It's not a circus, it's a zoo in the California recall
Published October 03, 2003
Zoos are where they keep the animals, aren't they? Well, my state is starting to look like one. If you haven't read the story yet, it's in the L. A. Times:
Women Say Schwarzenegger Groped, Humiliated Them
[Times requires registration, but it's free and they don't spam]
Was the timing on the story politically-motivated? Highly likely, but so what? That's not a defense against the content.
The story describes half a dozen alleged incidents involving Arnold Schwarzenegger and different women. The incidents extend from about 30 years ago to as recently as 2000. The allegations include reaching into blouses and under skirts. Parts of the story are too disgusting to repeat in civilized company. The incidents carry a strong thread of someone with power using it to sexually harass women, and some incidents may be, at least technically, criminal "assaults" and/or "sexual battery."
Schwarzenegger campaign workers initially denied the story.
Arnold himself admitted to the story without going into details, saying: "If I offended anyone, I apologize."
"If"? "Offended"? Say "oops" and everything is okay?
I don't think so.
What to do? It boils down to two questions to ask before voting in the recall:
1. Do you think this is the right kind of person to clean up Sacramento?
2. And do we really need another politician whose idea of honesty and morality is to say "mea culpa" once s/he is caught? "Oops, sorry" doesn't cut it for anyone else, why should it work for politicians?
Luckily, there's a better choice on the ballot already:
Republican Senator McClintock. California's broken; he can fix it. And tell a friend - maybe you can make it a clean sweep.
Since the story broke, the candidate's wife has been quoted as saying that the sexual misconduct allegations (which Arnold admits are more than allegations) "show why really good people don't want to go into politics anymore." [Ironically, that does explain the candidacy to me, Maria.]
And last night, Fox's"On the Record" showed U.S. Congressman David Dreier, co-chairman of the Schwarzenegger for Governor campaign, saying:
"It's an attack on the people of California."
Agreed.
But just who is doing the attacking, Mr. D.?
What do you think?
- It's not a circus, it's a zoo in the California recall
- Published: October 03, 2003
- Type:
- Section: Culture
- Writer: Hal Pawluk
- Hal Pawluk's BC Writer page
- Hal Pawluk's personal site
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Comments on this articleComments
Unfortunately, it is avoidable.
The majority of Democrats have decided to deep-six the current gov, but not all of those are going to vote for Arnold.
Today's revelations will probably reduce the number of party-switchers.
Enough for Bustamante to win? Nobody knows.
And what's creepy to me is that rather than Arnold, we may get Bustamante and the recall will have moved us from the frying pan into the fire.
At least voting for Bustamante would make some sense. While I understand why CA's recall laws were written as they were, under any other circumstances, Bustamante would step up to replace Davis.
In fact, a more noble politician might have fallen on his sword and resigned when the recall effort began, putting Bustmante in the big chair already, but Davis probably thought his odds were better than they've turned out to be, based on both his personal past history and the history of recall efforts in CA in general. For that matter, the election isn't over for another four days.
It's too late now, I think. Even if Davis resigned Monday, I'm not sure if the election would be off or not. It's an interesting legal question, no? Bustmante might find himself filling the seat for only one day before becoming a lame-duck Governor. But then again, it might be the push he needs to get more votes than Schwarzenegger, too.
"At least voting for Bustamante would make some sense." (3)
In what way?
Bustamante is just a "pipeline to power" for special interests and that's one of the biggest problems in state government already. Making him governor wouldn't improve California politics nor the economy nor anything else, and I don't see the sense in that.
The New York Times has "revised" its interpretation of Arnold's remarks about Hitler. The remarks appear to be far more benign (although still pig headed) than originally reported. Arnold comes across as a dufus, not a Nazi.
NY Times
So I say it's Gov. Arnold on Tuesday night. Too bad. Thank God I no longer live in California.
[Edited: link text converted into hyperlink]
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I think it's in the bag for Arnold. He probably needs only 35-40% of the vote to get elected, and so it doesn't matter if the other 60-65% go elsewhere. Davis is just too far underwater for the recall to fail. All these last minute revelations may even help Arnold by convincing some people that the liberal media is out to get him.
Governor Steriod. It's creepy, but it's unfortunately unavoidable. Get used to it.