davis". Nuff said! :3eye:

The first poll is out and shows that 54% of Californians would vote to recall (thus kicking out Davis), and of the eight candidates they were offered (the front-runners), Arnie won with 25%. Bustamente was the only other candidate in double-digits, with 15%.

Maybe 9 months ago the voters that cared at all felt disenfranchised by the process and choices. Now they have a direct involvement in the process. Of course once the election is over and the dust clears, it's back to business as usual for the parties.

I'm not buying it, Bruce. They had a chance to make themselves felt two years ago, in the time leading up to the primaries.

Like the Rush song, "if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice."

As I see it, Daniel Issa saw the low ratings for Davis, knew the law, then thought he could buy the governor's mansion by spending almost $2 million of his own cash on a recall campaign. Of course folks would sign the recall petition...and it's not like it took that many signatures. Issa's dream of course crumbled when Arnie stepped in.

And Arnold has nice sound bites. He comes across as a real compassionate conservative--or a straight up moderate, depending on how you look at it. But he's got two months to figure out just what it is he wants to do. And saying shit like "I'm gonna clean up Sacramento" and "I can't be bought by special interests" (I'm paraphrasing here) is laughable. It sounds beautiful, but realistically? Please...

I know, I know...that shit is S.O.P. Many politicians do it, some really believe it, some just say it for votes. I do think Arnold wants to make California better...just as I believe Ventura wanted to do the same in Minnesota. But any changes will probably be minor and insignificant at best, IMO.

The only chance anyone had was to join and act within the party machine. Otherwise you're just pissing in the wind. This is a chance to have direct input with just one trip to the polls. Sweeeet. Of course like you said it really won't make much difference, but they don't know that. Most of them probably don't really know what Grey Davis has or hasn't done. It's just a chance to express displeasure with the status quo.;)

Yep. Jesse is not an adult. Constantly "threatened", contantly puffing himself up for a fight. It was all about Jesse and not about the State of Minnesota. There was no faction in or out of government that didnt "attack" Jesse, in his view. The liberals, the religious right (and left for that matter), the press "media jackals", Greens, other independents, accountants, academics, hunters, little old ladies...all got in his kitchen, everyone was a threat that dared to challenge or debate. And his response was always to tantrum and "get even". The one thing he knows is wrestling.

So, Everything was personal. There was no negotiation. No diplomacy. No higher road. Past the photo op, he was in over his head and his tactic was to get his hackles up and remind everyone that he was a Navy Seal. His major contributions were a series of taxpayer funded book tours, TV spots, Football comentary gigs (the cost of his traveling security was unprecedented), needlessly grinding the state workers and departments into layoffs and strikes- (that got resolved quickly when the parks and forests of northern MN were shut down over the 4th of July- this pissed off the rural constitutants), and closing the Governor's Mansion- his teenage son had been living there alone and having notorious parties, footed by taxpayers, damaging historic art and furniture. the only things I can recall as positive, was his support for light rail transit and his prochoice stance.

In the end, he didnt bring the refreshing change some had hoped, and his entertainment value had dropped, along with the XFL. His rants grew tiresome.

"The Mind"
 

I concur with Warch, Jesse had only a couple of good impacts (I'm not going to include light rail, but that's between me and Warch). One of them was to mobilize a huge number of college students that hadn't previously voted that continue to vote in local elections. Other than that, yeah, he's basically a big prick. He always gave the impression that the political fights were personal ones and that the whole world didn't like him.
Actually, that would be an interesting political matchup: Arnie vs. Jesse. It would be sort of like 'The Running Man,' except with much better acting and an immeasurably better storyline.
A quick question for Cali residents: I heard that part of the big budget crunch is at least partially the result of a big spending referendum that the voters okay'ed not too long ago. Is this true? Or is the real problem the fact that Sacramento was hedging its spending based on projected corporate IT revenues that evaporated over the past couple of years.
Does anyone have any idea?

Even there, he wasn't good at doing it, just talking about it.

One of CA's problems is the deregulation of electric power led to an unprecidented raping of the public and the largest consumer, the state.:(

Native Californian here. Darrell Issa is my Representative in Congress. Sorry, I need to give him is full name: Darrell "Former Teenaged Car Thief and Millionaire Automobile Security Company President" Issa.

It is my not very important opinion that Issa, a failed US Senator candidate, wanted Davis' job and set about financing his recall, as others here posted. I would not be surprised at all if the vast - VAST - majority of signatures on the petitions came from Santa Barbara, Orange and San Diego counties, all of whom are very conservative areas and portions of two of those are represented by Congressman Car Thief himself.

The California Republican Party had a golden opportunity in Richard Riordan last election, but instead they opted for a more extreme candidate - Bill Simon - who quickly proved the basics of campaigning were beyond him.

On the other hand, if Gray Davis wants to do what's best for California, all he'd need to do is resign, making Bustamente the governor.

He might in fact hang on until the night before the election and then if the numbers are against him, quit and say, "Thank Darrell Issa - tell him to pay off the special election's cost. I'm outta here!"

But I somehow doubt it.

Arz may be able to shed more light on this, but IIRC, the way California set up dereg is what hurt them more than anything. I found this CNN article that touches on it.

My understanding is that part of the anger with Davis is that he "hid" how bad the budget was until after his re-election. On Bill Maher Friday, Davis attributed that to his budget director, who was in charge of the number-crunching.

Which brings us to the cost of this election: The original number I heard Davis throw out was $30-35 million. Now it could apparently run $60 million plus.

Is that budget director still in charge out there?

Another poll today showed support to recall at 64%, and Arnie winning the after-election with 44%. Even though polls suck, those are wild numbers out of the box.

I like the way the recall monkey wrenches the system. The party bosses (read state bosses) wield little power and a popular candidate can slide through... of course the compressed time schedule means a popular nut can get by as well, not that the press does much of a job of identifying nuts. Despite the body building career, Arnie doesn't strike me as a nut, maybe just a little misguided. ;)

I wonder if the genie is out of the bottle out there? Will a series of governors face this? Davis may be a special case, he is easy to hate. If this country had an organized third party this would have been a great opportunity.

Jesse Ventura on NBC's Today this morning (Here's a preview for our friends in the mountain and pacific time zones...I'm semi-paraphrasing here):

--The recall is a joke
--Time took that comment out of my open letter in the magazine
--Arnold needs to surround himself with smart people
--I will not endorse anyone running in the two major parties
--I almost got Herb Brooks to run as a Reform Party candidate for Congress

But at the time of the announcement of the numbers the accusation was also one of "Oh, sure, he's making the numbers sound really bad, but you watch, in 6 months or a year's time he'll come back and say, 'Guess what! The numbers are not so bad afterall! What a great governor I am!'" So, there was no way anyone could have won on that topic.

Which a lot of people who's political philosophy requires fiscal responsibiliy as the number one principle say "Eh, it's not so much." Which to me sounds more like, "It's not so much if we can have ARNIE in office!"

That's what I was trying to point out earlier as to why the voters seemed to be reved up. A chance to do something with one trip to the polls as opposed to bucking the party machines.

I learned something today and want to pass it on since I now look like a dope a little bit with some of the stuff I've written here.

I learned that if Davis resigns the recall happens anyway. I guess that means that we vote on recalling whoever is in office as governor on the day of the recall election, not "Gray Davis, Governor of the State of California."

How is it that you can vote "no" on the recall, but still select a candidate?

You know, sycamore, I've given up trying to figure this thing out.

I'm either voting for the porn star or Gary Coleman.

You can't vote "no" but still select a candidate.

Yes, you can.

A voter may vote "yes" or "no" or make no mark on the first question and any single vote made in the second question will still be counted. (Source)

Voters who reject the recall may still choose a successor to Davis on the ballot. But Davis’s name will not appear among the candidates listed. (Source)

Of course, If a majority vote “no” on the first question, the rest of the ballot is irrelevant. (Same MSNBC article as above)

Touché. You're still ugly.

True, but you make me look like Adonis.

A doni's what?:p

*smack*
 

Bruce, that was like daggers in my brain.

Daggers.

The current Legislature in dominated by special interests — trial lawyers and labor unions — that benefit from the current oppressive workers’ compensation system. Court decisions have made it easy to get into the system by hugely stretching the meaning of "work-related" as applied to injuries. Lots of uninjured people are making money from the system. Not an environment for business.

Welcome to the Cellar, BobB.:D
Yes workman's comp is screwed up. Some people a fleecing the system and some people are getting screwed. The apparent general incompetency of the people that run it seems to be at the root of the problem. In fairness to them though, I don't know how they're hamstrung in trying to do their jobs.

On the campaign trail, traditionally, making any personal statement about your opponent is considered really, really bad form. More people will lose respect for you and not vote for you, than will be persuaded to vote for you.

So today they report that Arnie said on talk radio:

It's like one newspaper pointed out, Bustamante is Gray Davis with a receding hairline and a mustache. It's the same person. Same philosophy.

It's pretty minor, but Arnie just put down his opponents' looks. I'm guessing he can't get away with that any more than any other pol can. I would smack his wrist and tell him, bad candidate, no power bar today.

Does anyone know where the "Your Papa was a Nazi!" story came from? It seems the gloves are off out there.

Haven't read a whole lot into it, but as I understand it, Arnie's dad was a member of the Nazi party. However, the Simon Wiesenthal Center cleared his dad of any wrongdoing/atrocities.

The Nazi party was the popular and dominant party, after all, for a long time before this little old World War faux pas. ;)

Remember: Dont mention the war.

Here, Griff.

I preface this post by saying that I don't pay much attention to politics because I figure no matter who's in charge I'm gonna get screwed anyway (NO comment required Bruce:p ). So, my opinion may be representative of the ignorant voter's.

I'm considering voting for Arrrnald, not solely based on this comment, but I was thinking the same thing. Why would anyone want to vote for Bustamante when he's been there w/ Davis and has gone along w/ Davis so far. What makes anyone think anything would be different w/ Bustamante as governor? :confused:

Arnie may not be that skilled as a politician, but I think that's part of the reason why people will vote for him. Because he isn't your typical blood-sucking politician. Hopefully, if he does get elected (assuming the recall goes through), he will at least be smart enough and rich enough (so it won't come out of my pocket) to surround himself w/ people who will know how to guide and direct him so he can, maybe, make at least some positive changes for California.

Did you vote in the gubernatorial election last November?

Separately, I was browsing around yesterday and found that the Libertarian Party of California has failed to run a candidate in this circus, but they are endorsing the Smoker Party candidate who is running on, amongst other things, smoker's rights.

The LP of CA was once the star in the party's roster. Our boy Radar's words to the contrary, it's almost dead now. Stick a fork in the LP, it is done.

Separately, I just watched Bustamante, live, pick his defining issue and it's very, very, very, very, very important that this man never be elected dog catcher, much less Governor.

Bustamante (roughly): Gas prices are higher in California than in most of the nation even though we have refineries. We are being gouged. They're using every excuse in the book to raise prices. I recommend changing the state constitution to make gasoline a public utility. Then we can control the prices.

If this man wins, start building houses in Vegas and Reno. Hell, start building houses in Philly too, because the East Coast is going to be the West Coast of the 2000s.

California has the third-highest gas TAXES in the USA.

Oh no! You said his name! DammitDammitDammit!

And you didn't just say his name... you taunted him!

What the hell were you thinking? Now we're gonna have to put up with three or four days of constant gibberish until the bullshit volcano is finished erupting.

*preemptively reaches over and turns the alarm switch on the Mk. IV Troll Detector^™ to "mute"*

Yah, they get an election where a small % can win a major seat and they don't show up.... stupid.

Perhaps the big R should run? He's from there, after all!

Damnit, HB...it's Mk. V!!!

And what the hell is wrong with all of you? Are ya stoopid or something? He can't run for governor! He's very busy planning his move to North Dakota/Alaska/wherever with his mail-order bride so that he and his kind can take over the world!

(I must admit...his absence during all this is VERY surprising.)

California loves to blame others for its self-created energy problems. When they didn't pay their bills to energy suppliers and those energy suppliers subsequently wouldn't supply energy to them, they blamed those nasty out-of-state energy providers for the blackouts.

Gas prices are sky-high in CA (more than they are elsewhere) because of taxes and (more importantly) CARB mandates; blaming refineries just allows the government to ignore that.

Bustamente is the machine choice; he'll be just as bad as Davis. Too bad it looks like he's the #1 contender as of yesterday.

Fear not, R and his ragtag band of pioneer LPs have finally found a welcoming haven -- on Mars. The surface is inhospitable, so they've gone underground. That's him erupting in response to your reporting the demise of the LP -- which explains the unusual topology of the crater.

Yes. Why? Are you preparing to rip me a new one, Syc? If so, that's why I typically don't get involved in political convo.'s because I realize that I don't really know what the hell I'm talking about, you know, ignorant and uninformed. Things were gettin' slow in the threads I normally participate in so I thought I'd broaden my horizons a bit. Maybe I'll just go search out a non-political corner of the Cellar to sit in.:(

Who is the Smoking Party candidate? As I sit here in front of my compooter hucking up a lung from smoking my Camel ciggie this peaked my interest. Maybe I'll jump on that band wagon instead of Arrnald's.

[spelling Nazi]Piqued.[/spelling Nazi]


Sorry, I can't help myself.

Thanks 99. I've used "peaked" in this manner for three decades plus and have never been corrected before. Either everyone else I've come across in that time is as stupid as I am or you're just the most superior speller I know or maybe I've never actually used it in written form so everyone thought I knew what I was talking about for all these years. Anyway, thanks for the correction:p

Man, you are paranoid. We like you, already!

Only Dave and Radar are likely to explode on you. Quzah is just strong-opinioned. Everyone has their political g-spot, though. :)

Pleased to be of service.

As he sheaths his red pencil, throws his cape over shoulder and bows deeply.:D

I don't know, Juju. She cuts the balls off anything that moves.:eek:

Damn LUVBUGZ, you need to relax.

I would have only ripped you a new one had you said "no." In that case, you would deserve it because you were an absolute moron. However, since you did vote, it's cool.

As much as I think most Californians are on the rock, I actually understand why many want a change in Sacramento. I absolutely do not agree with the process of going about the change, but I do understand the sentiment behind it.

Dave seems OK as long as you don't question his pixel manipulation abilities. I've never met this Radar person (sounds like I'm fortunate in that respect). But, I have to say I think Quzah is a complete frigging idiot. Talk about paranoid, "IT" won't even tell me if "IT's" a boy or a girl. Either way "IT'S" an asshole (IMO) :p Anyway, that's for another thread. Oh, and Juju, I like you too!