The
procrastinator's guide to the recall Election
Gerry
Wachovsky
Well
folks, this historic day has finally arrived.
Today is the day that we vote on whether
or not to recall our current governor, Gray
Davis. In addition to this, two amendments,
Prop. 53 and 54 will be on the ballot. I
am very confident that many of you here
already know who you are going to vote for
and what you are going to vote on the propositions,
but for those of you who do not know as
of yet, read on!
As
many of you may or may not know, immediately
prior to an election many newspapers often
have a special section dedicated to explaining
what each candidate's platform entails,
what each candidate's party affiliation
is, and any other tidbits of information
about the candidate that seem appropriate
to mention. Newspapers do this not only
to tie up all loose ends, if you will, but
also to give procrastinating voters a chance
to decide on who or what they will vote
for. This column will be similar in nature
to the aforementioned type of article, but
with one exception: I do not have the space
necessary to focus individually on each
and every candidate (there are a whopping
135 on this particular ballot), so I will
simply focus on the major candidates from
each party, as well as Prop. 54, and why
you should vote "Yes" on it.
Allow
me to start with the obvious: who to vote
for governor after voting "Yes"
on the recall. This should be a no-brainer
-- Arnold Schwarzenegger. Why, you may ask?
First of all, Gov. Gray Davis has proven
to the state that he is fiscally inept.
To demonstrate this, I ask you to picture
a once successful and booming business.
One day the business is sold and a new manager
takes over, implementing ideas that he believes
will work. Unfortunately, his brilliant
plans fail miserably, and subsequently send
the business spiraling into debt to the
tune of a massive $38 billion. Jeez, talk
about Chapter 11! You get the point.
Let
us now consider Arnold Schwarzenegger's
prime opponent besides Davis, Lt. Gov. Cruz
Bustamante. Despite ridiculous and immature
smear campaigns directed at Schwarzenegger
just days before the election, the most
recent poll at the time of this writing
still shows him in the lead ahead of Bustamante
by a solid 7-percentage-points, according
to a report on www.sacbee.com. Bustamante,
on the other hand, has been introducing
asinine plan after asinine plan, in an effort
to appeal to voters. Take, for instance,
his support of cutting tuition for two-year
colleges (or, more colloquially, continuation
high schools): so instead of students paying
$12 per unit, they are going to pay $10?
This is the solution to California's debt?
Where is my tuition cut? Oh yeah, our tuition
was just raised! Thanks a bunch Gray and
Cruz!
What
about Bustamante's "tough-love"
program, where he would triple the car tax
for anyone with "a car worth more than
$20,000," according to a column by
Richard Acello, found at www.sandiegometro.com.
"The average new car sold today has
a sticker price of about $25,000,"
Acello also notes, accentuating the fact
that it could very well affect many more
Californians than some people seem to think.
As a side note, I'm just wondering where,
exactly, Bustamante's "tough-love"
was when he accepted that $500,000 donation
from the Pechanga Band of Mission Indians?
Wait, now I remember, it was swept under
the rug with the rest of Bustamante's common
sense.
One
final issue I would like to comment on before
I bid you adieu is Prop. 54, which will
"end government's preferential treatment
based on race, and junk a 17th-century racial
classification system that has no place
in 21st-century America," according
to www.racialprivacy.org, the organization
behind the proposition itself. The Web site
continues: "But most importantly, [Racial
Privacy Initiative's] passage will signal
America's first step towards a color-blind
society." I realize that many supporters
of affirmative action and such are still
stuck in the past, but isn't it getting
a little overboard already? I can recall
a very telling statement I once heard from
Larry Elder, a nationally syndicated radio
talk-show host and conservative columnist.
Elder, a black man, believes that race should
be a non-issue in this day and age and sees
affirmative action as hindering progress.
Voting "Yes" on Prop. 54 would
be the first true step toward a truly equal
state, wouldn't you agree?
It
is my hope that this column has informed
and educated those of you who have not done
a vast amount of research on today's recall
election. If you agree with anything I have
said, then I urge you to go out and exercise
your civil duty and vote. Again, by voting
"Yes" on the recall, "Yes"
on Arnold Schwarzenegger, and "Yes"
on Prop. 54, we could potentially turn this
state around.
Gerry
Wachovsky is a broadcast journalism major
at Cal State Long Beach.
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