Well, I can't believe I haven't weighed in on this before now, but since the appointed day has come for Californians to decide whether they should give the boot to their governor, whom they just elected last November, I guess I'd best weigh in now.
I see from this report at Yahoo! News that at least one poll worker said that this particular election has seen a turnout at her polling station the likes of which she hadn't seen in twelve years. I'm not sure that's necessarily a good thing. Something like two million absentee ballots have already been cast.
I'm all for democracy in action, but, let's face it, these people had a chance to decide who should be governor last November, and one has to wonder just where the hell all these people were then. This whole recall circus has cost the state over $67 million so far, and by law, if Governor Davis somehow "wins" by withstanding the recall vote, and memory serves, the state will have to reimburse him the millions he spent to campaign all over again.
In principle, I guess I can see the value in getting an ineffective leader out of office, but in practice, this whole exercise has been ridiculously expensive, and I cannot help but be tempted to blame the voters in California who didn't take the time to do their homework the first time around and not elect Davis in the first place. Furthermore, the guy was elected with less than fifty percent of the vote. A testament to the dangers of voter apathy, perhaps, is the California recall debacle.
If recalled, Davis would only be the second governor in US history to have been so ousted from office, the first having been then-North Dakota Governor Lynn Frazier way back in 1921.
In today's hyperactive, short-attention-span society, though, I can't help but think that this may end up setting a bad precedent. How can our leaders function effectively, for example, if they fear being second-guessed at every turn, and have to be distracted by campaigning against constant recall attempts? Will general elections end up meaning nothing?
And then we get to the heir-apparent, our good friend Arnold Schwarzenegger, who looked to be a shoe-in until allegations of past episodes of fondling women against their will came to light. Now, most of these episodes were long in the past, and he has acknowledged and apolgized for a few of them. Then, predictably, many more allegations came to light, to the point where one has to wonder whether they're all genuine (which, again, takes away from the credibility of the women who may genuinely have been wronged). It seems unlikely that this development will save Governor Davis, but will it irreparably harm Schwarzenegger's chances? Maybe it will. And maybe it should, especially if the more recent allegations are true.
In any event, I'm sure we won't have a hard time following the chronicles of the misadventures of California politics over the coming days and weeks. Should make for some interesting reading, and blogging, to say the least.
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