Total Recall 2
10 03 2003Best known for his ability to portray inhuman killing machines (some of which were also robots), political neophyte Arnold Schwarzenegger became California’s next governor last night. The recently re-elected Gray Davis must step down by November 16th.
Arnold never put forth a single specific (like, how do we pay for it?) of his plans to rebuild California, but 3,743,431 voters were willing to vote for him without hearing a single “how” behind any of his promises. Let’s face it, what do we Americans really want from our leaders: coherent political thought, or snappy one-liners? Snappy one-liners, 9 times out of 10. That one about the tumor? Hilarious! He makes Gray Davis look like a big stick in the mud. But then again, a big stick in the mud makes Davis look like a whole branch in the mud.
I’m originally from Texas, so I’ve seen an unqualified man with lots of money and powerful connections buy his way into a governor’s mansion before. Heck, the fellow in Texas went on to become President of the USA. And come to think of it, he’s got that “inhuman killing machine” thing down too, even if he’s never actually pulled the trigger or flipped the switch himself.
So what does this mean for California? Well for starters, it means kissing 9 billion dollars goodbye. That’s how much money the energy companies (Enron, among others) stole from the state under Pete Wilson’s deregulation plan. Lame-duck Davis was preparing a massive lawsuit to re-claim that theft. Davis rejected an offer put together by the Bush administration to settle the suit for 2 cents on the dollar, figuring (and rightly so) that was a huge fucking rip-off for Californians.
Under Bush’s plan, the companies would have to admit to fraud and malfeasance but still get to keep 8.82 billion of the money they stole. Those same energy companies contributed gobs of money to the Bush campaign, and Bush wants to make sure they get value for their investment. That’s why the petulant Bush refused to intervene when Davis asked for his help during the California rolling blackouts. Even though Pete Wilson gave the keys to the thieves, the Bush team knew Gray Davis could catch the fallout for it. In their eyes, the worse the situation got, the better.
It’s like this: some guy stole your car and you called the cops. The cops catch him, make him apologize and give you back your hub caps, however the thief gets to keep the car because he bought tickets to the Policeman’s Ball last year. You take your hub caps home on the bus. That’s Bush’s settlement proposal.
It’s still possible for the new Governator to prove me wrong, but I doubt he will. I fully expect Arnold to quietly accept the Bush energy settlement proposal. Arnold met with top executives of those energy companies way back in May of 2001. It wasn’t to kick their asses.
When he announced his candidacy, Arnold said “I have plenty of money. No one can pay me off. Trust me. No one.” He elaborated on KTKX radio, “Any of those kinds of real big, powerful special interests, if you take money from them, you owe them something.” But that didn’t stop him from accepting millions in campaign contributions from big business, including energy companies.
Gee, that 9 billion dollars sure would come in handy for a state with a projected deficit of 8 billion.
