Total Recall of Gov. Schwarzenegger

If California is such a midnight blue, liberal hotbed state, why can't I ever hear anything negative about our current governor? He got up in front of the Republican National Convention last summer, called Democrats "girly men" yet again, lead a standing ovation in chants demanding "four more years" (to take a cheap shot at his accent, he was actually chanting, "fo mo yeeeeaws") of President Bush. What a performance. He's a devisive leader in a massive, filthy rich, self-contained economy state that swings further to the left than he'd like to admit. But he's got good reason to be in denial of the political majority expressed by the presidential election returns - we treat every move he makes like it's another scene in Terminator 4, Kindergarten Cop, or worse, The Predator. But this one isn't being released on widescreen DVD. It's happening out there right now.

In case no one is listening, in case no one cares enough to raise alarm, in case no one feels like trying to oust the governor for letting the same budget crisis grow into a borrowing frenzy, for standing guilty of the exact same fiscal irresponsibility as Gray Davis but somehow gaining immunity from any blame, in case anyone is as deeply troubled as I am about how he went from body building sexual harrassment perpetrator to action figure to influential politician seemingly overnight without vocal opposition, without question, maybe just because the Right powerful figures installed him, auditioned him for the Right role at the Right time. We went to the polls and overwhelmingly made it happen. And because we encouraged him, he's going to keep sending us to the polls with his intiatives, bypassing the overwhelmingly Democratic lawmaking girly men with his Republican agenda that, like Bush's Republican agenda and Reagan's Republican agenda, will ultimately help the rich get richer, the poor slip further down into poverty, and the budget deficit swell. If he wanted a challenge, why couldn't he have just gone after an Oscar-winning movie role? California's economy would be better off.

Make no assumptions based on his Kennedy wife, gay rights stance, and box office returns. California needs a Total Recall of Governor Schwarzenegger, if not before the end of his term then at the next popular election. Gavin Newsom, please step up to the plate and redeem yourself for the Gay Matrimony Festival of 2004, which almost single-handedly made gay marriage (which I support but not right before a pivotal presidential election), and consequently, moral values, into an issue that allowed Karl Rove to administer the knockout punch to the Kerry campaign. Bush can thank Mr. Newsom for every day he sits in the Oval Office, but right now the Mayor of San Francisco is the prime candidate to challenge the governator, at least in my humble eyes, which read the New Yorker story about his efforts for the SF homeless with admiration and a hope that he will someday think about helping LA and other CA cities with the same compassionate leadership.

Yesterday the California Nurses Association protested in Long Beach when Schwarzenegger made an appearance at the Governors Conference on Women and Families. The union vocalized disagreement with his decision allowing hospitals to delay a needed rise in staffing levels that would call for for hiring more nurses. Instead of rising above the dissent or addressing the concerns, he took aim at the protest and fired an incompassionate, immaturate, downright nasty shot to his constituency.

"Pay no attention to those voices over there," Schwarzenegger said of the protesting nurses. "They are the special interests, and you know what I mean. The special interests don't like me in Sacramento because I am always kicking their butts."

As the nurses contemplated the prospect of getting their butts kicked, Schwarzenegger escaped into the safe haven of the $150 per woman conference, which was funded by such very special interests as BP, Bank of America, and Citigroup, and featured guest speaker Jamie Lee Curtis claiming that he has "the heart of a woman" and is "the ultimate girlie man."