Far be it from me to insist that politicians actually take positions before the election, but now that we’ve made Arnold governor, it will be neat to find out what he actually stands for and how he intends to deal with our various crises. It’s a little disheartening that his only campaign position with any specificity was to promise cutting the auto licensing “tax” (really a fee). We already have a budget gap in the tens of billions, so hey, what’s a few billion more?
As a California citizen and parent, I wait with great interest to find out how Schwarzenegger’s approach to the state’s cruel budgetary quandary is going to differ from Davis’s. Schwarzenegger is about to learn that funding a state’s schools and services is a different beast from funding a movie production.
Maybe what’s actually happened is that we’ve elected Pete Wilson as governor and Arnold as figurehead. Maybe Maria Shriver will call in the Kennedy brigade. One thing’s for sure: Somebody better write Arnold a good script, and fast, or all that telegenic flesh is going to ooze off him to reveal the metallic exoskeleton of greed and power-lust that actually shaped his campaign.
For my money, by the way, the absolute best piece of writing so far on this election is today’s piece in Salon by Cary Tennis. Here’s a taste:
The election of Arnold Schwarzenegger is profoundly undemocratic not because the majority didn’t win but because the majority acted as moviegoers rather than as citizens. Democracy is not simply about the vote. The vote is not simply like a ticket bought at Disneyland. And citizenship is not about the satisfaction of the id. |
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