And, also importantly, please remember to NOT take what you read in the papers as the absolute truth. Reporters get things wrong all the time. If you read something that seems out of character from Peter (or anyone else),
check with the source before you assume it's true.

Seems like Talbot should have tried to confirm the info with Camejo. And Arianna and Camejo should get their act together. It would be hard to either of them to get the most votes of the recall candidates in a crazy and unpredictable election. It would be even harder if they split the progressive vote.

Talbot quotes Bill Zimmerman who will run Arianna's campaign, "If Arianna succeeds, you'll see a transformation of California's politics on the order of what Hiram Johnson accomplished when he was elected governor in 1910, driving the Southern Pacific railroad lobby from the halls of the Capitol and turning California into a beacon of progressivism for years."

But perhaps he should have mentioned Upton Sinclair, the muckraking journalist who ran in 1934 as the Democratic nominee for governor of California and nearly won (many of the problems he describes in his platform are still facing the state). When she ran for Senator as a Green in 2000 Medea Benjamin wrote a book patterned on Sinclair's which I put online when I worked at the Bay Guardian. Arianna won the Upton Sinclair award this year (her acceptance speech is online).

She is vulnerable because of his wacked out right-wing past. Her opponents will make the points Paula Poundstone made in this 1995 column and worse. Though I guess Paula and Arianna made up since both were on this (really annoying) radio program earlier this year.

First posted on my blog (made with typepad)