Well, Arnold’s election came and went in California. I found it to be an interesting experience because I was torn between voting on the items on the ballot and the whole concept of the election in the first place.
My approach was probably similar to many others given the results that everything on the ballot failed. I read the propositions with enough care to figure out what would result in a “no” vote, and did that. You have to be a little careful because the folks who write those things like to turn the language around so that voting “no” actually means voting “yes.” I must admit that I got a little confused with the pair of propositions that we written in such a way that they were mutually exclusive. Luckily, they both failed also.
The problem with this whole process was that it could be read to mean that we were against the things that were on the ballot, which may not actually be the case. I am actually not quite sure if I was for or against the items on the ballot – it didn’t matter to me. I figured that they were all changes to our current situation, and our current situation works as well as it works. Therefore, turning down the changes wouldn’t make any difference. That gave me the opportunity to vote against the process rather than the issues.
For me, the process that I was voting against included the election of Arnold in the first place. Once he was put in place in such an utterly disgraceful manner, it was time to watch his walk rather than his talk. As we have all seen, his walk is a typical business as usual Republican walk – with the exception that he seems to believe that he has some sort of special mandate that allows him to continue to subvert the process rather than work within it, or work to fix it. I viewed his propositions as an extension of the power grab that got him in office in the first place. I am very glad to see that at least a few of the voters in the State seem to have woken up a bit and agreed with me that this is not a good way to run a government.
It is really too bad that so much money was sent down the sewer to achieve the non-event of his failed approach. Not only did the State spend a huge amount of money (who knows how much, I have heard figures between $55M and $300M), but the folks fighting him spent even more. There was at least $200M spent in this totally foolish and wasted way, and it was probably double that amount. A few hundred million dollars sure would help out the folks in … (you name it; there are lots of places that need help right about now). Spending that money in Pakistan would really give our country a boost in moral values and might actually get people to see that we are not just greedy, mean spirited folks. Now the money has gone (not actually gone, there are a lot of folks who made tons of money playing the election game), and all we have to show for it is that we didn’t like being pushed around by a giant of a man that just doesn’t get it.
What a colossal waste of time, resources and opportunity.
