the ballot

some 150 or so names for governor filled my mailbox today. I got the sample ballot for October 7. Ahnold lists himself as a actor/businessman. Larry Flynt is a publisher. It seems to be mostly filled by lawyers (including one civil rights lawyer and one marijuana legialization lawyer) and businessmen/entrepeneurs. I'm not exactly sure why lawyers like politics. I just figure the businessmen know what opportunity looks like and takes it. You can't beat getting an edge on government contracts.

There's one doctor and a firefighter/nurse looking to take care of California. Ariana Huffington listed herself as Author/Entrepeneur/Mother or something like that. Certainly, men are the vast majority of the ballot with all but a handful of women including "Mary Carey," adult entertainment star. Though she too understands a marketing opportunity when she sees one. Comedian Gallagher, who's first name is Leo, is running as an independent.

The ballot is by alphabetical order by last name. Well, first question is do you want Gov. Davis recalled. Second question and if he were to be recalled, who should take his place. In many ways this ballot is more a democratic process than usual without the party nominated/endorsed candidates. Put your name into the hat and vote. And as flawed as the electoral process can be, in which a candidate with the most actual votes can lose, can you imagine what a presidential election ballot would look like if anyone and everyone could just drop in their name? We'd be at the polling place for days! We'd kill forests worth of trees just to send out the ballots.

Frankly I think the Republicans may not want Ahnold as governor, at the least the conservative ones, cuz how can you control a guy like that. What kind of scares me about him is that he's been avoiding the debates, so I wonder if all he does is read scripted material. I don't blame Davis for avoiding the debates, he's still governor and I'd prefer him doing his job rather than campaigning, it's bad enough when it's elections.

What will be more interesting than whether Davis stays in power or not will be whether this recall fever will spread to other states. We are a trendsetter in very strange ways.

What I hate most about the recall is that it's wasting a WHOLE lot of my tax dollars. The second thing I hate about the recall is that they've also managed to put in two state propositions 53 and 54. They slip them in so I can decide on propositions that have had little airtime relative to the recall candidates. And these are big propositions. Prop 54 would ask the state to stop collecting data on race, except in medical research or if it affects federal funding. Problem is how do we know if discrimination is still going on if we don't count. It is a strange catch22 in that way, but we have yet to hit a race blind society and it's important to keep track. I'd rather the government collect accurate information than guess at who/what I am based on my name. Advertisers already do that with all the Spanish written junk mail I get.

Anyway, at the very bottom of the ballot is the spot for write in. A way to even circumvent the candidate registration process by simply getting enough people to write in your name. Wasn't there a campaign to write in Eileen's name for something? Oh wait, that was for president of the US of A, though I don't think she qualifies. But hey, maybe we can write her in for Governor.