Special Election

I saw a “Recall Arnold” bumper sticker yesterday.

This post from Atrios tells me we’re going to be seeing a lot of them:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger suddenly ranks among the most unpopular governors in modern California history, as residents grow increasingly unhappy about the action hero-turned-politician’s budget plans and his call for a special election, according to a new Field Poll.

Less than a third — 31 percent — of the state’s adults approve of the job the governor is doing in Sacramento, down from 54 percent in February. The numbers are only slightly better among registered voters, 37 percent of whom are happy with Schwarzenegger’s performance and 53 percent dissatisfied.

“There’s very little for the governor to cheer about in this poll,” said Mark DiCamillo, director of the Field Poll. “There’s a very broad-based view that the governor is off on the wrong track.”

[…]

We’ve seen these type of reversals and downturns before, but almost always because of an external event, like the declining economy for Wilson or the energy crisis for Davis,” DiCamillo said. “But here, almost nothing has changed. It’s almost a self-inflicted thing.”

Well, when you run as a superhero who is going to magically solve all problems by the sheer force of your supernatural powers, people tend to be quickly disappointed when they realize that you are actually a pampered movie star who doesn’t have a clue.

Ronald Reagan gave speeches several times a week for many, many years before he ever ran for Governor. He was a fixture of the Republican establishment of California. Schwarzenneger didn’t do any of the (ahem) heavy lifting that a person needs to do before they are ready to run the 7th largest economy in the world. It shows.

It is pathetic that Californians bought the ype, but then that’s what we do. But like the good little faddists we are, when the fad dies we reject it with a vehemence . Nobody wants to be seen in last year’s fashions. Live by the trend, die by the trend.

We do have a special election coming up — one that will cost more than 70 million dollars and that Schwarzenneger insists we hold even though a regularly scheduled election is next June. Maybe we should make it worth our while. It only takes around 900,000 signatures to get a recall on the ballot. If we were smart, we’d get a right winger to finance it. They hate him too.

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