California Recall: The Governator

When it comes to predicting election outcomes, it's kind of like the song says, "Sometimes you're the windshield/Sometimes you're the bug."

I stuck with my prediction of a month ago on the recall. I said the recall would lose, and Cruz Bustamonte would get the most votes among the replacement candidates. I guess I was off a little bit.

Tags: california politics, recall campaign, schwarzenegger

California Recall: Schwarzenegger in Pleasanton

Schwarzenegger and Bush (2006 photo)

Following up a bit on the report in the previous post, I found this Oakland Tribune account of Arnold's Saturday rally in Pleasanton. It doesn't mention the Georgy Russell incident. But the article describes it as a "raring, sometimes fractious crowd of about 4,000." The event was a rally at the Alameda County Fairgrounds, which is publicly owned:

Hundreds of Bay Area residents clamored around that platform, most of them decked out in buttons, hats, T-shirts and signs distributed by representatives from the "Join Arnold" campaign.

Admittance to the park was free, and those who were emblazoned with such items had no problem gaining access, once they passed through the metal detectors.

But outside the main gate, the crowd's political spectrum was as colorful as the recall race itself - and some of the pigments clashed.

And it does sounds like something strange was going on. "Security guards confiscated items that read 'Vote No on Recall' and told some anti-Schwarzenegger supporters, including a large group from the National Organization for Women, that they couldn't come in at all." Since someone could be against the recall and still favor Arnold as the replacement candidate, that seems pretty weird that they would confiscate "No on Recall" material.

They even tried to block a Pleasanton City Councilwoman and the wife of the mayor from going to the rally, because they had "No on Recall" paraphrenalia. They were eventually admitted. The councilwoman, Jennifer Hosterman, said:

"This is public property. I have as much right to hold up my sign that says 'Vote No on Recall.' This is a public place. If they had wanted a private affair, they should have rented private property," Hosterman fumed. ...

"This is my city, this is my back yard ... I was given special treatment because I'm a councilwoman, but all those other people weren't," Hosterman added.

This certainly seems to be odd conduct for a free public rally on public property. Because a public rally is, well, public, which means that you may have someone next to you who doesn't agree with you on everything. And may even say so out loud!

Tags: authoritarianism, california politics, georgy russell, recall campaign, republican party, schwarzenegger

California Recall: Georgy Russell Protests (?) at Schwarzenegger Rally

Georgy Russell

Georgy Russell, as in Georgy for Governor, claims she handled rather aggressively by Schwarzenegger supporters at an Arnold rally in Pleasanton, CA on Saturday:

Gubernatorial candidate Georgy Russell was pushed, shoved, hit and kicked yesterday by supporters of Arnold Schwarzenegger at a rally in Pleasanton CA. She was repeatedly called a "bitch" and one of the Arnold Supporters wrote on her clothing with a permanent marking pen. The felonious abusers, who claimed to be provoked by remarks from Russell, were near equal numbers of men and women and no one during the incident came to Russell's aid. Schwarzeneggar and his wife Maria Shriver witnessed the attack and neither said or did anything to stop the abuse.

I've been on both sides of scenes like that (although I don't recall ever being physically attacked). My local Catholic parish a few years ago invited an elderly Jewish Auschwitz survivor to speak to the church youth group. The event was open to the public, and several 50-ish neo-Nazis showed up and basically tried to heckle him down. The adults from the church shouted them down, and they shut up and let the speaker continue.

They tried some heckling afterward, but eventually left the hall. They stayed outside arguing and shouting, until someone finally called the police. The representatives of the Master Race then scurried away before having to explain themselves to the local cops.

Now, my feeling in that case was that, dammit, if our Catholic parish wants to invite a Jew to talk to us about the Holocaust, we're gonna do it! And these guys were obviously a bunch of cheap bullies, trying to initimidate an old man. It would take a better Christian than I to think that they didn't deserve to be soundly thrashed.

But that's not what happened. We shut them up without having to push them around. And, even though it wasn't intended by the organizers, the kids wound up not just hearing a lesson about a long-distant case of hatred getting out of hand. They were seeing the same hatred played out in front of them.

But at a political rally, if Schwarzenegger isn't man enough to handle a lone 20-something female heckler (and that assumes she was even heckling) - or if his supporters can't do a little counter-heckling without getting physical, well, that's just pathetic.

Tags: authoritarianism, california politics, georgy russell, recall campaign, republican party, schwarzenegger