CalPolitics
Well, there's just two days to go until the recall election, and it's looking like Arnold is going to win. I've been waffling on how I'd vote for the past few weeks, but I've finally decided to vote "no" on the recall. I have no idea who'll I'll choose for Governor should the recall pass. I'm sort of leaning towards a protest vote for the ButtMonkey Beer guy because of this quote (from the Doonesbury site):

A system that allows for two guys promoting a beer brand to be on the official ballot to run the fifth-largest economy in the world. Angry doesn't begin to cover it. Don't get me started.
CA recall candidate Scott A. Mednick, co-owner of ButtMonkey beer, when asked
"What makes you angry?"

I won't, but I'm finding it dificult to make an informed and reasonable choice. Despite my earlier comments, I was actually hoping Schwarzenegger would show me something, anything, that would give me a good reason to vote for him. But I've read and heard nothing. Not only do we have no real idea what he'll try to do if he gets elected, we also don't know what he really thinks about any important issue. Oh, you can check the boxes on the hot-button issues - Women's right to choose, gun control, immigration, education, etc.. What we don't really know is what his real political philosophy is or if he even has one.

I'm cynical enough to suspect the latter. Comparisons have been made to Ronald Reagan, but I (and others) don't think they're apt. There's plenty of well-documented evidence to show that Reagan was interested in politics 20 years before he ran for office, and he traveled for years making stump speeches for GE and others on conservative issues. Reagan wasn't a policy wonk by any stretch of the imagination, but he did bring some depth and experience in politics to the job when he became Governor of California. Comparisons to Jesse Ventura might be more fitting. Ventura got elected largely byattracting previously disaffected voters tired of politics as usual. The same thing seems to be happening here, according to this article in the San Francisco Chronicle. But Ventura had some previous political experience and also had demonstrated a real interest in politics and governing.

If Schwarzenegger has, I've seen no compelling evidence of it. Unless I do, I have to conclude that his primary motivation is simply egomania and that he's little more than a frontman for the mainstream Republicans who were part of Pete Wilson's administration. I think that the real underlying motivation for the recall is to capture California for the Republican party as a prelude to the 2004 presidential elections. Capturing California's electoral votes (difficult, but certainly less difficult with a popular Republican Governor) would virtually guarantee GWB's re-election. I don't know if the Republican backroom leadership championed Darrel Issa's efforts to recall Davis, or simply took advantage once it gained traction (and then conveniently dumped Issa); either way, they've exploited this opportunity brilliantly.

So what can we expect from a Schwarzenegger/Wilson administration after the Gray Davis interregnum? Well, the first step will be to repeal the tripling of the car tax - a move that's sure to be popular - in order to start off on a positive (if pandering) note. Special sessions will be called, audits will be initiated, any other unpopular new measures (e.g., SB 60) will be repealed, and there'll be a flurry of activity that will hopefully serve as a smokescreen while the new administration gets its house in order. It will also serve as a smokescreen for certain hot-button conservatives issues, like Worker's Comp reform and renegotiating state employee contracts.

And when that's all done, they'll still have to figure out what to do about the state's deficit and its existing debt levels. Wilson made himself very unpopular in the early/mid 90's by raising taxes in order to cover deficits, and gained little credit for lowering them afterwards. You can bet his advisors haven't forgotten that, and I'm willing to bet that no significant measures to address the deficit besides politically popular (but not necessarily effective) budget cuts will be proposed until after the 2004 elections.

The wild card in all this is Schwarzenegger himself. He has demonstrated that he's very strong willed and decisive and has the acumen to be a successful businessman. It's not unlikely that he could decide to bust out of the box his handlers want to keep him in and go his own way once he's elected. Real leadership is badly needed to address California's problems. But you have to wonder what a political neophyte with an apparently shallow understanding of the issues and no real idea of how to make effective policy would do.

Then again, it may not matter. California made have been made ungovernable by anyone due to a long series of poor policy choices stretching back to Prop. 13. Once again, I'd love to proven wrong. I'd love to see an effective Schwarzenegger administration making good policy and solving California's problems. But I'd be really surprised if that happened.