Arnold Goes Centrist-Left

Here's how it went down in Fornicalia:

On October 7th, 2003, Fornicalia's first-ever gubernatorial recall election was held in an attempt to remove what I considered to be the emptiest of empty political suits, then-Governor Gray Davis. Election results were confirmed and certified on November 14th. Davis became the first governor in Fornicalia history to be recalled, and only the second in the entire history of the United States to be recalled.

Directly from the recall petition: [Governor Davis's actions were a] "gross mismanagement of California Finances by overspending taxpayers' money, threatening public safety by cutting funds to local governments, failing to account for the exorbitant cost of the energy, and failing in general to deal with the state's major problems until they get to the crisis stage."

Davis was so terribly ineffectual that even the sluggish, sloth-like and left-leaning blue electorate recognized his incompetence and voted him out. That in and of itself was one helluva statement.

After having announced his candidacy on the Jay Leno show, and saying he would make a sincere attempt to reduce the influence of special interests, actor Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected by a large margin out of 135 candidates -- essentially, a so-called mandate from the masses.

The results (top 12 candidates) were:

NAME - PARTY - VOTES - PERCENTILE OF VOTE

Arnold Schwarzenegger, Rep, 4,203,596, 48.6
Cruz M. Bustamante, Dem, 2,723,768, 31.5
Tom McClintock, Rep, 1,160,182, 13.5
Peter Miguel Camejo, Grn, 242,169, 2.8
Arianna Huffington, Ind, 47,486, 0.6
Peter V. Ueberroth, Rep, 25,125, 0.3
Larry Flynt, Dem, 17,446, 0.3
Gary Coleman, Ind, 14,235, 0.2
George B. Schwartzman, Ind, 12,370, 0.2
Mary Cook, Ind, 11,174, 0.2
Bruce Martin Margolin, Dem, 9,177, 0.2
Bill Simon, Rep, 8,904, 0.2

With this mandate, Gov. Schwarzenegger repealed, within 24 hours it seemed, an incredibly unpopular vehicle license fee and overturned legislation that would have granted driver's licenses to illegal immigrants. He linked both parties to overhaul the workers' compensation system, renegotiated gambling compacts with the state's Indian tribes (not the most popular of measures), and linked both sides with a $15 billion borrowing measure that, some say, merely delayed the proverbial paying of the budgetary piper. He also vetoed gay marriage. All this in roughly one year.

He then went out on a limb and pushed for our November special election containing quite a number of excellent propositions that, in my estimation, would have placed our state firmly back on the path of normality -- and was rewarded with a resounding electoral kick in the teeth.

Arnold did an amazing thing for a politician: he took a huge, huge step, an extraordinary step, and pushed for propositions that would have helped the greater masses, yielded budgetary control, and (as Arnold is wont to say) "all those things."

I was fearing he would go centrist; now he certainly has and perhaps even centrist-left:

Susan Kennedy, a former head of the California branch of the National Abortion Rights Action League, a long-time gay rights activist (she married her partner Vicki Marti in 1999) was named yesterday to replace Patricia Clarey, the former aide to Republican Governor Pete Wilson.

Kennedy has, incidentally, joined Daniel Zingale as the second former Davis aide to join Schwarzenegger's staff in (coincidentally?) the past month.

Arnold essentially tried to do too much too soon, created enemies and gored the oxen of too many two-faced, hypocritical voters -- who happen to need oxen-holing.

So I suppose it shouldn't shock us to discover, with a 2006 re-election campaign looming, he's going for more bang for his buck.

He already knows he won't get it from the Right.