Like Recall, Totally

Feedback from the county fair

by Bryan Zepp Jamieson

08/09/03

http://www.zeppscommentaries.com/Sociology/fair2003

Of course, everyone wanted to talk about the Recall.

Nearly every county fair attendee who stopped by the Democratic booth wanted to know how we stood on recall, and who we supported. (The club is against the recall, and perforce doesn’t support anyone on the "replacement" list). Nearly everyone was either amused, incredulous, or angry about the recall itself.

The Republicans had a booth at the other end of the exposition hall (the hall adjoining our end has the science exhibits and the book sale booths, and their end opens out into pens featuring cattle and their products, which we think is apropos). They had a life-size cut cardboard cut-out of Putsch which they still use despite the actions of some miscreant who I will not name on fifth amendment grounds who once hung a sign around its neck reading "The real thing, or a cardboard cutout phoney? You decide!"

They also had a ballot box, and invited people to write down on slips of paper who they would like to see replace "Grayout" Davis, presumably in the hopes that the results would favor one of their party leaders (I assume there is someone among the 100-odd republicans running who has above 1% poll support behind Arnie). I spotted that, grinned a grin guaranteed to keep cats out of my lap, and started encouraging folks visiting the Democratic booth to mosey on down and cast a vote for Larry Flynt. It was a surprisingly popular idea.

I think the technical term for that is "monkeywrenching." You so BAD, Zepp!

Attendance is up this year. Last year, temperatures were near 100, and there was a lot of smoke from the Biscuit fire, which burned several hundred thousand acres in the coast range. This year skies are clear, and highs are in the low eighties.

Voter registration is well above normal for an off year. I registered five voters in the first hour I was there, more than the booth as a whole did in 2001.

Of course, I got asked about Arnie. And of course, I replied that while I liked Arnie’s generally liberal politics, I opposed the recall itself as a right wing power grab. I would like to see Arnie run for state assembly in his district in ‘04. I had fun asking Republicans why they were proposing to replace Davis, a centrist they excoriated for being "too liberal," with someone who is, in fact, more liberal than Davis. Party über alles, including, apparently, any semblance of a coherent political stance.

I mentioned the notion of the recall being a power grab by the extreme right to one woman and her male companion. She gave me a puzzled look. "How would you define the extreme right?" she asked.

"I consider it to be made up of people who think corporations, the extremely wealthy, and the religious whacks should be making decisions instead of the American people."

"What do you define as a religious whack?"

"Anyone who thinks their opinion on the nature of the universe trumps the Constitution of the United States."

She blinked, and I could almost hear gears shifting in her head. Apparently they hadn’t covered that one in Hectoring Liberals 101. So she shifted topics, to abortion.

"Don’t you know unborn babies have hands, and hearts, and minds?" she implored.

"Yeah. So do toads." At that point, her male companion pulled her away. A pity. I really felt we were on the verge of a breakthrough.

One acquaintance stopped by. She was a former biblical literalist who made the mistake of going to college and majoring in science. Personal intellectual integrity and honestly overcame religious fervor, and while she’s still devout, she has, if anything, less patience with literalists than I have. She felt Arnie would do something to straighten out the state, and suggested waiting for his promised program to be announced. I promised her, quite sincerely, to read it when it came out.

One old boy stepped up and announced, "I’m voting for George Bush!" Now, Republicans like to come up and get in our faces, but they don’t usually send guys in their nineties to do so. I spread my hands and looked at him. "OK," I said.

"I’m voting for George Bush!" he repeated.

I waited.

"...the minute Ken Lay goes to jail!"

I whooped. That was a pretty good line. The guy could be 25 years old, and that condition would pretty much mean he would never vote for Putsch.

One guy came up and said he was for recalling Davis. I started the usual spiel about why the recall was a bad idea.

He interrupted, and explained that he wanted Davis out because most of the deficit was caused by the rape of California by the energy providers in 2001, with the blessing of Dick Cheney, and that Davis had failed us by not being on Washington’s doorstep every day since, demanding they return the money stolen from us.

That was the one argument that stopped me dead in my tracks. I had no answer for that one, and still don’t. The guy’s right, of course. Davis could have fought, and didn’t. It’s why I don’t like Democratic centrists much more than I like Republicans. People who surrender to vileness are little improvement over the vileness to which they are surrendering.

Maybe that’s why people respond to Arnie. He’s an action hero, and they envision the Terminator firing a three-times-normal-size SAM into the private jets of Ken Lay or Dick Cheney or Pat Robertson in order to avenge California against the neo-fascist forces who are striving to destroy freedom and democracy in America.

Even the people who are laughing are disgusted. The Republican meme of the day is "people against the recall are showing their contempt for 1.6 million people who supported it." No, they are showing their contempt for the dumbest 5% of the population who were most easily led by their noses, and fucked up the whole state in so doing.

Sorry, folks. Arnie’s only an actor. He can’t just deal with these clowns by firing large projectiles at them. But he would have to deal with the mess California is in, and do so without the horse-trading and deal-making experience that a regular politician would have.

Keep Davis. He isn’t as much fun as Arnie, but he has a much better chance of getting the job done.