Every poll now shows a narrowing of the lead long held by
the
”
yes
”
side on Question 1 in next month’s recall election.
It’s gradually becoming more comfortable for many voters to go
with the devil they know (Gov. Gray Davis) than any of the devils
they don’t (the 135 candidates to replace him).
Every poll now shows a narrowing of the lead long held by the “yes” side on Question 1 in next month’s recall election.
It’s gradually becoming more comfortable for many voters to go with the devil they know (Gov. Gray Davis) than any of the devils they don’t (the 135 candidates to replace him).
There’s a reason most Californians don’t know the leading replacement candidates very well: They carefully glide around the toughest questions they’re asked. If they want to be sure to achieve step 1 in their efforts to become governor – dumping Davis – it’s now plain they’d better start answering questions directly.
The end of evasions is especially a must for Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, the lone major Democrat on the replacement list. For this could be Bustamante’s one chance at the governor’s office. He became the de facto Democratic nominee by default, when all other significant figures in his party pulled out.
But if Davis survives, he will surely view Bustamante as a traitor, and so will many of the party faithful when the next full-scale Democratic primary rolls around in 2006. So Bustamante must win now, or face likely retirement from big-time politics.
Muscleman actor Arnold Schwarzenegger also must stop the weasel words, even though he delivers them with a thespian’s polish.
But the pressure is heavier on Bustamante, in part because his many millions in campaign donations from casino Indian tribes cause even Democrats to wonder about his wisdom, if not his integrity. He simply cannot long get away with obfuscation, especially when it comes to questions of basic loyalty.
Such questions arise because of his membership in the collegiate Chicano activist group MEChA, short for the Movemiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan (Chicano Student Movement for Aztlan). When Bustamante was a member at Fresno State in the early ’70s, one of the group’s mottoes was (translated from the Spanish) “For the race – everything. For others – nothing.”
MEChA leaders today insist that slogan is obsolete, that theirs is a group seeking only to recruit and aid Latino students. If so, why does the word Aztlan remain in its title?
Loosely defined as the territory Mexico ceded to the United States in the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo – California, Arizona, Texas, New Mexico, and parts of Colorado, Utah and Nevada – Aztlan includes all of the American Southwest.
Some MEChA chapters in California still post Internet website material calling for “liberation” of Aztlan. As recently as 1999, Charles Truxillo, a University of New Mexico professor of Chicano studies, flatly predicted an “inevitable” creation of a new nation of Aztlan, including the Southwest and the provinces of northern Mexico.
At the time, Bustamante told this column the idea was “silly, not something any of us (Latinos) take seriously.”
But he never said it was a bad idea. And when asked this month for a yes-or-no answer to the question of whether he endorses the stated goals of MEChA, the lieutenant governor again obfuscated, saying “racial separation is wrong.” He reverted to MEChA’s line about the group’s current moderate nature and goals, but avoided opposing either Aztlan or the racist slogan the group used while he was a member.
Chances are Bustamante will not be elected governor unless he outright rejects much of what has been MEChA’s message.
The same for Schwarzenegger and his past sexual practices. He first acknowledged the raunchy and misogynist statements he made in a 1977 interview with “Oui” magazine, then denied remembering the interview, then hedged by saying he might have made up the incidents he described just to promote his career.
But he can’t deny his July statement about the joys of putting women’s heads in toilet bowls, nor can he laugh off widely published claims that he’s groped and spoken inappropriately to women frequently in recent years.
It’s been easy for him to get starstruck reporters to let him off the hook. But when a man uses language and imagery that encourages brutalizing of women to promote his career and movies, what does it say about him?
So there’s a good chance Schwarzenegger will return to private life soon, unless he deals honestly with charges he regularly mistreats and propositions women.
Yes, voters will probably give Schwarzenegger slack on his refusal or inability to be specific about how he will reform the California budget process and other policy questions. They know he’s a beginner – even if he has talked since early 2001 about running. But his personal life is different. He can’t claim he’s new to that.
Factors like these are leading some voters to reconsider their previous pro-recall stances and think about reverting to a “no” vote on Question 1.
Both Bustamante and Schwarzenegger, then, must soon confront basic personal questions that haunt their candidacies. For these two, it may be either answer now, and credibly, or forget about ever being governor of California.
