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On the day that three more U.S. soldiers died in Iraq, Californians elected a narcissist governor in a bizarre recall election. As Der Gropenfuhrer** heads for Sacramento, millions of poor people believe that Arnold will magically terminate the newly imposed and hated car tax (He’ll have a tough time convincing the majority in both Houses). That may have been the loftiest reason that blue collar voters had to remove Governor Gray Davis. He and the legislature, in desperation, used a hike in auto taxes to try to fund schools and other necessities.
Try as they may, liberal Democrats can’t attribute their heavy loss in this election to the hanky panky Republicans used in Florida in 2000. Yes, some voting machines didn’t work, some voters had to jump through hoops to find their polling place, and others found the punch-out instrument too dull to pierce the paper. But these explanations are insufficient to explain the overwhelming loss for Governor Gray Davis and the impressive tally for Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Rather, Democrats should go back to the world of fiction for their insight. The descendents of Californians described in 1939 by novelist Nathanael West in The Day of the Locust have now put into office a man who hobnobbed with the very oil thieves (like former ENRON CEO Ken Lay) who stole billions from the state to help get Californians into the current mess. West called the Hollywood residents “savage and bitter, especially the middle aged and the old… made so by boredom and disappointment.”
I did my own little public opinion experiment. On Election Day, the following conversation took place between middle aged Hispanic women. “Hey,” said one housewife, “Arnoldo can pinch my nalgas if he wants. It’s more than my husband does these days. But I need the $130 we’ll have to shell out for the car tax.”
more at "In the United States" section of Radio Progresso http://www.rprogreso.com/
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