so it looks like Arnold will be our new Governator.
I didn’t vote for the guy, nor did i vote in favor of the recall, but hey, who knows, maybe he’ll do something good. I sure hope he does!
on a happier note, i was really impressed with the voter turnout for this election. I got to my polling place close to 7pm, and the line was so long that it took about 40 minutes to actually get in to vote. (side note: are the lines usually that long? I’m used to going a lot earlier in the day to cast my ballot, so i really don’t know) A better indication might be that when i asked for an “I Voted!” sticker, i was told that they had run out. Run out of stickers!! Think of that!! HOORAY for voter participation!!
And the other results… you know, I didn’t know till tonight that the money set aside for propositions is pretty much ironclad/untouchable. Money actually goes first toward funding propositions and THEN to the state budget. The proposition system we have in California is quite an amazing way to get citizens to participate in government, but one has to be so so careful to make sure that we don’t just create more ineffective/inefficient programs and to not let corporate interests take too much of a hold on the state. Prop 53 is an example of such a kind of bad proposition in both of those regards, and prop 54 was just ridiculous and foolhardy. So I’m glad both propositions were soundly defeated.
But back to Arnold!! Remember the movie “Eraser”? His catchphrase in that film was “You have been erased.” The way he always said “erased” was so classic — the R sort of becomes an L mixed with an R sound almost, and that gruff Austrian accent comes through with such a powerful, full force.
I can’t wait to hear him say in four years, after he finishes out Gray Davis’s term, with his thick Arnold accent that inserts a few extra syllables in every word he says, “California, you have been Governated.”