With due respect to Snoop Dogg, today's post-election mantra is
Ar-NOLD'S up side your head
Arnold's up side your head
I don't necessarily care that much about Schwarzenegger. He'll likely be better than Davis, if only on the grounds that a random name plucked from the frickin' phone book would be an improvement on that weasel. On the other hand, Arnold's rhetoric has so much mushy compassionate conservative nonsense as to make him pretty suspect.
What does make me especially happy about his victory is the rebuke it represents toward all the haters. I'd be hard pressed to think of another American political campaign in my lifetime that was near as vicious and malicious as the unwarranted wickedness thrown at Arnold Schwarzenegger. I'm happy to see him win just on that ground alone.
The calls for a retributory recall against Schwarzenegger started before the polls even closed. Every left wing jackass going was threatening legal challenges to the election. Jesse Jackson was all but literally foaming at the mouth about voters being disenfranchised by the lack of "infrastructure" for a legitimate election. Apparently minority group members were not being allowed to vote or something- though of course he could cite not a single example of even having long lines at a polling place, despite the high voter turnout.
A reasonable person of a left wing persuasion might be somewhat skeptical of Arnold. Will he be proposing some cuts in their favored programs? Possible, but his rhetoric has been really mostly to the liberal side- and he did marry into the Kennedy family.
Instead, however, many pinkos have absolutely gone off their beam and come after Arnold with every wicked thing they can accuse him of, no matter how ridiculous. This long time support of Jewish causes has been smeared as a Nazi overthrowing democracy.
OK then, let me gleefully indulge/rub your face in your dumb dystopian fantasy just a bit...
Article comments
1 - mike
It's NOT a tumor.
2 - Hal Pawluk
As a California resident who thought that Arnold should step down after admitting his violence against women, I now have to take a pragmatic approach:
He's there so deal with it.
The first good news is the the former Pay-for-Play governor is no longer in power.
The second piece of good news is that the electorate showed a smidgen of common-sense by not replacing the governor with another shorter version, a Pay-for-Play politician whose main skills seemed to be sneering and "subtly" playing a race card.
That still leaves the Democratic Senate and Democratic legislature, who are easily as guilty as our ex-governor, but at least there's a certain amount of checking-and-balancing possible now.
There was certainly a better choice than Arnold available, but we'll see how this plays out.
And this really has no effect at the Federal level, so I can keep sniping at the Republicans who are screwing us in D.C. (One of whom, David Dreier, is Arnold's main handler.)
3 - Michael Croft
From a games theory point of view, I don't think Arnold will be so bad. If he doesn't create a perception that things are fixed, it seems likely that California will go democratic soon enough.
If he does, it might revive the moderate wing of the republican party.
Speaking of games theory, I've been wondering if those of the "the government that governs least governs best" persuasion shouldn't be in favor of every recall ever. The time, energy, and cost of the election might well be offset by the advantage of nothing getting done for weeks leading up to the election and the chaos of a change of government following it. A million signatures every 90 days and California will of necessity "govern least."
Down with everybody. :)
4 - DOc
As a certified Gay man, I'm not unhappy with Arnie. Though I would have preferred him to have won in a general election rather than the Issa-initiated recall.
George Will has some harsh words for so called conservatives that supported Arnie. Me thinks he correct.