Isn't it just a little odd that CA turned out so big for AhhNold....

[althecat]

From what I understand there was a close to 36% increase in voter turnout over the 2000 presidential election 11 million to 14 million votes.

Who would have thought that Californians would turn out in such big numbers to vote for the rapist...

I could understand a big turnout working against him. But working for him just seems strange. Sure some stupid people might like to vote for Arnold because they do not know he is a rapist, nazi and racist... but I do not think the celebrity factor is so big so as to drag 35% more people than got off the couch for the big election.

The only other possibility is that they turned out in bigger numbers than ever because they hate Davis with a vengence... but that too seems a bit far fetched. Technocrat Governors - even intensely disliked ones - simply don't have that much pull.

Did any of the polls indicate that there would be such a big turnout? Did any of em say why Californians intended to vote in such big numbers?

[joefree1]

1. I see four reasons

1. Media lovefest for the actor.

2. Rethuglican juggernaut of negative campaigning backed by big money.

3. No real progressive candidates for Democrats to rally behind.

4. Democratic inability to stand up to aggressive Rethuglican political tricks.

I'm hoping we'll change #4.


11x17 size free download on my web page:
http://darrias.com/small_art/smallart.html

California Democrats for the Recall of Aunald meet here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=106&topic_id=3018

Totally Recall Arnold Schwarzenegger Petition
http://www.petitiononline.com/schwarze/petition.html

[lanlady]

2. the recall showed the power of the media

to affect elections. That was the lesson I took away from it all. It was Arnold 90% of the time on cable news. Really makes you wonder why we bother at any pretense of having fair election laws.

[ps1074]

3. Your numbers are not correct

2003 Recall:
YES - 4,416,280
NO - 3,562,487
*****************
Total - 8 million
*****************

2000 presidential election:

Gore - 5,861,203
Bush - 4,567,429
Nader - 418,707
Other - more than 100.000
*****************
Total - more than 11 million
*****************

I don't know where have you seen this 14 million turnout but obviously it is not correct.

[althecat]

22. I heard it on radio here... so that clears that up...!!!

Don't beleive what you hear on the radio...

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

4. I heard it was the car tax

Again and again I heard Californians say on the news that they didn't care what Ahnold had done, he promised to get rid of the car tax. This is the same state that froze property taxes. Costs for state programs have gone up-where exactly did the people think the government was going to get the money?

Californians will have to decide if they want to have a government that supplies services or a government that taxes less. Ahnold promised to cut taxes and to keep services (ie education spending). When this becomes impossible, it will be his mess to sort out.

[dofus]

5. Despite claims of a record turnout

it was less than that. I heard that only 49% of registered voters turned out to vote. Lines were long at voting places because so many fewer were available than in a regular election.

Personally, I can't decide whether to think of California as a state which deserves what's going to happen, since a clear majority of those who turned out voted voted to recall and then for Arnie.

At least that's what the election results show.

[wildwww2]

9. The media has been using Bu$h`s "Fuzzy Math" for a long time.

And will continue to do so. Are there any congress critters who are trying to stop this mess?. Maybe a few but they are not getting heard by the whore press. We are so screwed.
Peace
Wildman
Al Gore is My President

[bearfartinthewoods]

6. just a thought...

maybe people don't believe that he is a rapist nazi racist?

maybe they are tired of unproven smear campaigns?

[Classical_Liberal]

7. In this case there wasn't even an alleged rape

It was alleged groping. That sort of hyper rhetoric is a turnoff.

[punpirate]

10. Unfortunately, I think the slightly further to the right of us...

... make exceptions which are not similarly reserved for candidates on the other side of the political spectrum.

The public should believe that he's a groper, because he's both admitted it and there's video of him doing it.

The claims of Nazi sympathies and/or admiration of Hitler come from documented sources, interviews given, film, etc., and his family background does figure into his development as a human being--both his parents were greatly sympathetic and supportive of Nazism.

The racism charges are harder to prove, because they stem, thus far, from second-hand sources.

That said, yes, I would rather have seen an equal focus on both his character and his qualifications. Television coverage, particularly, downplayed both of those shortcomings of his and played up his star quality, which, in a political contest, is blatant deceit.

Had the campaign been longer, and with a less fawning media, the public might have become aware of Ahnold's tax evasions, his business failures while touting his business experience, his lack of experience in governance, his close association to Pete Wilson and Wilson's advisors, his meetings with Enron officials at a time when he had no political standing whatsoever and no experience or business interests in the energy field, prompting the obvious question, "why was he there in the first place?"

And, California might still have elected him governor....

They did it before with another has-been actor by the name of Ronald Reagan.

Cheers.

[bearfartinthewoods]

13. i don't accept the nazi tag

the comment could have been made by anyone unsophisticated (re:dumb)
enough not to get the significance. in public speaking class we studied hitler's speeches. he was masterful. recognizing that fact was stupid and un-PC but not proof of nazism..nor is the fact that his parents were nazis. a lot of DUers have shared that their parents are intolerant repubs. we are a product of more than our parents influence.

and their is the sticky facts of his raising and donating millions of dollars to jewish orgs. sort of casts doubts on the nazi label as well.

i have never heard of the racist accusation before this thread.

[punpirate]

16. Yes, masterful...

... but did you admire Hitler for that quality, "for what he did with it," which is the quote from Schwarzenegger which will linger.

Here's a bit of history from Schwarzenegger's last try at the governorship:

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0825-06.htm

Note that it was only after questions of his associations with Kurt Waldheim did he begin to make contributions to the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Moreover, he did not donate millions to Jewish causes, but rather helped raise millions in donations.

Perhaps he is sincere in that regard, but I doubt it. I find so many other aspects of him to be centered on the superficial and attentive to image that I continue to wonder about the substance of the man. He got his start in an occupation which is almost wholly occupied by narcissists, and I seriously doubt that he's changed that much over the years.

Beyond that, why is it that his programs and plans are very conservatively Republican and favor the continued accrual of wealth by the rich at the expense of ordinary people? If he is as free from bias as you say, why is he promoting the programs he does?

And, as I mentioned, his qualifications are direly lacking, and the press glossed over those deficiencies, while at the same time accentuating every sound bite which used a simple line from one of his movies.

California is in for a rough ride with him as governor, I fear. Like Reagan, he is a b-movie Hollywood creation of small talent and fading adulation, but he still craves the attention of the masses. Politics is the way to attain that.

Cheers.

[bearfartinthewoods]

18. s'excuse me but you have obviously mistaken me for an arnie supporter

my point is that absent any alegations of rape, a decades old throw away line about hitler and unknown degree of racisms, the terms rapist, racist and nazi are hardly a proven and if we assume they are and use that to factor our lose we are working off weak premises.

[msmcghee]

19. Here's an interesting question.

If 9/11 (or something similar) had happened on 9/11/1937, and Hitler was intimidating Middle eastern Arabs - would we have supported him and become part of the Axis? It seems inconcievable but many Americans were pro Nazi before that time.

[gasperc]

8. Another big LIE, there was NO record turnout

one of the message above shows turnout at just about 8million, 2000 had an 11 million turnout.
Also, go to the washington post website, they have a great exit poll. It shows horrors like, 70% of the recall voters were white males and females, CA is <50%white. Almost 30% of democrats voted for the recall, over 20% of Bustamente voters voted yes on the recall. The recall voters were 39%DEM, 38%REP and 23%IND, alot of our base stayed home AGAIN, 1994 all fucking over

[scots]

11. I guess..

They stayed home, huh? I guess they just couldn't get up the gumption to defend Davis. Surprise, surprise. I mean, look, the guy was an ass.

[shance]

21. Thats right. I heard the "record numbers" being spun all over the place.

[GiovanniC]

12. While there wasn't any significant increase in voter turnout

There was an increase in turnout from demographics that normally wouldn't vote. Many of these are the people who thought it would be cool to vote for a cyborg from the future.

[pippin]

15. could it be remotely possible

for a candidate to buy votes? i was astonished at my polling station to see people who weren't registered signed up and allowed to vote. have been told it is possible to be allowed a provisional vote. curious as to how many of the so called new voters were signed up on site because they had been bribed. i know this sounds far fetched but with the rethugs i no longer put anything past their dirty dealings.

[birdman]

14. Not odd at all

Davis was despised (apparently even by a lot of Dems).

The Dems had no viable candidate of their own (Bustamante
was horrible).

Two Republicans withdrew for Arnold to gain advantage.

The brief campaign was basically a test of name recognition
of which Arnold had plenty.


It makes all the sense in the world. There was no conspiracy here.

[msmcghee]

17. It's part of the big pattern

Step 1) Throw a monkey wrench in government's ability to deliver services. Tax cuts, eliminate or cripple gov. programs while feigning indignation about the tax and spend dems and pukes fighting for taxpayers.

Step 2) Blame democrats when things go wacky.

In this case, Enron and the other power companies screwed Cal with permission from Bush* to the tune of $9 billion. That creates a major fiscal crisis. Whatever Davis tired to do at that point could be used against him. He chose raising car taxes - and they rode that pony all the way to Recall City.

In order for this to work though they must have enough control of the media to plant and maintain their memes - Tax and spend, criminal softies, wellfare coddlers, military cutters, etc.

Almost all the media, especially the media that is not NPR/PBS media, make money by spinning the news to fit with the memes we carry in our minds. The commercial media that do this the best make the most money. We like the programming when they do that and we buy the sponsors' products because the programming makes us "feel good". It makes us feel like the world is not so scary because it "all fits" with our preconcieved notions of what the world is about - embodied in our memes.

So, most of the media are simply following the memes of their listeners - spinning the news to make money. That of course, reinforces those memes and spreads them further. That's what memes do - spread - like a virus.

As an added benefit, once those memes exist in someone's mind they are innoculated from facts that don't fit those memes - even if they somehow get through the media spin filters. People reject facts that don't fit their memes. That's why some 70% of Americans believed Saddam was responsible for 9/11. They are still totally innoculated against any facts to the contrary that come our daily.

That's why only a few of us are even concerned that Bush* lied to us to go to war with Iraq. The meme for this situation in most American minds is "Swarthy Arab dictators hate us and if they have the ability to kill us they will."

They were quite happy to see Bush* go after Saddam - for whatever reason Bush* had to come up with to silence his dem critics in congress and the UN. They are proud of him for that. The more we yell about how unfair (or illegal or deceptive) that was the more they see us as cowards unwilling to defend our nation in a time of need.

It's all about memes.

The most effective meme they have right now is the "Swarthy Arab terrorist" meme. 9/11 injected that into the minds of most Americans like pure herion into a junkie's vein. Look for another major terrorist event as we get closer to the election. That one has a companion meme - dems are weak ninnies more concerned about fairness than killing those responsible for 9/11 (the swarthy Arabs again).

Carl Rove understands perfectly that it is far more effective and far less expensive to plant and control the memes that are at the base of that process - than it is to fight against opposing memes, once they are planted. That's why they have invested so much in cable, radio and newspaper outlets. It's to plant and nourish their memes in our minds. We yell about the RW spin in the news. We never even notice the memes that have been planted in our minds that cause news outlets to spin the stories in that direction.

Added on edit: What better way to take advantage of that meme than to run "The Terminator" who talks bad, gropes chicks and takes no crap off of swarthy bad guys - against the elected governor of Cal - a whimpy accountant guy who had already been damaged by Enron and the Cal Senate's refusal to pass a budget. That's why no effect from the groping stories - they just reinforced the strong, invincible republican / weak dem meme.

The bulk of Bush's* $200 million campaign chest will be spent to ensure that those memes are heavily reinforced in the minds of every American voter well before November, 2004.

The dems don't even know what memes are.

[haymaker]

20. WRONG

Please don't continue the myth that this was any sort of mandate. He got 180,000 more votes than than "NO" on the recall.

Davis, the hated, got 3,469,025 in 2002. Schwartsy got 3,743,393, "NO" got 3,559,436. In a state with 21 million elegible voters, that's hardly a "big" win at all.

4.7 million voted against Prop 53, nearly 5 million voted against Prop 54.