Category: Politics

Now that Arnold Schwarzenegger has announced he’s running for governor we’ve got a serious contest going, which only happens in California when pop culture and politics are fully overlapped. Arnie’s being in the race means that people will get excited over it, feeling like they now have to take a position on his candidacy one way or another instead of going on ignoring politics as we obsess over the latest movie release, whether SPF-20 really makes you safe, and whether botox is really worth the bother. We live in a world of trivia and pop, and only care about politics when it comes into this world.

While he’s never held office, Arnie’s clearly been planning a run for many years, maybe as long as he’s been married to Maria Shriver. He’s got his own set of consultants already, enough money to finance his own campaign (if he needs to) and a good, positive, and well-informed message: “Gray sold California to the special interests (read: unions) and I’m here to take it back. I don’t care what you do in your private life, and I don’t want to impose my values on you. I want a state government that works and doesn’t break the backs of the average taxpaying citizen, and a society that offers opportunity and hope as it did to me as a humble but legal immigrant.” Echoes of “shining city on a hill”.

So he’s off and running, having faked Feinstein out of the race, and having picked up some excellent blocking from the unions who’ve threatened to black-ball any Democrat who runs against him. Despite these threats, insurance commissioner John Garamendi, Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, and Congresswomen Loretta Sanchez may still enter the race on the Democratic side, and if they do the dam will break and Bill Lockyer will either have to jump in or risk ending his political career by having to run against an incumbent Republican in his long-planned run in 2006.

Arnie’s choice tells us something about the pundits, most of whom predicted he wouldn’t be running, some on the basis of alleged insider tips. It turns out Dan Walters, dean of the capitol press corps, was right not to try and jump the gun:

Schwarzenegger’s political advisers had hinted for days that he was ready to make a move into the race, but they pulled back last week as the recall election became a reality, and they were forced Monday to deny media reports that he had finally decided not to make the run.

“These reports are incorrect,” a midday Schwarzenegger statement said. “Arnold spent the weekend continuing his due diligence regarding a possible run. He has made no decision at this time. He will continue to weigh the pros and cons with his family and will continue to seek the counsel of supporters and colleagues. When Arnold has made his decision, we will announce it to the media.”

The decision was just made, and when this column was printed it was still up in the air. LA Weekly columnist William Bradley, who really does have insider connections, called it right:

In discussions with California political associates on July 18, the superrich superstar said that the race was probably on. Schwarzenegger?s veteran campaign team, former top aides to Pete Wilson in his four winning campaigns for governor and senator, shifted into gear. Important campaign meetings were scheduled for July 22.

(via Kausfiles)

The best outcome from all this would be a whole generation of Californians getting turned-on to politics, at least a little. Increased awareness of what goes on in Sacramento automatically translates into more rational politics, mainly because it couldn’t get any worse.

See Rough & Tumble for links to more articles about Arnie and the recall.

John Gilmore, the EFF board member who boarded an international flight wearing a button proclaiming his contempt for authority and was kicked-off, has naturally come under a lot of criticism for his ridiculous, narcissistic stunt. Lawrence Lessig, a fellow EFF board member, gives Gilmore some space on his blog to try and justify himself, which Gilmore uses to dig a deeper hole. Some of the comments are interesting, or at least more interesting than Gilmore’s childish response to his critics, which is nothing more than name-calling.

It would be nice if some of you intelligent conservatives would go on over to Cam Barrett’s Watchblog and sign up to be editors on the Republican side. He’s trying to put together a group blog to cover the election from all sides of the spectrum, and despite his own bias as a pinko liberal commie bastard, he’s doing a fair job of staying out of the ideological fray and letting the people speak.

See the application.

Bill Maher and others have asked what crime Gray Davis committed such that he has to be recalled. While the law doesn’t specify a “crime”, the petition did have to list grounds:

The grounds for the recall are as follows: Gross mismanagement of California Finances by overspending taxpayers? money, threatening public safety by cutting funds to local governments, failing to account for the exorbitant cost of the energy fiasco, and failing in general to deal with the state?s major problems until they get to the crisis stage. California should not have to be known as the state with poor schools, traffic jams, outrageous utility bills, and huge debts….all caused by gross mismanagement.

So there you have it, courtesy of Calblog.

Two million California voters agreed with this.

Incidentally, your best source of political news in California is always Rough and Tumble, although Justene has been doing yeoman duty on the recall.

David Weinberger announces he’s joined Howard Dean’s campaign:

I now have an official title — “Senior Internet Advisor” — so I figure I should come out of the closet entirely.

I was going to leave this comment on Weinberger’s blog, but thought better of it:

It’s great that you’re advising Dean on the Internet, David, as he clearly needs to understand it.

Now the question that pops into my little mind is: “who’s advising you?”

That would have been rude, of course. But the point is that Weinberger, as a card-carrying, charter member of the Larry Lessig “End of the Internet” club has consistently demonstrated a lack of understanding of what the Internet is, how it’s put together, and where it’s going. In this job, that’s not a disadvantage, as all he needs to do is rail against Big Everything to advance the Little Guy’s campaign.

So good luck to all concerned.

From Luke Ford’s blog: Unless you think hard about political questions in our culture, you are liberal by default. You have to think your way out of liberalism. – Heather McDonald.

Calblogger is as irritated as I am with Arnie and Dick’s little game of gubernatorial indecision:

We’re not looking at Riordan getting ready or Arnold trying to decide. We’re watching two men playing hot potato with the governorship with the belief that it belongs to one of them and only one of them.

Look, boys, the governor’s office doesn’t have either of your names on it yet, and if you keep this up it never will. For all the muscles, Arnie is a obviously a momma’s boy who can’t make a move without his wife’s permission, and Dick is a dilettante who’d rather sip martinis and tell stories than get down to business. While this tea-party is taking place, serious candidates like Tom McClintock are in the race and running hard, and the Dems have started a “Draft Dianne” movement that’s gathering steam toward a more plausible replacement.

If the race comes down to Feinstein and Riordan, the karma factor will be intense because both have been slimed by Davis so intensely, Feinstein with the Leona Helmsley ads and Riordan with the $9M in ads during the Republican primary.

Nice insight on Davis in Matier and Ross (Energy crisis pulled plug on Davis, pollster says / Overpriced energy deals that drained the state budget also cost the governor’s popularity plenty)

Politicians live or die by their defining moment. For George W. Bush, it was Sept. 11. For Gov. Gray Davis, it was the energy crisis of ’01 — and in most voters’ eyes, he came up short.

“No question about it,” said pollster Mark DiCamillo, who has been tracking Davis for the past five years. “That was the trigger. That’s when he crossed the line.

“Look at the numbers,” DiCamillo said. “In January of that year, Davis’ approval ratings were at 57 percent. Four months later they were under 36 percent.”

Davis never recovered.

Neither did California.

Former Green Party assemblywoman Bock to run in recall

Former state assemblywoman Audie Bock today announced that she will add her name to the ballot in the recall election.

As the first Democrat to break ranks with the party, Bock will go up against a slate of Republicans should Gray Davis be recalled in October.

Audie asked me to be her policy advisor in her run for the Congress, so maybe I should sign up to serve the next governor. Sweet.

Link via Cal. Insider.

California has adopted some truly loony measures through the initiative process, not the least loony of which was Prop. 13, the measure that sets property taxes at sharply different levels for houses in the same neighborhoods depending on when they were last sold. But by far the worst such measure was the term limits law limiting members of the Assembly to six years in office and senators to eight.

The main effect of term limits was to make the executive branch stronger, as well as to amp-up the power of un-elected lobbyists and staffers. With so much riding on the governor, we can’t afford to have a slacker like Davis on the throne when the state’s in trouble, hence the recall.

Recognition that term limits have hurt us is not a partisan issue, as my friend Ray Haynes explained to the Chronicle reporter Mark Martin:

Lack of leadership in the Assembly is so bad that one of the most conservative members of the Legislature, Assemblyman Ray Haynes, R-Riverside, longs for the days when San Francisco liberal Willie Brown ruled the Assembly as the always-in-charge speaker.

“Today the Assembly is out of control,” Haynes wrote in an opinion piece for the North County Times in Escondido (San Diego County) in which he noted how much better the Assembly ran when Brown was in charge. “It is in serious need of adult supervision.”

When Ray Haynes is publicly yearning for the return of the Ayatollah of the Assembly, you have to know things are bad. But the trouble is that term limits remain popular with the political outsiders who make up the vast majority of the electorate, because of their low confidence in politicians generally and the dearth of good news coverage of state government.

If I had my way, we’d recall term limits right after we recall The Invisible Gray.

Link via Rough and Tumble.