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Sunday, October 05, 2003
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SKIDDING INTO HOME PLATE
Jesus Creeping God! You can't get luckier than Arnold Schwarzenegger these days. After revelations ranging from sexual assault to Nazi sympathies, he retains a twelve point lead. And this is polling done as the revelations were made (Between Wednesday and Saturday.) As I wrote on Thursday, I assumed that Arnold's numbers would crumble by half, putting him in a dead heat with Bustamente. This hasn't happened.
Instead, interestingly, support for the recall itself has dropped. Were any other Governor than Davis involved, the recall woud be defeated handily under these circumstances. In Gray Davis, California has a chief executive with an approval rating of 22%. This is roughly the same approval rating your average pedophile gets. I'm pretty sure I could find one in five Californians who would say that pedophiles are "at least good with kids."
But the people of California are far too familiar with Davis and will take a gamble on a political novice like Schwarzenegger. Governor Davis, never a particularly popular candidate, has always won by fighting dirty at the end of a campaign. Last year, the Governor's internal polling showed him getting slaughtered by former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan should he get the Republican nomination. Davis then spent $10 million dollars in advertising in the Republican primary, painting Riordan, a pro-choice moderate as an abortion crazed Neanderthal and genocidal monster to boot. This tactic worked and the Republicans nominated the borderline retarded Bill Simon, who Davis then just barely went on to beat with a staggering 47% of the vote.
The voters of California are seeing Davis revert to form. Even small children believe these latest accusations against Schwarzenegger to be co-ordinated, despite what the Los Angeles Times and the Davis campaign says. These things do not come up on their own in the last 5 days of a campaign, a story a day. This is deliberately dribbling out for maximum impact. Davis' responses are telling as well. On Thursday, the day of the first revelations, Davis said that he would only comment on the allegations by saying that the voters must weigh them. Then, on Friday as the Hitler comment came to light, Davis comment that these allegations were serious enough as to deny Schwarzenegger the Governor's mansion. Finally, on Saturday, when 3 more women came forward, Davis demand that the police launch a criminal investigation of Schwarzenegger (although the statute of limitations has past and no criminal charges could be laid at this time.) Cruz Bustamente appealed to Latino voters in San Francisco to vote against Arnold "for the sake of my three daughters." This implies that a Governor Schwarzenegger would feel up the Lieutenant Governor's kids.
My personal favorite, however, is an ad by MoveOn.org which shows several women speaking directly into the camera declaring how women shouldn't vote for Schwarzenegger as he is a borderline rapist and that , if elected, he will presumably go one a rape-athon. I kind of think a Governor on a rape spree would be kind of quaint. Why should the Federal Government have all the fun. Some things should start at the grass roots. The irony is heightened when one realizes that MoveOn.org consists of former Clinton Administration and Democratic National Committee staffers who banded together to argue that Bill Clinton's escapades (including allegations of sexual relations with subordinate state and federal employees, sexual harassment and rape) are "personal conduct" that did not constitute grounds for impeachment and that the American people should just "move on".
Having studied advertising for two years in college, I can tell you as an absolute certainity; writing, casting, shooting, editing and buying broadcast time for an ad anywhere but particularly a major media market like California, in 24 hours is impossible! It simply cannot be done. This means that MoveOn.org had to know the story was coming at least one week before it broke in the Los Angeles Times.
Given that all of the polls now show a clear, if diminishing, majority of Californians still supporting the recall and Schwarzenegger holding a lead of anywhere between 8 and 15 points, it seems clear that by early Wednesday Arnold Schwarzenegger will be Governor of California and Gray Davis will be wearing dark glasses and selling pencils on the Dumbarton bridge. If any of you feel that you will miss the recall as much as I will, fear not. The National Organization of Women and the Democratic National Committee will probably begin circulating recall positions of their own by Christmas.
I love it when places are more fucked up than where I live.
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