One more cup of coffee

The depressing race for Governor

Next Tuesday, I get to cast my vote in the California gubernatorial recall election.

Ooh, what a privilege.

A mere 2 1/2 days until the election, and I still don't know how I'm going to vote. I am disgusted by Gray Davis' so-called leadership of the state of California. His blatant interference in the 2002 Republican primary for governor's race, basically engineering it so that he would face the ultra-conservative Bill Simon instead of the more moderate Richard Riordan, was deeply disturbing. (Of course, equally disturbing was the manner in which Republican voters let themselves be led like sheep into nominating a candidate that Davis knew he could beat. Davis may not have deserved to win that one, but the Republicans certainly deserved to lose it.) The only thing less impressive than Davis' handling of the budget deficit has been the astonishing lack of information on how bad the budget really was until just after last year's election. His sudden flip-flop on the bill to allow illegal immigrants to have driver's licenses is political pandering at its worst.

But the choices to replace him are even more depressing. Schwarzenegger has run an entire campaign based on saying as little as possible. It's hard to say where he stands on anything. Even his apology after the LA Times article about his alleged sexual misconduct managed to not say anything -- essentially, "I'm sorry for anyone I've offended even though I didn't do the things that article said." Huh?

Bustamante may be even worse, though. Rarely do you see a candidate quite so transparently bought and paid for by special interests. He managed to solicit enormous contributions into a 2002 re-election fund set up when he ran for Lt. Governor next year, in blatant violation of campaign finance reform laws passed to limit donations to $21,200 per donor -- or, at least, he did until a judge told him to knock it off. Where Bustamante has professed an actual position on something, I usually disagree with it. But lately he seems to be managing to say even less than Schwarzenegger. A Mercury News article earlier this week had the candidate's responses to questions about various immigration issues. Bustamante's responses were all between one and four words long. The only time they were longer than a single word was when the phrasing of the question precluded any chance of answering with a simple 'yes' or 'no'. While this certainly minimizes the chance of his being quoted out of context, it certainly does nothing to tell me where he stands on anything, either.

For the first time, I am sufficiently disgusted by the election that I am seriously considering walking into the polling place, collecting my ballot, and turning it back in untouched. I really don't know what to do.