Man, isn’t this cool? Here we are in this odd governmental
twilight between governors; never been here before but I think I
like it. Too bad it’s so brief.
Man, isn’t this cool? Here we are in this odd governmental twilight between governors; never been here before but I think I like it. Too bad it’s so brief. I mean, we have a guy who technically is, like, the Governor, right? In case you’ve already forgotten, and I wouldn’t blame you, his name is Gray Davis. He’s got the job, but every time he enters a room somebody announces “Dead man walking” because, hey, it’s not like he’s at the end of a natural term of office; he was, to grab a little Shakespeare, untimely ripped from the position, so nobody is going to give him the time of day, much less acknowledge the power of a Chief Executive.
Then we have a guy who, since “Governor-elect” isn’t an actual office, is at the moment technically a mere private citizen with no power beyond his instinctive inclination to peel off his shirt, hoist a 50-caliber machine gun with one hand, and shred anything that gets in his way. When he enters a room everybody thinks “movie star” and wants to ask him if he plans to appoint Quentin Tarantino to any important cabinet positions.
So between them we have for a little while a sort of Chief Executive Nothing, and by appearances they’re getting along really well; Davis is showing the graciousness he never showed back when he was somebody, and Ahnuld is responding like a humble student happy to accept his mentoring. They travel around together, they meet with Bush together, they say nice things about each other, and meanwhile it somehow seems like California is experiencing a sort of political cease-fire that I find profoundly pleasant. It’s as though the Powers That Be remembered the immortal words of the great philosopher Rodney King, “Can’t we all just get along?” and decided “Well, I guess we could give it a shot and see what happens.”
Of course, all good things must end, and too soon there will be a swearing-in; plain old just-like-anybody-else glamorous filthy-rich mega-muscled married-to-a-Kennedy Ahnuld will lose the common touch and become Governor Ahnuld. Then we’ll all be reminded that he belongs to a certain political party to which he will have obligations, and that the Legislature is controlled by the other party, and that the Governor and the Legislature have to work together to dig up the money to balance the budget, and that the likelihood of this happening without divine intervention is not great. The senior Democrats in the Senate and the Assembly will tell us that Governor Ahnuld, dazzling smile notwithstanding, hasn’t got a clue how the budget process works, and Governor Ahnuld will tell us that the senior Democrats, decades of experience notwithstanding, haven’t got a clue what the people want. Sacramento will once again be a frenetic powerhouse of bold and dynamic dithering, accusations will fly like migrating birds, and a once proud action hero worthy of a best-quality comic book will be reduced before our very eyes to a mere politician haggling for Assembly votes to fund upgrading the bathrooms in our state parks.
So fellow citizens, let us behold and appreciate this tiny and unique moment of tranquility in which our fair state has at the same time two governors and no governor at all, for after this it is all downhill.
