Enlarge imageBy Arthur Spiegelman
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Politics makes for strange bedfellows and bizarre moments in California, like having a bounty hunter and the state’s lieutenant governor show up at the same time in the same place to file papers to run for governor in the same recall.
Or having Arnold Schwarzenegger appear on the Tonight Show to announce his candidacy and then have a rival talk show host, ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel, strike back by showing a film clip of the potential future governor happily smoking a large marijuana joint in a documentary film made years ago.
"Tomorrow we’ll have our own interview with the next governor of California -- Gary Coleman," says Kimmel referring to the diminutive former child star turned security guard who now has his sights set on stardom in Sacramento, the same state capitol that Schwarzenegger sees in his future.
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Then there’s porn publisher Larry Flynt announcing his candidacy as "a smut peddler who cares" on the same day he is sued by an ex-employee of his publishing empire for allowing sex toys to be washed in the company dishwasher.
Gross? Maybe. Meanwhile the candidacy of the Great Journalistic Hope has washed out. Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez folded his tent and withdrew as a candidate. He said he now wants to become an actor.
"True, I have no more acting experience than Arnold Schwarzenegger has political experience. But when seasoned pros are making movies like ’Gigli’ only a fresh eye can save the industry," said Lopez in his column on Friday.
"Gigli," the Ben Affleck-Jennifer Lopez box office flop, has received about the same kind of damning reviews as the October 7 recall in which Democratic Gov. Gray Davis is fighting for political survival only 10 months after being elected to a second term.
Voters deeply dislike Davis but many critics ask whether not being liked is sufficient reason for a recall vote and many question whether a state in such economic difficulties should pay $67 million to underwrite a political carnival that has transfixed the nation.
With Schwarzenegger snapping the whip in centre ring and Davis wondering how to blow the whistle on the whole circus, a myriad of acts are juggling and doing somersaults for attention.
PORN STAR WANTS TAX DEDUCTIBLE LAP DANCES
There’s Mary Carey the porn star in American Flag bikini top vowing to tax breast implants but make lap dances tax deductible. There’s Angelyne, the mysterious would be celebrity who appears on Los Angeles billboards and there’s Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante asking people to support his boss, to whom he rarely speaks, but then vote for him if they can’t, which he assumes they will do if they don’t vote first for Schwarzenegger.
The 99 Cents Only store chain has offered to pay filing fees for 99-year-olds willing to run.
This sort of thing has led commentators inside and outside the state to call California crazy, something the land of surf boards, second life starts, cleansed chakras, tax revolts and the birthplace of Ronald Reagan’s political career has heard before.
The Washington Post thinks "California is behaving badly, like a dishevelled celebrity going off her meds. Broke and bipolar, babbling incoherently into an invisible phone ...." The Post should be worried because one rule of thumb in the United States is that trends start in California and then move eastward.
Veteran journalist Lou Cannon, a highly regarded biographer of Reagan and the author of the upcoming book, "Governor Reagan: His Rise to Power" said, "I don’t have a quarrel if the whole country thinks California is crazy but there’s nothing unusual about a film star running for office. It is a major industry in the state."
He added, "I would be very cautious about a rush to judgement on Schwarzenegger. He could be anything: a great flop or a candidate that blows away all the other candidates, Davis included. But I winced when he said making the decision to run was the most important decision he had to make since deciding whether or not to get a bikini wax as a bodybuilder.
"With statements like that he could make himself a laughingstock."
Democratic political consultant Ben Austin says that the format of the recall is tailor-made for Schwarzenegger to star in.
"He’s banking on a shortened campaign in a bizarre format to allow him to get away with one-liners, quotes from his movies and political platitudes. The Democrat will have to smoke him out and engage him in a debate on real choices."
And that’s no easy thing in what has become, even by California standards, a wild and crazy political circus.
