This is how California Gov. Ahhhnuld Schwarzenegger must feel today after "the people" shot down every single one of the "reforms" that he brought before them at yesterday's special election, which served only to waste millions of California taxpayers' dollars and to end Ahhhnuld's political career. (Well, on second thought, if that's what those millions of dollars accomplished, then it wasn't a total waste of money...)
You're terminated, fucker!
That's the climactic line that heroine Sarah Connor (played by Linda Hamilton) tells the murderous cyborg (played by Ahhhnuld Schwarzenegger) in the 1984 movie "The Terminator" as the cyborg is crushed and destroyed.
As governor of California -- or, as Ahhhnuld says it, Collie-phone-ya -- Schwarzenegger likes to regurgitate lines from his testosterone movies.
So I thought that I'd regurgitate a line from one of his movies, one of the few worth watching and one that I can never see in the same way again because I no longer think of Ahhhnuld as the action-movie star, but as the pathetic governor of California who "fumbled, fiddled and failed" (that retarded line is what Ahhhnuld and other Repugnicans said about Ahhnuld's predecessor, Democratic Gov. Gray Davis, who was largely the hapless victim of the Bush-friendly corrupt corporation Enron's bilking Californians of billions of dollars in the "electricity shortage" that it fabricated in 2000).
Every single one of Schwarzenegger's pet propositions in California's special election yesterday failed.
Schwarzenegger -- whose governorship resulted as an end-run around the normal process (in the form of a bullshit gubernatorial recall election) -- decided to do an end-run around the normal process (the state legislative process) and put the Repugnican wish list for California on the ballot.
And "the people" -- a phrase that Ahhhnuld throws around liberally, as though he represented "the people" and the people's elected representatives didn't -- shot down every one of the so-called "reforms" that Schwarzenegger & Co. put before them.
Schwarzenegger gambled everything on yesterday's special election (which, ironically, the majority of "the people" never wanted in the first place) -- and he lost.
Where did he go wrong?
Well, Schwarzenegger made two colossal errors (not necessarily in this order):
First, during the recall election campaign he promised to turn around California's economy -- an infuckingpossible feat as long as there is a Bush in the White House. Although during the recall election campaign Schwarzenegger was awfully short on any details of his supposed plan to miraculously turn around the state's ailing economy, Californians stupidly believed him.
When he didn't deliver on his promise (because he couldn't deliver on his promise), Californians appropriately felt taken, even though they should have seen it coming.
Secondly, Schwarzenegger decided to take on the unions -- an incredibly stupid thing to do in a pro-union state like California or New York. A majority of Californians are a member of a union or have a member of the immediate family who is. Schwarzenegger labeled the unions -- to which teachers, nurses, firefighters, correctional and peace officers, state workers (which I am), et. al., et. al., belong -- as "special interests." On Planet Schwarzenegger, "the [working] people" and the unions that protect their rights -- not the money-grubbing corporations and Repugnican businessmen from whom Schwarzenegger gets his $upport -- are the "special interests."
Schwarzenegger made other blunders as well:
He never adequately faced allegations that several women made against him that he had groped them throughout the years when he was an actor -- alienating many, if not most, of California's women voters. He took anti-Mexican-immigrant stances in largely Latino California, and he recently vetoed a same-sex marriage bill that the California legislature had passed. (California is home to millions of gay men and lesbians; they don't call us the Land of Fruits and Nuts for nothing.)
Indeed, about the only group of people in California that Schwarzenegger hasn't alienated are his fellow rich white male Repugnican businessmen, and while they have lots and lots of money (which they make by screwing "the people" up the ass) to pour into Repugnican political campaigns, each of them still gets only one vote (for now, anyway) and there just aren't nearly enough of them to swing an election in California.
Team Schwarzenegger also apparently thought that what works so well in the red states would work in the blue state of California: Specifically, that if you just give something that harms working people a pleasant-sounding name, the working people, being idiots, will buy it and will vote against their own best interests.
For example, Schwarzenegger's union-busting and corporation/business-boosting proposition that the people voted down yesterday was misleadingly called "paycheck protection." I mean, who doesn't want to protect his or her paycheck, right? But Californians didn't buy it.
And the Schwarzenegger Repugnicans borrowed the Bush regime's use of the word "reform." Just as the Bush regime's Social Security "reform" was meant to weaken, if not destroy, Social Security, Team Schwarzenegger's "reform" was meant to set the working person back, not to help him or her out.
That the Repugnicans have to lie, have to give all of their make-the-rich-even-richer-and-the-poor-even-poorer schemes pleasant-sounding names like "reform" and "paycheck protection" in order to get the majority's buy-in demonstrates how desperate and how devoid of any real solutions to the problems of we, the people, they are.
Yesterday, a majority of Californian voters saw through the Repugnican lies and told the Repugnican Party, a la Dick Cheney, to go fuck itself.
Memo to the Repugnican Party: When it comes to California, you're not in Kansas anymore, assholes. We Californians are not dumbfucks who still question the validity of evolution in the year two-thousand fucking five. (I wonder if in Kansas they still believe that the Earth is flat...)
Anyway, the next governor of California will be California's current treasurer, Democrat Phil Angelides. (I'm not necessarily saying that he's the best possible candidate, but he has the blessing of the California Democratic Party establishment, so unless he dies or it's discovered that he has a stash of kiddie porn or something, he's a shue-in.)
We'll be saying Hasta la vista, baby! to Schwarzy in January 2007. Unfortunately, we have to endure him for a little more than a year.
I wish we could say the same about "President" Bush, with whom we're stuck for more than three years -- unless he is impeached after the Democrats take back the U.S. House of Representatives in November 2006 (which I suspect is going to happen)..
P.S. Team Ahhhnuld sent out this e-mail today (yes, I'm on the enemy's e-mail list):
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| A Message from the Governor |
UPDATED WEDNESDAY, NOV 9 2005 | |
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 I want to thank the people of California.
Whether you voted for our reforms or against them, I thank you for your conscientious consideration. We have fought the good fight.
We did not lose anything we already had; we simply did not gain anything new except a lesson or two. The lesson of this campaign is that the people want us to reform government by fighting less and working together more.
The voters have said, Arnold, go back to Sacramento and solve the problems by working with the legislature. I hear you. So, that is what I intend to do. I will carry out the will of the people. Because the people of California have always been my partners. They are the reason I am here. And when they speak, I listen.
The campaign is now behind us. The Democratic and Republican leadership and I will meet together Thursday to find a common ground. We are going to talk about reforms and how to move the state forward. I ask them to bring to the meeting new ideas for making California better. As I always say the bigger, the more radical the idea the better I like it.
After the meeting I will leave for China on a trade mission. China is the largest growing market in the world, and I want to increase California's business with China, because it will mean jobs for our people and revenues for our state.
And when I return from Asia, we will get down to business. We have so much to do in rebuilding our infrastructure. We need more roads, more schools, more hospitals, more teachers, more police, more energy and more water.
And I recognize we also need more bipartisan cooperation to make it all happen. Californians believe the state is on the wrong track. They want reform. They want change. But it is clear they are tired of the fighting and the ads.
I feel the same today as that night two years ago when I was elected.
With all my heart, I want to do the right thing for the people of California. I feel so honored and privileged to be your governor. I feel so honored and privileged to serve you. I will continue to work as hard as I can to make you proud of me.
Thank you for your warm support.
Sincerely,
Arnold Schwarzenegger |
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Hmmm. I take issue with several things that Ahhhnuld (well, more likely, some staffer) says in this e-mail:
- Actually, we Californians did lose something in Ahhhnuld's special election -- the millions of our tax dollars that it cost to hold the election, in which voters shot down every single proposition. (And again, the majority of Californians never even fucking wanted the election.) Ahhhnuld promised during the 2003 gubernatorial recall election campaign to fix California's money woes. Instead, by wasting millions of our tax dollars on a special election we never wanted, he worsened them, a la Bush.
- Ahhhnuld says that "the people" (there he goes again with "the people," when the only people he gives a shit about are his fellow plutocrats) are sick of "the fighting." Well, Ahhhnuld started the fight. He called Democratic legislators -- elected representatives of the people -- "girlie men" when they wouldn't give him his way. He attacked teachers and nurses and firefighters and cops, for fuck's sake, calling them and their unions "special interests." He picked the fight. He lost the fight -- and now he acts like he had no hand in starting the fight.
- Ahhhnuld doesn't give a shit what "the people" want. They didn't want his expensive and unnecessary special election, but he shoved it down their throats anyway. Should he actually listen to the people from now on, that's only because his strongarm tactics failed and now he's politically crippled.
- The special election campaign is not behind us and Ahhhnuld has no solutions for California's problems. He presented his "solutions" in the special election -- and the people shot him down. Ahhhnuld is a puppet of the Repugnican Party, and his agenda is the Repugnican Party's agenda: Make the rich richer and the poor poorer and lie about the fact that that's what you're doing, such as by calling your anti-working people, pro-corporation plans "reform" -- a word that Ahhhnuld uses over and over again in the e-mail above.
- "With all my heart, I want to do the right thing for the people of California," blah blah blah. Wait a minute, let me see -- nope, no tears come to my eyes. Ahhhnuld's strongarm tactics failed and now Ahhhnuld is pretending that he has had the people's best interests at heart all along. The poor misunderstood thing! If we just knew his heart! Bullshit. (And talking about his "heart" is yet another page ripped from the Bush playbook. Because Repugnicans are such warm and fuzzy people, you know.)
It's over, Ahhhnuld. We Californians will endure you until January 2007 and then you will be nothing but an embarrassing chapter in California's history.
3:31:52 PM 
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