'Independents' day in California
The really ugly news was how Cruz Bustamante got his ass kicked. Schwarzenegger outpolled him by 1.3 million votes.
How does this happen in California, truest blue of the blue states?
Call it a declaration of independents. 24% of voters (about 1.75 million) identified themselves as "Independent or other", and only 28% of them voted for Cruz (these numbers are all from the Washington Post exit poll).
Independents gave votes to Arnold (about 850,000) and took them from Bustamante and gave them to the Greens (212,000; yes, you Greens were at it again).
Democrats helped. 500,000 self-styled Democrats voted for Arnold.
The independent mind set (in which I include "Democrats who don't have the sense to vote Democratic") was well summarized by two exit poll info-bits:
58% of people said the candidate's stand on the issues determined their vote.
64% said Arnold hadn't addressed the issues enough.
In other words, "Arnold didn't bore me with the issues. That's why I voted for him, dammit!"
One would think that 3 years of Bush, war, deficits, and recession would have cured us of the optimistic "let's vote for the anvil-headed guy; things will probably work out OK" illusion.
Maybe Arnold will turn out to be a horndog, Hitler-loving version of Dick Riordan, the white-shoe closet liberal Rhino (Republican In Name Only), who would have made a pretty good governor if Davis hadn't pre-emptively slimed him out of the GOP primary.
But early signs are not promising. In addition to appointing ex-gov and divisive GOP bad guy Pete Wilson his official eminence grise, Arnold's first official act was to recruit a budget analyst to perform an independent audit of California's finances. For this (potential and probable) hatchet job, he turned to that patron of the arcane mathematical arts, Jeb Bush, to send him a suitable quant from the Florida state government.
Why? Was Kathleen Harris' mascara too caked up for her to take on the job?
When we are daring to hope against hope that a vulnerable George W. Bush can be voted out of office next year, the California recall was a sobering and unwelcome reminder that it's hard to get Democrats to vote Democratic, let alone independents.
But there is still hope.
Governor Schwarzenegger (how the name stumbles off the tongue!) knows what people want, and we should learn from his success.
Arnold's high profile pronouncement in his first press conference was a pledge reaffirming his promise to the hundreds of thousands of independents and Republicans who got him his job:
"I will not raise taxes".
Don't groan at this impractical, cynical, and hypocritical trope. It speaks directly to the independent soul.
Repeat it: "I will not raise taxes". Feels pretty good, doesn't it?
Karl Rove is saying to himself, If those idiots at the DNC ever learn to say those 5 words, they're going to kick our ass.
It's an act of love, it's like a mother offering the breast.
The independent hears these words and swoons in joyful surrender.
Because independents don't vote for a party, for policies, or for an agenda. They know enough about politics to know that parties are corrupt donor-servicing machines, policies are disguised vehicles for special interests, and agendas are hypocritical and self-serving.
That's as deep as they want to go.
They want to be left alone.
They vote to abdicate social and political responsibility, to shift the burden to the broad (and in Arnold's case, suspiciously ever-more padded) shoulders of someone who promises to let the whole state go to hell rather than raise their taxes one itty-bitty penny.
They also vote to be confirmed in their privileges and immunities, the white middle and upper class that imagines itself the helpless victim of government intrusion.
"No new taxes" reassures them that yes, the rest of the world gets its turn in the meatgrinder before their number comes up.
It's something to remember when we think about getting rid of George W. Bush.
Iraq isn't going to do it. America has Iraq fatigue. To America, it's not a victory or a moral, military, and financial catastrophe. Now it's just another screwed up ghetto, filled with angry brown people, policed by angry white people, only able to push itself onto the front pages of deaths per incident run into double digits.
George doesn't want to hear about Iraq, and neither do the independents. Aggressive news management, with the press rolling over for the umpteenth time in its willingness to recycle feel-good pronouncements about Iraq, will do the rest.
If the economy finally turns the corner next spring, people will regard George W. Bush with little more than unfocussed distaste.
Democratic harrumphing about how badly he's done his job will generate little enthusiasm.
Without charismatic outsiders energizing the race, the usual procession of gray, droning Democratic candidates will need serious help in winning over the independents.
Taking the anti-tax pledge may be enough to do it.
If, like me, you think that the most important thing for the sake of the world, the environment, and our society is getting rid of George W. Bush...
...and if all it takes is those 5 little words...
I say give me liberty and give me deficits!
