All Things Reconsidered
November 1, 2003
by Alexander Washburn

Groping for Answers

Pundits, columnist, and “my fellow blog crowd” turned to the California recall for an exhaustive supply of story ideas. Comedians added recall jokes to their stand-up acts and late night monologues – space once reserved for such dignitaries like Judge Ito, Tanya Harding and Al Gore. Columnist Arianna Huffington had one of the best lines. Asked by Jon Stewart of the Daily Show what kind of Governor did she think Schwarzenegger would be, Huffington who knows a good funny as well as anyone, stated: “well, at least we know he will be a hands-on Governor.” From coast-to-coast a good laugh was had by all at California’s expense.

Since the recall election, the American people have found other things to laugh at. The exciting new televisions fall season for one. Certainly there’s a comedy or two that can give us the same chuckle that Arnold at a “town hall meeting” did. Oh, and the baseball playoffs provided the moment of Yankee Bench Coach Don Zimmer getting thrown on his skull by Pedro Martinez. That’ll make you laugh for weeks. But what of the poor souls who live in California, have they moved on to laugh at other things? California is beginning to realize that the recall wasn’t all that funny to begin with (Even though the most anti-recall person has to admit the Gary Coleman “What You Talkin' 'bout Gray Davis?’ t-shirts were funny) and what transpired over two months in the fall of 2003 was far from inspirational and definitely no laughing matter.

Like always, California get over yourself! Do Californian’s really think there is any difference between Arnold and your former Governor Gray Davis? Davis squandered away countless opportunities to fix the serious problems California was facing – the same problems that grew an appetite for his recall. Instead of giving pay raises to prison guards and supporting the prison building industry in California, he could’ve been guaranteeing quality and affordable health care for the 6.6 million Californian’s that currently go without. The ‘pay for play’ is what California hated about Gray Davis. Well, that and the fact that he is absolutely 100% personality-free. Not even Dick Gephardt can say that.

Arnold is just owned by a different special interest, but he’s still owned. Expect developers, real estate and car dealerships to get major favor under an Arnold Schwarzenegger regime. These industries poured hundreds of thousands into his campaign and you can only expect that they want something in return. Don’t expect Arnold to address health care or education but neither did Davis, outside of fighting a lawsuit bought by a group of school children tired of a school with more rodents than books. For all the talk of Arnold’s independence, he was still the candidate backed strongly by the Republican party machine. And for all their cries for change, California at the end of the recall ended up with the same two choices: a Democrat and a Republican. The kicking to the curb of the independent voice is perhaps the only thing California should cry about.

At the end of the day all California really got on October 7th was just a more exciting version of the same second-rate politicians both parties have been throwing our way for decades. Rest assured, Arnold Schwarzenegger is not going to deliver the state to Bush in 2004 and he’s certainly not going to steer the state into financial and economic ruin.

That’s for the proposition-passing-happy-voters to do.

Don’t Measure for Drapes Just Yet

While this space has been on hiatus we’ve seen one person jump into the race; General Wesley Clark, one jump out; Florida Senator Bob Graham, and one out-of-touch Democrat party that scheduled a primary debate the same night as a possible World Series Game 7.

First Graham. Big deal. He didn’t stick around long enough to hate. As this space said when Graham first entered the race, he had no real shot at the nomination and was merely running for Vice President. He even failed at that. Graham never got on track often failing to communicate the one issue that he actually knows something about; reforming our worthless intelligence agencies. But the Florida Senator missed his chance by trampling over what should’ve been his real message in order to talk about the Federal government building more highways and bridges. If that’s the Senator from Florida’s vision for the future: building more roads for more cars than perhaps he doesn’t deserve to be President. Hell, he might even be too dangerous for the state of Florida.

Clark, like Graham is running for Vice President, and like Graham has no shot, no shot. With votes for Nixon and Reagan and the words of encouragement he gave President Bush, the only person in the Democratic party who hasn’t figured out Wesley Clark is a Republican is Wesley Clark. The closest thing his campaign has come to resembling that of a Democrat was that its first day was riddled with so many errors of fact and back-tracking that you knew Al Gore’s people had to be behind the scenes somewhere. In fact, Clark’s new strategy of calling himself the “underdog” is straight out of the Gore 2000 primary playbook. Hell, Gore even dressed up for Halloween as Underdog. The only thing good about that strategy was that it was probably devised at Doe’s Eat Place.

Russ Smith now writing for the Baltimore City Paper dropped me a long-awaited email last week. It had been months since I heard from Russ whose ‘Mugger’ column in the New York Press (back when it was readable) was the one column I looked forward to reading every Tuesday. Our email exchange quickly established that we were both on the same page when it came to the likely prospects of Rep. Dick Gephardt securing the nomination (ATR, 5/1/03). While all eyes are rightfully on Dean, it is Gephardt the understudy that he is sitting in November in terrific shape.

Newsflash! Gephardt can still win Iowa. Don’t get caught up in all those polls that show Dean surging ahead or even winning. The Iowa Caucus just doesn’t let any old person with a voter registration card vote. It’s not a primary. It’s a caucus and caucus rules are not always Democratic and don’t favor the little guy. No mater how many times he’s been on the cover of Time. Truth is, Gephardt still has the labor backing to win in Iowa and with the Big Mo’ in Dean’s favor, who can say that a little of that Comeback Kid stink wouldn’t remain on Geppie to lead him to a surprise show in New Hampshire. After that, its back to familiar labor turf in Michigan and next he cashes in his Congressional chits with South Carolina’s ranking black Congressman who controls tons of votes. Now, its 3-1 Gephardt and Missouri and the rest of fly-over America have yet to be heard from.

This nomination is far from belonging to Howard Dean.

(Alexander Washburn is a volunteer staff writer for 2 Walls Webzine.)