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donsu Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Oct-13-03 11:10 AM
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A perfectly wonderful paragraph

"Having voted its spleen, petulant California has chosen as its leader a shape-shifting avenger from a parallel universe so that it can pretend to be in charge of its destiny."

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/editorial/6966737.htm

California trashes politics and throws a party

-snip-

The immigrant-turned-tycoon flatters Californians' sense of their destiny. This self-smitten mountain man, mouthing his overrehearsed lines, walks tall on behalf of the 3.5 million fans who voted him in. They're mad as hell, they don't care who knows it, and they have no coherent idea of what to do about it, or to whom - except to Gray Davis. So they embrace a symbol in the guise of a man.

-snip-

But his emptiness was also his selling point. When he speaks his lines, his supporters see a weird innocence returned to the world. As long as professional politicians have done nothing for them lately - or so they think - why not opt for fun leadership?

-snip-

Thus did the self-made demagogue spin implausibility into victory. Give him this: He struck a blow at dreariness. He pulverized doubt. He proved himself the king of demolition as self-help. Life's a movie, after all. Don't like the government? Go out and blow up some stuff. Nothing is real.
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DuctapeFatwa Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Oct-13-03 11:37 AM
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1. "why not opt for fun" - this is my favorite - and the 1 that best explains

why so many Latin American voters, among others, chuckled and voted for old "Arnold Abecedario," not giving a fuck whether he is an incompetent, racist sexual predator or not.

Whether the deeper meaning is that people simply do not take government seriously, believe that government is the place where incompetent racist sexual predators will feel more comfortable and able to meet others like themselves, or a little or a lot of both, the pundits can argue for decades.
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