California’s governor, Gray Davis, is being recalled.
Since March 25, there has been a petition in circulation to recall Davis, who is accused of gross mismanagement of funds and failure to deal with problems before they reach crisis level. There were 1.6 million names on the petition. but only about 900,000 were needed to qualify the recall for the ballot.
The crazy thing about the whole situation is the list of candidates who want to take Davis’ place. The clear front-runner is Arnold Schwarzenegger, a moderate Republican. Wait, don’t laugh yet; the list gets even stranger. Also running are Larry Flint of Hustler magazine, Gary Coleman from the sitcom Diff’rent Strokes, syndicated columnist Arianna Huffington and former baseball commissioner Peter Ueberroth.
What in the world has happened in California? There is a serious possibility that “Ah-nold, the Terminator” will be the next governor of the Golden State. My question is, will Schwarzenegger be elected because he would actually make a better governor than Davis, or can he credit his overwhelming support to the well-known characters he’s played in movies. Surely, the residents of California aren’t so wrapped up in Hollywood that they’ve lost the ability to separate Schwarzenegger from his movie roles. He has tremendous name recognition, as does Flint, but Schwarzenegger’s more wholesome image is a clear advantage over the porn king.
I think California should elect Flint, become an independent nation, and transform into some pseudo-underworld for all of us that are considered despicable in the rest of the United States. Perhaps Nevada would like to join since they have already legalized prostitution. We can be a country of infidels. Just think of all the fun we could have with California’s medical marijuana and Nevada’s prostitutes. There would most likely be some mass exodus of citizens from the U.S. to the newly formed nation, and that would cause all sorts of problems. Overpopulation would certainly be an issue, but I bet all that desert out there would be converted into real estate almost overnight to accommodate the newcomers.
I’m dreaming, of course, but there actually is a chance that the entire nation could be affected by this recall election in California. If you’ll think back to history, a lot of things that started in California caught on later across the country. Some recent examples are the Amber Alert system and the fight for medical use of marijuana. It will be interesting to see what develops.