Another pet peeve of mine that I of course have not seen in the mainstream media: is the allegedly womanizing Arnold Schwarzenegger fit to be Governor of California? Yep…

To some, the late-campaign allegations probably seem damning and shocking. For us in California, though, it’s exactly the type of dirty campaigning that Gray Davis has committed over and over to help prop himself up for the past 30 years in California politics. There’s nothing new about it at all.

I was getting my haircut yesterday and my usual stylist (whose name is Page) said something that’s probably so true (and I paraphrase). “You just know that all those women used to sit around at parties and whisper to their friends ‘Guess what! Arnold touched me and it was so cool!’ Why didn’t they complain sooner instead of the week before the election?” Page is my kind of lady.

To me, that’s bang on the money. The knowledge of having been touched by a big star had probably always been something they were secretly proud of—if it even occurred at all—but never did any good for them. Now, however, they can make political hay and get their names all over the evening news—maybe get some big lawsuit money out of it. What bullshit…

I am not in any way condoning misconduct toward women or anyone else—everyone needs to be treated with a modicum of courtesy and respect. But by the same token, people need to realize that everyone’s got some skeletons in their closets. What does a last-minute smear campaign have to do with leadership or governing or trying to get the state of California out of its effective bankruptcy? Nothing—just more partisan political games.

For the rest of you, just remember this:

Does the fact that Arnold may have inappropriately had dealings with women mean that he’s not qualified to be a Republican candidate for governor? Maybe not—but it does make him the perfect candidate to be a Democratic President of the United States.

At least we haven’t had to endure stories about blowjobs under the Lincoln Desk, and it’s nice to know that Arnold seems to know the proper thing to do with a cigar, i.e. smoke it…

I went to my polling place this morning at 7:20 AM—I’ve never seen so many people out voting in my entire life. Maybe we should recall the Governor more often if it means people get out and vote.

I have to admit that I was absolutely delighted to go and pull the lever—or, more accurately, punch the card—to throw Gray Doofus out of office. I was equally excited to punch candidate number 50, Arnold Schwarzenegger, onto my card. The pollsters are saying everything from “He’s outta there” to “it’s too close to call”, though most acknowledge that Arnold is the leading replacement candidate. I’m just hoping to wake up tomorrow knowing that democracy works, and that the people have the right and responsibility to remove from office their elected officials who are not performing. One of the guys I worked with doesn’t understand this concept, and in fact didn’t vote at all as a “protest”. Fine—more chance for the recall to succeed.

The other thing I’m anxiously awaiting is for Governor Schwarzenegger to repeal the auto registration fee hike with a stroke of the pen—mine’s due on October 24th, and I’d sure appreciate not having to cough up $663.00 in the next two weeks. Call it “enlightened self-interest” It’s not my job to bail out the state of California by shelling out three times what I normally do to register my car. Let Gray Davis take it out of his outrageous campaign war chest—let him start paying for some of the damage he caused.

I won’t go so far as to take back all the bad things I’ve ever said about the liberal 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, but at least they got it right this time.

I just read on the internet that the full 11-judge panel of the 9th circuit overturned the 3-judge panel’s earlier election stay. Our recall can go forward on October 7th as planned and as everyone—even Gray Davis—has advocated. I suppose there’ll be a U.S. Supreme Court appeal by the ACLU, but everyone thinks they’ll turn them down like a bedspread. (LATE ADDITION: The ACLU has said they will not appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court—good move…)

This is just par for the course in our contentious, unreasonable, idiotic society today. Pretty much all thoughtful political discourse is gone, replaced by polemics, polarization and extremism. Politics—like law—has gone so far away from its original purposes and is now merely a “win or lose” contest for people with big egos. It doesn’t matter how they do it or what they’ll actually do in office, it’s only important that the candidate win. This, more than anything, is why politics is such a disreputable, dirty business in my opinion.

For my part, I’m voting for Arnold Schwarzenegger . I’ve always believed that the last person to ever vote for is a professional politician. Arnold is a naturalized citizen so he knows what it’s like to be from the outside. He’ll be someone who’s moderate on social issues to appeal to our liberal citizenry, but has enough fiscal conservatism and responsibility to hopefully inject some sanity into our budgetary and spending fiasco that Gray Davis caused. Hell—even the Log Cabin Republicans have endorsed him, not that I tend to listen to them very much.

More than anything, I—like the rest of California—can’t wait until it’s finally over…