Mind you, this is not a slam on all DUers who...

[punpirate]

... fought against the recall, and fought against Ahnold's election... but, my good lord, what is _wrong_ with California?

Ahnold says he "despises Nazis." His father was a Nazi (even before it was fashionable in Austria), and he's on record as praising Hitler's _organizational_ skills. Did anyone, anywhere in the media eye ask him if he despised, by logical extension, his father, for example?

He's a serial misdemeanor groper. Did anyone prominently in the media eye ask him if he'd like a leather dyke from Playa del Rey grabbing his crotch and stretching his dick from Santa Monica to Fresno?

He's, according to the media, a multi-million-dollar businessman. Did anyone in the media ask why Planet Hollywood, his creation, went into bankruptcy not once, but twice, and why Planet Hollywood in Moscow is now a supermarket?

Did anyone in the media press the fact that Ahnold's cheated on his California taxes?

Did anyone in the media wonder why someone with a 24-year-old degree in "International Marketing of Fitness" from a tiny offshoot of the University of Wisconsin knew enough to run the fifth-largest economy in the world?

Did anyone in the mainstream media wonder why Ahnold was invited to a meeting with Kenneth Lay of Enron, months before the recall was announced, when Ahnold was just a has-been android impersonator?

No. No. No. No. No. No.

And neither did a majority of California voters wonder about these matters, either, on October 7th.

Will these same voters wonder at all about George Bush on Nov. 2, 2004?

Not from what I can see.

California always touts itself as the leading edge of every trend. I hope they're wrong about this one. If they're not, then we're all in for a dose of fascism from which none of us may recover.

Bush has been working for Ahnold, and Ahnold will be working for Bush from now on. What has California, in its celluloid idolatry, wrought?

[Classical_Liberal]

1. This wasn't a repudiation of Democrats

The Democrats didn't run on anything but personality, and their guy had less of it than their opponant. His campaign people were also clearly hostile to Californians and just about everyone else before the election even started. You can't win an election if you tell the people they suck.

[virtualobserver]

3. I think that it is the end of standard political doublespeak.........

People are tired of the way that politicians talk.

[punpirate]

4. I take from that remark...

... that Schwarzenegger made more sense to the public?

I hope that's not what you mean.

[virtualobserver]

9. I think so, but not in a logical sense.

My experience with listening to Gray Davis is limited, but he did have the standard communication style that gets installed when politicians come off the assembly line.

I think that this careful form of communication is percieved as a manipulation by the public. Schwarzenegger's clumsy "straightforward" style was more appealing, although equally manipulative.

[punpirate]

5. The election results speak otherwise....

The Democrats, were they in the actual majority, spoke volumes, first by not voting "no" on the recall question, and second, by supporting a right-wing closet proto-fascist sufficiently to cause him to win when the "yes" vote prevailed.

One cannot avoid this harsh reality. It was a repudiation of Democrats, by Democrats themselves.

[Classical_Liberal]

8. No it was a repudiation of Grey Davis

not the Democrats. Grey didn't run on any issues. So I don't see how you can say that. You could only say that if their was an entire field of dems running for various offices and they lost.

[punpirate]

14. It was, then, by your estimation...

... repudiation of one of their own in favor of one of the opposition, and that's exactly what I'm driving toward. S. is a shit, a right-wing shit, and Democrats preferred him over a weak-sister Democrat?

That's _exactly_ what I'm getting at--campaign message as everything, when, in fact, it means nothing at all, and Democrats in California fell for it.

Look at all the examples I cited--the majority refer to the _media message_. Democrats swallowed that message, hook, line and sinker. It they do that again, we'll have another four years of Bush, and likely, much more than we bargained for.

_That's_ the point. That's the _fucking_ point.

Cheers.

[Ardee]

36. there are other views.....

This is certainly not any wholesale rejection of the democratic party, for crying out loud, get a grip! It seems to me to be a repudiation of machine politics and the usual suspects....Davis was unpopular and the propaganda that he was responsible for all the ills of mankind took hold. The choices , other than Arnie, were the usual suspects, machine politicians ,and thus were rejected.

That the voters chose style (?) over substance shows only just how desperate are the voters to get their government back! This aint the end of the world, just the end of Davis.....Schwartzenegger will strut his hour upon the stage and disappear, but the face of political campaigning may just have changed forever....crush cars!

[virtualobserver]

10. exactly where does Schwarzenegger veer from Democratic thought...

in his positions?

[Classical_Liberal]

16. Neither Arnold nor the Dem opposition tried to clarify his positions

but that was in part because Davis had similar positions.When you have two centrists going for the same job it is bound to become a personality issue.

[truthseeker1]

22. I agree - where was Davis???

My husband kept asking me, where is Davis? Where does he stand? Why isn't he campaigning and defending himself? If he's not guilty on the Enron issue and Arnold IS involved, then he should have been throwing the mud.

[punpirate]

17. Good god, man...

... where have you been? Look at the position papers on his website. Are those Democratic, or democratic, except in narrowly social senses which S. has ignored in his personal life and behavior?

No.

He's heavily in favor of deregulation of all business, including previously regulated utilities. That will damage the economy of California, and its environment and its wage and tax structure. Read his policies--they are Pete Wilson's. Wilson and his people are running S.'s campaign....

Arnold's too stupid to come up with anything remotely democratic on his own. And, if that's not enough, why has he consistently run, on policy, as anything other than a right-wing Republican?

This man is dangerous.

[Classical_Liberal]

19. Voters don't look at position papers on websites

They look at what the candidate is saying in the newsmedia and in advertisements. The media and the advertisement Davis was putting out were all personality driven.

[punpirate]

29. That's not what you originally asked.

You asked, first, where S. deviated from Democratic thought. I told you so. Now, you tell me, that's not where voters look for information. Where the voter seeks out information is not the question--more specifically, it is what the candidate believes and espouses.

S. is a fascist, in the original sense of the term. Democrats believed him and his message to a greater degree than did they believe a Democrat about Democratic values.

Why? That's my question--not whether someone visited a website or not.

Why is a fascist appealing, in the majority, to California voters.

Please answer that--because that was my original question.

Cheers.

[Classical_Liberal]

35. I don't know if I would describe him as fascist

He is more like the pre-religious right republicans.

[punpirate]

41. Fascism is...

... according to Mussolini, the marriage of the corporation and the state. Is S. a proponent of businesses' interests, or those of the people?

I rest my case.

[truthseeker1]

25. And as far as social issues

the repugs don't care about that at the Gov. level. They don't expect Arnold to have any impact at all on the issues of abortion, gay rights or gun control. These are all federal issues (at least they're trying to make them all federal).

That's why they were willing to overlook that detail for the greater cause of getting a Repug into office. They can roll him out at the convention next fall and use his celebrity to build excitement and motivate the masses. They'll tell him to zip his trap on the social issues.

[piece sine]

27. too stupid, huh?

win we ever learn?

[punpirate]

30. Pardon?

My point is that _Ahnold's_ too stupid to lead the fifth largest economy in the world. I'm trying to figure out, by my questions, why California thinks he's not.

Cheers.

[truthseeker1]

33. They just figure he's gotta be better than Davis

Personality competition - no white papers - no websites - a vast number of people only pay attention to image. AND I think Maria had a lot to do with it too. The fact that he is such a moderate, combined with the fact that Maria is a blood democrat and brings to the office that whole perception of romantic JFK legend Camelot thing. And she stood by him like a rock through the last few days of sexual assault accusations. She came across like Hillary - a strong woman standing by her man. Leads one to think, well he couldn't be all that bad could he? And maybe he didn't really do all those things, and maybe they weren't as bad as the women are making them out to be.

[punpirate]

37. Sadly, maybe that's part of my point...

... all attention to image, and no attention to substance. On another thread, I said that I imagined that Ted Kennedy was stomping on his hat right about now. *sigh*

Cheers.

[SammyWinstonJack]

43. People fall for some really stupid stuff

And yet had it been a Democrat, they would have believed it all no matter how much the little lady stood by her man. Hillary wasn't perceived as strong for standing by her man, quite the opposite in fact. Camelot? Oh man.

[truthseeker1]

24. oh, he will, just wait

now that he's elected, he'll tell us where he stands on the issues! And if he doesn't come clean now, I guess we'll learn soon enough by his actions. He's either gonna have to raise taxes or cut programs. Everybody knows you can't have it both ways. He's not going to get that car tax repealed unless he comes up with the $4B somewhere else. And when that happens, people are going to be mad.

[Classical_Liberal]

15. blaming the voter won't win the next election

you just have to do better.

[punpirate]

18. Me have to do better?

I'm not even _from_ fucking California, and I've been watching the results there until the wee hours of the morning. California has to do better.

[Classical_Liberal]

20. The voters are under no obligation to do better

The dems are.

[Zhade]

2. A lot of us worked VERY hard to stop this.

So I know you're not talking about me. :D

[shance]

6. Pun Pirate - are you of all individuals negating the potential tampering

of votes. Are you denying that is a probability?

[punpirate]

28. I would still like to see some numbers from...

... the "provisional" votes that voters were required to fill out when there were precinct screw-ups--I think there are substantial numbers of those, particularly in crowded precincts. I hope they might change the results, but, given the numbers, I don't think they will.

The electronically-tabulated votes, particularly in those counties where Diebold machines are located, even if they were completely futzed with, can't make up the differences shown in the vote tally as of 3:40 a.m. PDT.

I think this election, barring some other evidence of serious fraud in those places with punched ballots, or printed ballots, is the will of the people of California.

I'd like not to believe that, but I still think it's true. Again, look at my original post--I address the media's influence in this, for the most part.

One doesn't have to fix the vote, if one has first fixed people's minds....

Horrifying as that may sound, it is still a truth.

Election fraud works well when it nudges the close votes. This was not a close vote. At 3:53 a.m. PDT, with 95.4% of precincts reporting, the spread is 8.2 points.

If there are 1.5 million uncounted "provisional" votes tomorrow, I hope the people in California scream bloody murder if they're not counted, because that number would be 30% of the total votes counted, and if they aren't counted, there should be riots in the streets.

If that number of provisional ballots is much smaller, they won, and Democrats lost, and Democrats lost because platitudes from a celluloid automaton counted for more than what Democrats could say to the voters, and that's a sad day, indeed.

Cheers.

[truthseeker1]

31. I don't think the absentee ballots are counted yet either

And I voted absentee so I'd really like to know that my vote counted.

"...about 1.2 million absentee and other ballots will not be counted until well after the election, and officials said on Monday that those votes could decide a potentially close race, raising the specter of an election with no clear winner for weeks."

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/07/national/07BALL.html?th

[punpirate]

34. When I was watching returns early in the evening...

... there were results showing up, precinct by precinct, without any precinct vote tallies. That can only mean that precincts were counting absentees during the day, and releasing those results when the polls closed, before election day counts were transmitted.

Hate to say it, but I doubt that absentees will make a large difference in the vote totals--some have already been counted and included in the unofficial totals. That's why I'm so curious about the provisional vote totals.

Cheers.

[truthseeker1]

7. Hey, take it easy

You're preaching to the choir here! All my energy has been squeezed out of me after tonight. I've worked on nothing but this damned recall for the past week. Many of us hounded the media to cover the Arnold/Enron story but they refused to pick it up.

After tonight, I don't even feel like working on the Dem Pres one....

[Classical_Liberal]

12. Look take a few days off, but thei Dem election isn't going to

be nearly as much of a nightmire, particularly if you work for one of that outsider candidates.

[punpirate]

32. You and your efforts are _not_ the target....

It's the California body politic. It's not always a matter of reaching enough people with the right message. It's also a matter of people listening to that message, and, truth be known, California listened to a celluloid image masquerading as a candidate.

As I've said elsewhere, Pete Wilson is now the governor, because people somehow, some way, listened to Ahnold. I'm trying to figure out why they did.

Cheers.

[Classical_Liberal]

38. Davis didn't make the link between Wilson and Arnold

so how would the voters know that?

[punpirate]

40. I knew it, and I'm not in California.... n/t

[fedupwithbush]

11. I'm disgusted too.

And no I'm not bashing the hard working people who worked to stop it. I have a problem with the 24 year old girl that said it was glamorous. I have a problem with the 27 year old single guy who was pissed because of the groping stories. I have a problem with the Republicans who sold their soul and their party platform just to have a governor in California with an R after his name. I'm mad at the Democrats who didn't take into account the huge part Enron played in California's financial problems. I'm mad at ALL the people who voted for celebrity and never cared about what the candidate had in mind for their state.

I've got issues with elected California Democrats on some of their idea's too. But I detested the recall for one main reason. We elect them for a term. Unless they are proven to have broken the law, we should have to suffer with them.

[Classical_Liberal]

13. Then you should work to undo that amendment

but their was absolutely nothing illegal about the recall. If it is the first time it has been used it probably says something about the unpopularity of your canddidate. In my experience Davis's campaign was saying this nasty stuff about the voters weeks ago. Not very smart politics to say stuff like that even if it is true.

[truthseeker1]

21. yes the amendment needs to be revised

the governor needs to be guilty of something, and not some vague statement like "gross mismanagement of CA finances" - it needs to be more specific than that. Also, once there are enough signatures, the issue should go before a judicial body to make the call on whether or not the alleged issue is valid. THEN the process needs to be simpler and fairer. One vote - none of this NO, YES business. People got confused on that (I know, it seems fairly simple, but the people I talked to who messed it up weren't totally dumb.) The candidate with the most votes wins. In otherwords, none of this crap where the incumbent needs 51% and challengers can win with less than that. That's my 2 cents.

[union_maid]

23. Ain't that America, folks?

This is a country where, while us politigeeks are pouring over polls, fighting over which candidate is more liberal, electable, pure, etc, and trying to read every nuance and bit of spin out of neocon camp, Ben and J-lo are huge news. People seem to care who wore what to the most recent awards show. Watercooler discussion ranges from such topics as the new reality series to the other new reality series. We care, most people do not. They see some problems, they go with whomever has the best slogan to address them. Or, if there's a star who has been shown to be competent handling bad guys in numerous movies, well, then that's the way to go. People kind of enjoy getting mad as hell and not taking it anymore, but bothering to do some work to figure out who would best address the problems faced by any given electorate is too much to ask.

Sorry..guess that's a rant, but it's early and I'm disgusted.

[truthseeker1]

26. STAR FUCKED in America

You are so absolutely right.

[punpirate]

39. It's a good rant, and the one I'm trying to get at....

Because California did this once before....

His name was Ronald Reagan, and he was voted in for exactly the same reasons.

Bad reasons, but the same reasons, nonetheless.

Cheers.

[Jeff in Cincinnati]

42. Blame the media

As with virtually every aspect of the 2000 Campaign and the subsequent Bush Administration, the media simply failed to do right be their readers/viewers. Rather that ask Arnold to specifically lay out an economic plan, they went for the raw meat of fondling women's breasts.

Instead of asking the hard questions about his competence to lead California, they repeatedly pointed out that former child star Gary Coleman and a porn actress were also in the race See? Doesn't Arnold look good by comparison?

They chose to portray the recall election as a "circus" rather than an attempt by conservatives to undo the results of a legal election. What passed for political analysis was their repeatedly pointing out that California is in a fiscal crisis. When they didn't say was that nearly every other state (and the federal government) is in fiscal crisis as well.

Had the media done even a mediocre job of reporting on the issues, the recall might never have occurred, and Arnold would still be making cheesy action-adventure pictures.

[sendero]

44. The media gets some blame.....

.... but the bottom level responsible is with the people. Who knows what their criteria was, but it seemed to have nothing to do with reality.

They wanted to throw a temper tantrum and they did. Like most temper tantrums, they can be satisfying in the short term but they accomplish nothing. How long do you think it will take the people to notice that the trickle running down their leg is not rain? I give it a year or so.

[punpirate]

45. Okay, I'm going to violate good taste and...

... and answer my own damned question.

Re-read my original post. I posit six questions on S.'s qualifications, opinions and background.

In each, I say, "the media" perception or opinion, in some fashion or another.

There are not many who have that hook in their mouth right now--most thought this was an attack on the voters (well, yes, a lot of them _are_ stupid, but they've _been made_ politically stupid for definable reasons).

Gawddammit, for those of you who know nothing about logic or science, October 7th in California was a lesson in cause and effect.

Ahnold fuckin' Schwarzenegger is an effect.

Media coverage is the cause.

And, if you all don't get that lesson, forthwith, right now, and forever, your less-informed compatriots and co-workers are gonna be saying in twenty years, "think I should vote for Jenna Bush? Yeah, maybe I should. She's so honest and nice and decent. I heard Dan Coulter say on Fox that she was really hot. Nah, I think it's nice her twin sister wants to support her by being vice-president."

If there's no "there" there, then it's all image. Who controls the images?

Cheers.

[sendero]

46. I am as disgusted...

... with the media as you are but the fact remains. Voters have a responsibility to do a modicum of their own research. Either they didn't - or the crap they found did not bother them. Doesn't matter to me, they get to make their choice and they get to live with the result. That's Democracy.

And my personal opinion is that this was nothing more than a temper tantrum. The state has problems and SOMEBODY has to go to the woodshed. Davis was the logical choice.