I have avoided commenting on, or even caring much about the California recall vote, but one can't help reading about it, what with all the slime being peddled, mostly about the frontrunner. But others have interesting observations. Roger Simon predicted a Schwarzenegger victory before it was easy, and now he opines on how the L.A. Times blew it, misreading what the voters apparently want. Among the things that the Times just doesn't get:
The very things that they are publicizing in Arnold are the very things the public loves about him--not that he was a groper or mistreated women--but that he is AWAKE. Unlike the others competing against him (Davis, Bustamante, McClintock), he is a vibrant personality that interests and attracts people. The LA Times is the opposite of that--a paper that is so gray it out grays the "gray lady" NY Times by miles. In the city that gave the world Hollywood, these folks don't realize how much the public craves theatre. If they had, they might have known the best way to defeat Schwarzenegger was quietly, reducing a larger than life figure to the humdrum world of the state politician, peppering him with obscure questions of budget and tax law, not by sliming him with outtakes from the Enquirer.