California Politics: What's Not to Like?

Exclusive commentary by Greg Lewis / WashingtonDispatch.com
October 7, 2003

Let's see . . . Arnold was photographed nude by Robert Mapplethorpe, he's groped women for personal gain, and he's engaged in group sex. What's not to like? At least, if the last-minute opinion polls are to be believed, that's what California voters are delivering as their preliminary verdict. Arnold Schwarzenegger's alleged peccadilloes, not to say his very real pects, are far more preferable to the state's electorate than Gray Davis's proven corruption and inability to govern.

The Democrats already have their post-election strategy worked out. In the aftermath of Arnold's victory, they're expected to argue that absentee ballots are unconstitutional, because those who cast votes more than a week ahead of election day had not been afforded the opportunity to have their opinions swayed by 11th-hour smear campaigns against their opponents that have become the Democrats' stock in trade. A spokesman for the Democrats said that more than two million voters cast ballots before they had a chance to "find out all the facts" about Arnold, including the fact that, at last count, 31 unidentified women (the number is growing exponentially, and gleeful — though unconfirmed — reports out of Terry McAuliffe's office suggest that it may have actually taken on a life of its own) were willing to be quoted by the Los Angeles Times — on condition of anonymity — as saying that Arnold "groped" them. An unidentified spokesperson for the paper would neither confirm nor deny the new number of groping victims, saying "It's the policy of the Times not to print allegations from unidentified sources."

There are several points to be taken away from this mess. First, Frank Lautenberg sits in the Senate only because a Democrat judge flouted the law and allowed him to run in Robert Toricelli's stead after it became clear that his scandalous activity had made Toricelli unelectable. And Democrats managed to stall redistricting and other legislation in Texas when — again in contravention of the law — they bolted to Oklahoma like a pack of beaten dogs rather than respect legal authority. Dems even managed to find three 9th-Circuit magistrates who would postpone the recall election, but their efforts went for naught when the case was heard by a full panel of judges. But despite the "successes" Democrats have managed to achieve through bending the rules and engaging in patently illegal activity, they are not winning. Not by a long shot.

They're down to their last few bullets and are desperately shooting up the town like the gang of desperadoes they are, pretty much riding around at random and firing at anything that moves. In response, people are — figuratively speaking — locking their doors and holing up until the Democrat menace to society spends its ammunition and the streets are once again safe for Americans to walk. Dems are about to find out that there's yet another new sheriff in town, and he's not going to take any crap from Gray Davis and the weenie liberals who have sold out the state of California, and not even to the highest bidders at that.

The second point is that the collusion of the so-called "mainstream" media in furthering the liberal/Democrat/socialist agenda is becoming more and more difficult to hide. During the 2000 Presidential election, CNN and NBC managed to wiggle out of charges that they had Gore's interests at heart in announcing that Florida polls were closed an hour before they actually were in some parts of the state simply by claiming their actions were "unintentional." They also disingenuously blamed their calling of the Florida Presidential race for Gore on incorrect information from their polling service. The result was that, thanks to "mainstream" media collusion, thousands of Florida voters were effectively disenfranchised in areas of the state which went heavily for Bush.

But while the liberal media outlets managed to dodge legitimate (though difficult to prove) charges of collusion in 2000, one of their number, the Los Angeles Times, is squirming under the intense scrutiny of its blatantly unethical and agenda-driven publication of attack-dog pieces fed them by the Democrat smear-machine. More than a thousand readers have cancelled their subscriptions to the paper, and hundreds have left scathing messages on Times answering machines in protest of its National Enquirer-style assault on Austria's favorite son.

It may not seem like a lot, but it's at least an early clue to the new direction. While the Bush administration and the cause of truth and justice seem to be suffering at the hands of the angry Democrat dog-pack, the fact is that the people of the United States, in the main, understand and deplore the Left's tactics. They're fed up with the lying and cheating and disinformation that have become the M.O. of the Democrat party. They're mad as hell and they're not going to take it any more. And they'll even cast their votes for Arnold Schwarzenegger to prove their point if they have to. What's not to like about that?