Recall mania
Rough and Tumble points to 39 recall items in the media (and a couple of blogs) this morning, and the race is just getting started. More are about money than any other topic: labor money to Bustamante, Schwarzenegger's fundraising, Davis leads the cash race.
Some of what's out there:
Weintraub: "What (Arnold) apparently doesn’t see is that to the outside world, when you say you’re not going to take special interest money and then you do, you look like a hypocrite or a liar. And when you define “special interest” as the other guy’s donors, you just look silly."
Rutten: "No matter how far this recall may stray from the Progressives' original intent, it is producing precisely the kind of election contemporary political reformers dream of — one in which overwhelming public interest produces saturation media coverage and, thereby, reduces the need to raise vast sums of campaign money..."
LAT: Jaime Escalante comes to help Schwarzenegger
Lopez: 'Gray Davis with a receding hairline and a mustache' was my line...
Kaus: Is LAT sitting on Arnold dirt?
It will be a light day around here today.
10:33 AM Wednesday, August 27 2003 •
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Wow. Rutten manages to make three errors in just one, albeit very long, sentence.
1. "...[the recall] is producing precisely the kind of election contemporary political reformers dream of..."
I'm not sure which political reformers Rutten is consulting, besides of course himself, but I have seen no political reformer ever propose electing a governor by a no-runoff plurality. I challenge him to find precisely one reformer who proposed that idea before the recall.
2. "...one in which overwhelming public interest produces saturation media coverage..."
I also challenge him to find another political reformer who advocated more movie star candidates, which in the recall is certainly what's producing saturation media coverage. Check out the coverage Bustamante or McClintock attracts to get a better guage of public interest in this recall if Schwarzenegger wasn't running.
3. "...and, thereby, reduces the need to raise vast sums of campaign money..."
The current tally at Recall Watch shows nearly $14 million raised by the various recall campaigns. And that's in an election that no one was planning for a month ago. Now, what were you saying about the lack of vast sums of money?
The bottom line is that for all its wackiness, the recall has not washed clean the fouled slate of politics. All the ills that political reformers have diagnosed in modern politics, from special interests to campaign ads to fundraising to pay for them, are at play in the recall.
Oh. Except for there's an Entertainment Tonight crew on the campaign trail and Daniel Weintraub is having his media moment. Don't mistake that for the sudden relevance of politics to people's lives.
Of course, if you've got the courage of your convictions, that is that the media attention generated by a movie star candidate is the same thing as "overwhelming public interest" in an election, then you should likely start recruiting the Jennifer Lopez-Ben Affleck presidential ticket. Now that would make for a truly breathtaking display of democracy.
Wow. Rutten manages to make three errors in just one, albeit very long, sentence.
1. "...[the recall] is producing precisely the kind of election contemporary political reformers dream of..."
I'm not sure which political reformers Rutten is consulting, besides of course himself, but I have seen no political reformer ever propose electing a governor by a no-runoff plurality. I challenge him to find precisely one reformer who proposed that idea before the recall.
2. "...one in which overwhelming public interest produces saturation media coverage..."
I also challenge him to find another political reformer who advocated more movie star candidates, which in the recall is certainly what's producing saturation media coverage. Check out the coverage Bustamante or McClintock attracts to get a better guage of public interest in this recall if Schwarzenegger wasn't running.
3. "...and, thereby, reduces the need to raise vast sums of campaign money..."
The current tally at Recall Watch shows nearly $14 million raised by the various recall campaigns. And that's in an election that no one was planning for a month ago. Now, what were you saying about the lack of vast sums of money?
The bottom line is that for all its wackiness, the recall has not washed clean the fouled slate of politics. All the ills that political reformers have diagnosed in modern politics, from special interests to campaign ads to fundraising to pay for them, are at play in the recall.
Oh. Except for there's an Entertainment Tonight crew on the campaign trail and Daniel Weintraub is having his media moment. Don't mistake that for the sudden relevance of politics to people's lives.
Of course, if you've got the courage of your convictions, that is that the media attention generated by a movie star candidate is the same thing as "overwhelming public interest" in an election, then you should likely start recruiting the Jennifer Lopez-Ben Affleck presidential ticket. Now that would make for a truly breathtaking display of democracy.
Posted by: Cimon at August 28, 2003 12:53 AM