2003-10-06|3:46 p.m.
Seven Reasons Why You Absolutely, Positively MUST Vote on Oct. 7:
1. Your vote matters. If you don't vote, Schwarzenegger becomes your governor. It's that simple. A poll conducted Wednesday through Saturday showed support for the recall and Schwarzenegger dropping fast. This election could be decided by a very small number of votes. We can win this, but your vote is absolutely necessary. (The Mercury News)
2. Arnold Schwarzenegger is a Pete Wilson sequel. Governor Pete Wilson grew state spending much faster than Gray Davis ever has. Worse, he championed energy deregulation and in 1996 signed the bill that deregulated energy in California. Wilson opened the gates to let his energy pals rob the state blind. And now he and his former team are running Schwarzenegger's campaign and choosing his policies. Even more troubling: Schwarzenegger seems to be in bed with the same energy interests as Wilson (See #7). We want to see Terminator 4, not Wilson 2. (Horowitz, Conason)
3. We have no idea what Schwarzenegger is going to do with California, and neither does he. He doesn't have a plan to balance the budget. He hasn't said what cuts he'll make or what taxes he'll raise. California needs a real leader, not someone who plays one in the movies. You may be frustrated with the way things are now -- but if Schwarzenegger had a plan to make them better, don't you think he would have told us about it?
4. He lied about taking money from special interests. The night he announced his candidacy on the Jay Leno show he told us, "As you know, I don't need to take money from anyone. I have plenty of money myself." He then turned right around and accepted over $10 million not from "special" interests, but rather, as he explained it, "business and individuals, absolutely. They're powerful interests who control things." (Saramento Bee, CNN)
5. Arnold Schwarzenegger might belong on the sex offender registry, but not in the governor's mansion. So far 15 credible women have come forward with stories of being physically assaulted by this man -- some only a few years ago. He has not denied some of the stories (in fact, he said "where there's smoke, there's fire"). He has tried to chalk his mistakes up to "rowdiness." But these incidents constitute a string of crimes that would land anyone except a multi-millionaire actor in jail and on the sex offender registry. (Los Angeles Times, Newsday)
6. The Nazi stuff is serious. Who cares how long ago it was that Arnold Schwarzenegger said that he wanted to have an experience "like Hitler in the Nuremberg stadium, and have all those people scream at you and just being in total agreement with whatever you say." That's scary! And now nuns are being roughed up at Schwarzenegger rallies. A film maker who worked closely with Schwarzenegger in the '70s says he saw him playing "Nazi marching songs from long-playing records in his collection at home." At his 1988 wedding Schwarzenegger toasted a confirmed Nazi war criminal, Kurt Waldheim, saying "My friends don't want me to mention Kurt's name, because of all the recent Nazi stuff and the U.N. controversy, but I love him and Maria does too, and so thank you, Kurt." Where there's smoke, there's fire! (New York Times, Slate, Sacramento Bee, Los Angeles Times)
7. Because Schwarzenegger STILL hasn't explained why he met with Enron's Kenneth Lay at the height of the energy crisis. Schwarzenegger attended a meeting of top business leaders and Republican politicians on May 17, 2001 that was apparently held to thwart a Davis-Bustamante plan to recover $9 billion from energy companies. He still hasn't explained why he was there or whether his candidacy for Governor was discussed at that meeting. And he's refusing to talk to reporters in these last days of the campaign. (San Mateo Times, FTCR)