It's Pronounced Caleeforneea!
Tony Adragna
What's amazing is how far off the mark lots of predictions were. Yourself, Will, twice wrote that Cruz would win by a slight margin. Whoda thunk it that AS would pull out a 16 point win.
And it coulda been worse — McClintock's 13 points woulda given AS a 29 point victory, making it 64 to 32!
Hell, even the recall itself won by a 10 point margin.
What now? Well, let's see how AS does.
What does the California governorship being in GOP hands augur for the '04 presidential election? Pundits, Pols and Analysts are making too much of this question. Bush
pere lost the state to Clinton even after having elected Wilson...
p.s. Sorry for being away so long, but I've got something a bit more important going on right now — looking for a new job.
posted by Anonymous at 5:03 PM | permalink | "The Refuge"
"What Do We Do Now?"--Arnold
Will Vehrs
A few weeks ago I predicted to a
QP reader that I thought Davis would be recalled but that Bustamante would edge Schwarzenegger. I failed to update that prognostication as it became increasingly obvious that nothing--not groping allegations, not Nazi allegations, not vague generalities posing as a platform--could stop the Terminator tide.
I'm not crazy about "Arnold" as an actor, a human being, or a thinker. He has charisma, though, and he's definitely an outsider. He could conceiveably use those traits to good effect. I wish him and California well.
The allegations of groping were somewhat troubling, but I had to discount them for their timing and for the environment where they occurred. Hollywood, where sex sells, is hardly the place I would expect to find scrupulous attention to the evils of sexual hijinks morphing into sexual harassment.
We've always been disappointed by high-profile "outsiders" that entered the political arena, the most notable being Ross Perot and Jesse Ventura. Maybe Arnold can break the mold. One grope and he's gone.
posted by Will Vehrs at 10:26 AM | permalink | "The Refuge"
