http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/0803/24recall.html Bustamante leads; Simon drops out By MARK Z. BARABAK Los Angeles Times California Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante holds a wide lead over Arnold Schwarzenegger in the race to succeed Gov. Gray Davis, according to a new Los Angeles Times Poll. As the sole major Democrat running to replace Davis -- should the incumbent be ousted on Oct. 7 -- Bustamante enjoys the support of 35 percent of likely voters. Schwarzenegger received 22 percent support, followed by three fellow Republicans: state Sen. Tom McClintock with 12 percent, businessman Peter Ueberroth with 7 percent and Bill Simon -- the GOP's 2002 gubernatorial nominee -- with 6 percent. Simon abruptly quit the race Saturday, after the poll was completed. He said "there are too many Republicans" running and expressing concern his candidacy would undercut GOP efforts to oust Davis and replace the Democrat with one of their own. Three other gubernatorial contenders who have won prominent mention lag far behind the major-party hopefuls, according to the Times Poll. Independent Arianna Huffington received just 3 percent support from likely voters and the Green Party's Peter Camejo drew 1 percent, tying him with Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt. Under the idiosyncratic rules that govern the recall vote, all 135 candidates from assorted parties are listed on the same ballot. The candidate who gets the most votes will become governor -- if Davis is kicked out of office, which is the first matter to be decided in the Oct. 7 election. The Times Poll, completed Thursday night, found that 50 percent of likely voters favored the recall of Davis and 45 percent were opposed, with 5 percent undecided. Likely voters do not appear happy about their options. Of the leading contenders to replace Davis, only Bustamante and Ueberroth are seen in a largely positive light, though only half of likely voters indicated they knew enough about Ueberroth to make a decision. Others are even lesser known or, in the case of Flynt, Huffington and Simon, are seen in mostly negative terms. Schwarzenegger has a mixed image among likely voters, with 46 percent saying they have a favorable impression of the movie star and 44 percent saying they have a negative impression.
It Depends What The Meaning Of The Word 'Deficit' Is August 20, 2003 by Ann Coulter (mmmmmmmmmmmm) <-- I added this part. SPEAKING AT the University of California in Los Angeles this week, California Gov. Gray Davis admitted he had made some mistakes and called the recall effort a "right-wing power grab." I guess Bill Clinton really is advising him. Proving Davis' "right-wing power grab" theory, the two men who are currently most likely to replace him are a tax-and-spend liberal who supports abortion and a tax-and-spend liberal who supports abortion. One is Cruz Bustamante, Davis' lieutenant governor, who has displayed the Democrats' renowned tolerance and commitment to civil rights the Bob Byrd way – by using the n-word at a dinner celebrating Black History month. (You'd think the California Democrats could come up with a standard bearer to replace Davis who manages to avoid using racial slurs at a public gathering to celebrate black achievements.) The other is Arnold Schwarzenegger, who quickly brought billionaire investor Warren Buffett on board as an adviser. Moments later, Buffett announced his enthusiasm for repealing Proposition 13 and raising taxes. In addition to high taxes, Buffett's other passion is abortion, proving once again that no one understands the little guy like a multi-billionaire. Conservatives were wary of Schwarzenegger even before Tax 'em and Kill 'em Buffett joined the campaign. Schwarzenegger claims to be a fiscal conservative and a liberal on social issues. Historically, that means: "liberal." All politicians claim to be tax-cutting, fiscal conservatives when they are running for office. Bill Clinton did, promising a "middle-class tax cut." Then he raised taxes. George Herbert Walker Bush did, famously pledging that no matter how many times Congress came to him with a tax hike, he would say, "Read my lips, no new taxes." And then he raised taxes. So it's not a good sign when a politician isn't holding ticker-tape parades before the election showcasing his love of tax cuts. Still, there are many arguments to be made in Schwarzenegger's favor. First of all, he's not Gray Davis. Thanks to Davis' fiscal wizardry, California is fast becoming a Third World country. Taxpayers are leaving the state in droves, sick of paying for government workers' Riviera retirement plans. In California, the fabulously rich support the poor with government jobs, paid for by the middle class – which is now living in Arizona. It is puzzling why anyone would want to assume control of this fiasco. It's like vying to become Roseanne Barr's next husband. Sure you'd get your name in the paper, but look at the mess you'd be getting yourself into. And yet there are hundreds of Californians lining up to replace Gray Davis. There are even a few serious candidates like Tom McClintock and Bill Simon who do have plans that actually would save the Golden State. At this stage, Schwarzenegger's main selling point is that he seems to have excellent name recognition with an electorate that already knowingly elected Gray Davis and Cruz Bustamante. Former child actor Gary Coleman would be a major improvement over Gray Davis. Indeed, among the nut candidates, probably only Arianna Huffington could drive the middle class from California faster than Gray Davis has, with this latter-day Norma Desmond gleefully spray-painting their SUVs on the way out. Within days of his announcement, the media leapt on Schwarzenegger, demanding that he produce a detailed outline of his plan to save California from sinking into the ocean. Davis has been governor for five years and the watchdog media have yet to ask him what his plan is. In deciding to run, Arnold has already proven himself to be more decisive than Davis. In announcing that he didn't need anyone's money but his own, Arnold has proven himself to be of a different species than Gray Davis. This leads to another positive about Schwarzenegger, which is that he's not Gray Davis. Literally millions of low-income immigrants are pouring into California without job skills or even language skills. If we were able to trick Mexico into taking California back, Los Angeles would have the second largest population of Mexicans in Mexico – only Mexico City would have more. While illegal immigrants generally work, they don't contribute to the income or property tax base. Their birth rates are far higher than other groups, so they consume a large portion of the state's health-care and welfare systems. As the tax base floods out legally, the taxpayer-dependents flood in illegally. Davis responded to this crisis by virtually dismantling immigration enforcement in California. Law enforcement officials are prohibited from even asking people about their national origin. Davis fought Propositions 187 and 209 after the voters overwhelmingly approved them. Meanwhile, Arnold is the Republicans' kind of immigrant: legal. But the press is crucifying Arnold for voting "yes" on Proposition 187 back in 1994 – along with 60 percent of his fellow Californians. Apparently, this makes him "out of the mainstream." In addition, it's important to note that Schwarzenegger is not Gray Davis. We're all reading tea leaves, but it must mean something that Schwarzenegger goes around calling himself a Republican. Jesse Ventura never called himself a Republican. Michael Bloomberg was a lifelong Democrat who became a Republican only to run for mayor of New York. Northeastern liberal Republicans like John Lindsay called themselves Republicans because they associated the Democrats with the dirty working class. Schwarzenegger is part of the Hollywood elite and is married to a Kennedy, and yet he calls himself a Republican. (In his defense, Schwarzenegger has no connection to Justice Anthony Kennedy.) You don't go around calling yourself a Republican in Hollywood to win admiring glances from studio executives. To take a page from the gays' handbook: "Who would choose this lifestyle? Who would choose to be persecuted, censored and ostracized?" Schwarzenegger was the moving force behind Proposition 49 last year, a taxpayer-funded after-school program for students. Admittedly, that doesn't sound like the mark of a Milton Friedman conservative. But, curiously, Proposition 49 was opposed by all the right people, including the California Federation of Teachers, the League of Women Voters of California and the American Association of University Women. Supporting the proposition were the California Chamber of Commerce, the California Business Roundtable and various taxpayer groups. It turns out that Schwarzenegger's after-school programs would be paid for out of the state's general fund – unless the fund dried up. The Parasite Lobby opposed the after-school programs on the grounds that it would reduce flexibility in government spending and divert money away from other needed programs – such as even bigger pensions for the parasites. Schwarzenegger's initiative basically required that some taxpayer money be spent on taxpayers. It's not as good as a tax cut, but at least Schwarzenegger is not Gray Davis.
If Bustamente wins, wanta bet a recall petition effort starts before his term starts? I would take the same bet for Arnold. Shoot, it might take 3 or 4 recall elections, before the Cali voters figure out that a scam is a foot.
The best thing about the recall... is that Dan Issa spent his own money on a power grab and had to cry his way home. What a p***y. But Batman, those #s are frightening to me... as soon as the republican base starts to consolidate I think that Arnold will be even or higher than Bustamante. It could be worse... I guess Arnold could be a republican... but at least w/ a democrat in office California won't be perceived to be 'in play' during the Presidential race.
Achebe, there are far more Democrats than Republicans in California. No need to worry. The trend is good. Will probably be Bustamente. Could even be Davis. At this point, Bustamente would be better for Dems, but either way's better than a Republican (even a fake one like Arnold) as governor during 04. And I totally agree with you about Issa. That was about as good as seeing Stockton cry.
mrpaige, it might not be a 'scam', but it doesn't seem to be ethical... in the opinions of many of my republican friends. Either way no one comes out on top... 1) Republicans that think the recall is unethical will still have to support their own interests by being hypocrites and voting for a republican. 2) Democrats that think the recall is unethical will still have to protect themselves by, being hypocrites and possibly electing another democrat. 3) The people that really think recalls are a good idea... will learn their lesson when they realize that it is ridiculous to be able to recall an elected official w/ a paltry 1 million votes. "Gee, we have 30 million citizens... I wonder if we can find 1 (or whatever the tech. %age is) million partisan people in the party that is out of office.... hmmmm". Batman, I hope you're right. I despise Davis, but I want him to survive the recall.
I think it's a bad idea, and I also think it would be better for the state and for California politics (and potentially politics in other states with similar recall ability) if Davis survives, but I would not consider following the letter of the state constitution to be a scam, nor even unethical. It can be said that the purpose is to remove those who abuse their power, but the law was purposely left vague so that the electorate could chose to recall whoever for whatever reason. The law specifically notes that the reasons for the recall cannot be challenged. The framers had to believe that there would be times when a person would be removed for something trivial, including nothing more than politics (and, as I noted in a previous thread, that's what it has been used for in the past), yet they steadfastly refused to narrow the scope of the law to enumerate reasons and prevent such political manuevers from being the basis of such a recall. The recall is working exactly the way those who installed it wanted it to work. If it's bad, it's the law that should be changed. But I would argue that even those who got this law put in the state constitution in the first place would not be frowning on this recall effort. Personally, I think that if there has to be a recall mechanism in the law, it should be very narrow to include criminal or unethical behavior or things of that ilk (and I really think that would be unnecessary the vast majority of the time) But, given the law the way it is now, I don't think there's anything wrong with using the law as written and as intended. I would not consider that to be unethical or a scam of any sort.
Interesting article that would argue perhaps that the recall is not working the way it was intended. ************ First Offense The California recall is traced back to its flawed Progressive beginnings. By Harold Meyerson Web Exclusive: 8.21.03 Print Friendly | Email Article What's wrong with this picture? California's Democratic congressional delegation, meeting behind closed doors, decides that the state's lieutenant governor, Cruz Bustamante, should be the Democrat whose name appears down-ticket on the pending recall ballot. Party leaders successfully lean on the state's Democratic insurance commissioner, John Garamendi, to withdraw from the race. Meanwhile, over on the Republican side, party honchos from county chairmen to big donors to House Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier are doing all they can to pressure two conservative candidates to drop out of the race so that Arnold has a cleaner shot. In short, the California recall, which has been both hailed and reviled as a great outburst of direct democracy, has actually removed a whole range of choices from voters and resurrected a long-gone and unlamented tradition in the state's electoral politics: the back room. What the recall has done is eliminated the primary. In a normal election, Golden State Republicans would themselves be able to select who their standard-bearer would be. Democrats would comparison shop among a number of promising candidates, rather than be presented with the fait accompli of Bustamante as their backup standard-bearer. Indeed, Democrats have every reason to be dissatisfied with both the process and the result. The party has several outstanding statewide elected officials, in particular Attorney General Bill Lockyer and Treasurer Phil Angelides, who've been planning to run for governor when Gray Davis's term expires in 2006. For progressives who follow such things, Angelides ranks with New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer as the nation's outstanding nongubernatorial state official. California's treasurer has directed the state's massive public pension funds toward the redevelopment of inner cities and inner-ring suburbs rather than exurban sprawl, has used those funds to pressure corporate boards to behave responsibly, and was the first California official to propose a serious fix (the establishment of a publicly owned state power company) during the energy crisis. Before the recall came along, the smart money for 2006 was on either Angelides or Lockyer to win the Democratic gubernatorial primary and the subsequent general election. Each already had roughly $10 million in his campaign kitty. Bustamante, by contrast, had less than $500,000, and it's no mystery why that figure was so relatively low: After three terms in the state Assembly and one as lieutenant governor, he had no achievements to point to, no vision to articulate and no ability to articulate a vision if he stumbled upon one. But party members are now slowly realizing that the Democrat most likely to be governor after Davis may not be a groundbreaking progressive after all but rather Cruz the Snooze. Just as Republicans are realizing that the Republican most likely to run the state may share few of their values. The fault is not that of the congressional delegations or donors or other king-makers. In the absence of a primary, somebody had to winnow the field. The blame in this instance rests chiefly with the California Progressives of 100 years ago, whose support for direct democracy was exceeded by their loathing of political parties. When Hiram Johnson swept into the governor's office in 1911, he and his fellow Progressives didn't merely establish the initiative, referendum and recall. They also abolished political parties at the level of municipal government, and to this day all city and county offices in California are nonpartisan. At the state level, they made it possible for candidates to run in more than one party's primary, a practice that lingered until midcentury. The Progressives' war on parties did not flow entirely from their disinterested belief in good government. It was in good measure intended to thwart the rise of Debsian socialism in California. In the same year Johnson became governor, socialist Job Harriman came alarmingly close to winning the mayor's race in Los Angeles. The Progressives reasoned they could quell such working-class mischief if party labels were no longer affixed to candidates' names. And so, they made a fatal misstep in setting up the recall the way they did. When you think of it, there's no reason why a recall couldn't proceed in two stages. In Round One, voters could decide on whether to recall the incumbent and vote in a simultaneous primary for their party's nominee should the recall succeed. And, if the recall succeeded, voters in Round Two could decide among the party nominees in a runoff. But the Progressives made no provision allowing voters to sort their choices by party. As well, they assumed that recalls would be triggered only by instances of incumbent malfeasance; they believed the process would be largely apolitical. The abiding mistake of the Progressives was their belief that they could take the politics out of politics. And so, in California today we have what was designed as an anti-political process being used for entirely political ends. It may be direct, but it's hardly democracy. Harold Meyerson is editor-at-large of the Prospect.
So what if it is? It's not like the California State Constitution was handed down from on high via a burning bush. (nor was the federal one, for that matter; the Founders today would probably laugh if they knew the reverence with which some try to divine their intent from beyond the grave to see how it applies to the internet.) It was drawn up by a bunch of normal state legislators and has been amended a bunch of times by other normal state legislators. It's got 34 articles, some of which deal with such lofty constitutional issues such as "MOTOR VEHICLE FUEL SALES TAX REVENUES"; many of which have been repealed. Constitutions make mistakes too.
I love how Democrats are attacking Issa or saying that the recall is "unethical," meanwhile Democratic Gray Davis is the worst governor in the nation by far and is hated by even Democrats. Bustamante took shots at him! That's why the recall succeeded, because the Democrat governor drove California into the ground, not because of any power grab or right wing corruption. If it was a Republican governor this would be touted as one of the greatest things to ever happen to democracy in America. Issa would be held as a visionary.
And you'd be whining about how it was a scam that a governor who the Republicans elected just 9 months before was being recalled. Blah, blah, blah.
Yeah, that would be wild if that happened, but it won't. The democratic party isn't organized enough to pull those kinds of tricks unfortunately. Extra-electoral hijinks to get people into and out of office are the Republicans domain these days, as in Florida, or Ken Starr, etc.
Really? Do you have governor-performance-meter? How does such a thing work? Don't stereotype Bustamante. Really? I wonder how many people that filled out the petition were democrats... does anybody have this information? Do you personally think, Mr. Clutch, that it would be difficult for the party out of office in California, to get 1 million votes, in order to recall the governor? (ps, I'm still laughing about Issa... hehe, what a p***y). BTW, didn't the tech industry crash recently? Was that Davis' doing? Are you talking about how California shouldn't have cut taxes during the good years? Somebody (pretty please) summarize the things that have screwed up California. Incidentally, I don't know what the hubbub is about Ca. I think California's deficit (8b$) is nearly as low as Utah's was last year (5b$)... and we have 2 million people... and they have 30 million people. Incidentally2, I despise Davis as much as the next guy (more b/c of rumors re: his campaign finance style, ie, telling the teacher's union that he needs a few mil during the middle of a chat about kids)... but the ability to recall an elected governor is completely silly to me (the need to recall someone b/c of a criminal conviction was mentioned earlier... but it seems as if that sort of thing is, er. covered by the law, ie. no governance from prison). I guess to each his own. You say California. I say Utah.
Where did you get 8 billion deficit? It's a little more than that. http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/07/23/davis.recall/ The state is facing a $38 billion deficit and Davis' approval rating has tumbled to 21 percent. What other governor has racked up that kind of deficit OR that low of an approval rating, 'Heb? Some things that happened under Gray Davis: -Cozy state pension deal costs taxpayers billions http://www.sacbee.com/content/politics/columns/weintraub/story/7198597p-8145436c.html -Special Interests Davis is expected to sign a Democratic bill giving rich Indian tribes say over the environmental impact of developments within five miles of burial sites---a law almost certain to put a nasty clamp on badly needed housing in California. kausfiles.com -Energy Crisis California utility executives begged Davis and state utility regulators to allow them to raise rates and sign long-term supply contracts, but officials delayed for six critical months, until the utilities had their financial backs to the wall. Had they acted boldly in 2000, we would not have had such a severe energy crisis in 2001. I got these from kausfiles on slate.com. But there is another article I think on the LA Times that laid out how Gray Davis allowed California to get into the budget mess. It talked about how other governors, like Dean in Vermont had not problem cutting back as the economy slowed down. But Gray Davis did the exact opposite, not making the tough decisions to make budget cuts when needed. Add on top of this that he has no real principles- he is the type of person who does things because they are politcally popular, not because they are actually right, and also how ruthless his campaigns are, and you have a very unlikeable figure. I agree this petition stuff issilly as hell. But you can't explain it as a power grab by the Republicans. It isn't easy to get 1.36 million people to sign a petition. On top of it, it looks like Gray Davis has no chance in hell of winning. If he was even moderately popular, he would be able to generate some kind of backlash.
On top of it, it looks like Gray Davis has no chance in hell of winning. If he was even moderately popular, he would be able to generate some kind of backlash. At the peak of the anti-Davis movement -- when he wasn't even fighting back -- 58% wanted him recalled. Just a week into his own campaign, only 50% do. If he gets that number down a few more points -- and voters turn out in the same proportions as the polls -- Davis survives. And he has just barely begun to campaign. It's still early, but I seriously doubt Davis will end up actually being recalled.
Mr. Clutch, I read somewhere that Ca.'s deficit, through their upcoming budget agreement... had been slashed from 40 billion... to 8 billion (but before I compare Ca. and UT, I should examine whether or not my own state's deficit has been addressed). I would also suggest that there are understandable reasons for California to be in a larger fiscal mess than other states (ie immigration, state funded boob jobs, etc.) but I think it's somewhat moot... I think very poorly of Davis, so I'm not going to waste time defending him. I will still make fun of weirdos that recall their governor, however. It's so absurd to me, that whenever I have the need to feel better than someone else... I'll conjure up the image of Issa crying on the tele. "waaahh... Arnold messed up my coup d'etat. waaah".
A related article from SF Weekly (SF Weekly is a part of the New Times chain which includes the Houston Press and Dallas Observer): Recalling Reagan In trying to remove Gov. Ronald Reagan from office, liberal activists spawned the Davis recall and a host of other political ills BY MATT SMITH matthew.smith@sfweekly.com When witnessing the pageant of political alienation afflicting our state, I blame the recall. When I see the signature-gathering zealots rubbing their hands together and a movie-star politician posing for fans, I point to the recall. When I consider what's currently wrong with California politics, I think of the unintended consequences of an unwarranted attempt to replace California's governor -- circa 1968. The effort to remove Ronald Reagan from the California governor's post, which ultimately failed, obtaining only 500,000 of the 740,000 signatures needed to qualify for the ballot, was an earnest, well-intentioned effort by self-styled progressives to improve the lives of Californians. And it had awful, unforeseen, long-lasting consequences for our state. Even though it failed, the effort to recall Reagan galvanized a movement called the People's Lobby, which during its heyday -- from the early- to mid-1970s -- was obsessed with popularizing California's "direct democracy" laws. The group, founded by Los Angeles-area activists with left leanings, invented many of the tools that political consultants now use to run statewide initiative campaigns. The main beneficiaries of those inventions have not been liberal organizations, but the right-leaning individuals and groups that sponsored initiatives such as 1978's tax-cutting Proposition 13, 1990's Proposition 140, which limited the numbers of terms legislators could serve, and this year's attempt to recall Gov. Gray Davis. During the post-People's Lobby era, dozens of other statewide ballot measures gained voter approval, severely limiting elected officials' ability to govern, and contributing to the state's current budget problems. I'm a Reagan-hating Democrat born and bred, but I do believe that California would have been better off if well-meaning progressives had not tried to give one to the Gipper. I can only hope the right-wing extremists behind the current recall live to likewise suffer from their handiwork. Now there's a ballot initiative I could get behind: A Measure to Apply the Law of Unintended Consequences to Gloating Republicans. Although referendum, initiative, and recall are most closely associated with former Gov. Hiram Johnson and the 1911 law that established them in California, direct democracy didn't really take off here until the People's Lobby got hold of it. The People's Lobby campaign against Reagan began benignly, wonderfully even. Ed Koupal, an anti-establishmentarian used-car salesman from Roseville who was angry at Reagan's efforts to loot higher education and close facilities for mental patients, led the removal effort. Even though the attempt to force a recall election failed by several hundred thousand signatures, Koupal's People's Lobby was emboldened, and it sponsored a raft of early-1970s, left-wing petition drives. Some of the ballot measures thus authorized were successful, and some were not, but they resurrected and energized California's previously moribund direct-democracy laws. The People's Lobby turned the art of drafting propositions, gathering signatures, and garnering media attention into a technological science. Petition card-tables at strip malls, snappy signature-gathering sales pitches, slick initiative media campaigns -- that's all Ed Koupal. But he and the People's Lobby spawned something else, too: Soon, wealthy gadflies, corporate lobbyists, and a cottage industry of consultants, signature-gatherers, and press agents began learning from those early initiative-hyping methods. For example, Howard Jarvis and Paul Gann, backers of 1978's Proposition 13, which limited municipalities' ability to raise property taxes, attended Koupal's direct-democracy seminars. Since the People's Lobby brought modern campaign techniques to the initiative process, the average number of statewide ballot measures passed per political season has increased threefold. And during that time, laws enacted by voters have cut to the core of the way government is run, transforming elected representatives' ability to tax, to spend, even to stay in office. The explosion of government-by-petition in California has also created a corrosive initiative-industrial complex, in which companies dedicated to signature-gathering, legal services, and political consulting conceive and implement campaigns to place initiatives on the ballot. Ahead of their time, People's Lobby leaders became obsessed with campaign finance reform. They helped pass a major campaign initiative in 1974, the year before Koupal died. But it was too little, too late, and has done almost nothing to stanch the use of initiative and recall laws by anyone with $2 million to spend on signature-gatherers and television ads and a yen to throw a wrench into the California political machine. "In the days we were doing it, we were one of those grass-roots groups. You had a pulse of the people, and the people were actually pissed off enough to sacrifice time and energy to get signatures and support an initiative," says former Koupal aide Dwayne Hunn, who is working on a biography of Ed Koupal and his wife, Joyce. "Things have changed a lot since then." Simultaneously a pioneer of California petition politics and a staunch liberal, Hunn finds himself of mixed mind regarding this summer's political season. "Personally, I'm going to vote against the recall. But what I think is healthy about this is that you've got 135 potential candidates out there; 70 or 80 of them probably haven't been too politically engaged. You've got all of them debating issues. Instead of cops and robbers leading the news, politics is leading the news," says Hunn, a former high school teacher. "I think having this recall is good. It's going to force the debate, and people will get a little smarter. It will push the country's IQ level forward when it comes to politics." Perhaps it will even make us smart enough to fulfill Ed Koupal's dream of direct democracy tempered by restraints on political spending. And this time around, those restraints should apply -- specifically -- to political campaigns that pay signature-gatherers to promote initiatives and recalls meant to short-circuit the workings of a messy but time-tested form of government that most of America uses, most of the time. It is known as representative democracy, and it is something California needs to go back to, if it is to have much of a future. To test the general thesis that the gubernatorial recall had made California politics into a festival of phoniness, I attended a political rally earlier this month at 16th and Mission streets. There, Sophie McGee, a brash twentysomething with fashionably straightened hair, surveyed the crowd of sign-toters and television cameramen, turned to a girlfriend, and scowled. "I wish they'd turn the cameras on me; I'd tell them that's not what the Mission looks like," McGee said. "They should get the heroin addicts out from up in the hotels. They just trucked those people in so it would look good." McGee had a point about the otherworldly nature of the gathering, a choreographed "inner-city" campaign stop for gubernatorial candidate Arianna Huffington. The event immediately followed a California leftist summit at the Mission Street offices of the Global Exchange human rights advocacy group, where Huffington and Green Party candidate Peter Miguel Camejo reached a vague agreement to "work together" to motivate left voters. Huffington, in an executive's pantsuit, tight-fitting patterned blouse, and dagger-toed pumps, impressed in person both as a prettier version of Raisa Gorbachev and as an unlikely galvanizer of the left. (After all, she's the same millionaire Greek socialite who helped her former husband spend $30 million trying to be a Republican U.S. senator and subsequently became a muse of the Gingrich Revolution.) After the summit ended I got into an elevator a couple of seconds before Huffington's entourage. She crowded in ahead of her handlers, momentarily sized me up, then gripped my palm sideways and squeezed. "Ohmigawd," I realized, "a soul brother handshake." Moments later she stepped outside to the 16th and Mission BART station, where a handler thrust into her arms a 4-year-old African-American girl and told Huffington the child's name was Jasmine. "By the time Jasmine goes to California schools," Huffington said into a bullhorn, "there should be schools worth going to."
So, if it's a mistake, change it. But until then, it's not a scam. It's the law. It's not fraudulent. It's not a swindle. It's the law.
