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August 7, 2003 - Arnold Sch-----------ger is running!!! © 2003 by John Varley; all rights reserved |
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Well, I hate to say I told you so ... no, forget that, I might as well tell the truth, I don’t mind at all saying I told you so. I did, didn’t I? And did you listen? Maybe next time you will. Arnold Sch-----------ger is running!!! Oh, this is going to be grand, this is going to be glorious! By the time this shindig is over all y’all living in states less interesting than California are going to be saying "Gee, those guys out west are having so much fun, maybe we ought to recall our governor, too!" Not to mention how utterly, totally lame our outmoded national electoral system is going to look in comparison. This will be the final nail in the coffin of the system that gave us George Bush The Sequel with a plurality of minus 500,000 votes. Good riddance! I watched Arnold’s press conference today and found it a little confusing, but apparently he’s campaigning on the fact that he’s got a lot of money. This means he won’t have to ask anybody for MORE money. (See? Didn’t I tell you we should get down to basics? Which means, I guess, we ought to just elect Bill Gates president and get it over with.) Arnold says the state is in trouble, we’ve got this $38 billion deficit. He says he’ll just write a check for that amount and let the citizens pay him back over the next few years, when they have a few dollars to spare. Meantime he promises to make 38 Terminator sequels, one every other weekend, in case he runs a little short, so the check won’t bounce. I admit, I wasn’t clear on whether that was a promise or a threat. And guess who else is running? Ariana Huffington! Arnold’s from Austria and she’s from ... Potsylvania, I think, so we might end up with the first governor who isn’t even an American! Is that a fine example of the American dream, or what? I can’t wait for the debates. Of course, they will have to be simultaneously translated or be sub-titled for those of us whose command of Teutonic accents is less than perfect. And you know who else is running? Why ... near as I can figure, EVERYBODY is running, except Diane Feinstein and Kobe Bryant, who’s a bit busy at the moment. (Too bad; you can’t buy that kind of exposure. Hell, lots of people plan to write him in, anyway.) And why not? All you need is 65 signatures and $1.98 and you can run, too! The Secretary of State was actually considering simply giving everybody a copy of every phone book in the state instead of a ballot and let the voters check off ANYBODY, until it was pointed out a lot of the candidates have unlisted numbers. But the ballot will have to be re-designed, anyway, made longer in the horizontal dimension to accommodate Arnold Sch---------ger, since his whole name must be printed, no abbreviations allowed. (Did you know he shortened his name when his ship landed at Ellis Island, as so many immigrants did before him? It’s a fact. He used to be Arnoldvonburstein-knackerthrasher-gedingledangledongledungle-krappenpooper-jingleheimer Smith.) Lots of old governors and other pols are getting involved. Jerry Brown is running and so is his dad, and he’s been dead for 36 years. Henry Haight and Earl Warren are running. Ronald Reagan is running, and he doesn’t even know it. Hillary Clinton is running. (Hey, she’s spent about as much time in California as she has in New York, and holding down two jobs shouldn’t be problem for a go-getter like her.) Charlatan Heston says he’ll throw his hat into the ring, if he can remember where his hat is and what a ring is. The lieutenant governor out here is Cruz Bustamante, and he’s running, on the Backstabber Party ticket. Et tu, Cruz-e! You don’t have to be a Californian to run, you don’t have to be an American, you don’t have to be alive, you don’t even have to be human. We’re liberal out here! Yessir Arafat and Sodom Hussein are in the race (Sodom plans to campaign wearing a dress, a wig, and Groucho glasses, like he does in Baghdad), and so is Aerial Sharon. Sharon vows to build a fence around Arafat and Hussein. Sirhan Sirhan’s son Sirhan Sirhan Sirhan Sirhan plans to take a shot at the nominee ... sorry, the nomination. Sharon plans to bulldoze his home. Tony Blare wants to be a candidate, but the Secretary of State says he’ll have to have a signed note of permission from George Bush. Sharon says he’ll bulldoze HIM. The various Monty Python Silly Parties have thrown out a raft of candidates including a sumo wrestler, a porn actress, Michael Jackson, Bill Murray, and Bob Dole, (not the famous Jackson, Murray, and Dole, but people with the same names), Steve "Integrity" Young, Gary Coleman, Larry Flynt ("Two Beavers In Every Pot!"), Ralph Nadir, an ex-cop named Michael Wozniak who is running for the sole purpose of legalizing ferrets as pets, and an aspiring starlet named Mary Carey with huge breasts who drives a pink Cadillac. (The Cadillac is running, too, as well as at least one of the breasts, but it’s not getting a lot of support.) Jethro Q. Walrustitty is representing the Slightly Silly party, the Moderately Silly Party has Tarquin Fintimlinbinwhinbimlim Bus Stop F'tang F'tang Ole Biscuit-Barrel on their ticket, and the Very Silly Party is backing Malcolm Peter Brian Telescope Adrian Blackpool Rock Stoatgobbler John Raw Vegetable Brrroooo Norman Michael (bell) (whistle) Edward (car horn) (choo-choo train) (buzzer) Thomas Moo "We'll keep a welcome in the..." (gunshot) William (phooot) "Raindrops keep falling on my" (weird noise) "Don't sleep in the subway" (cuckoo cuckoo) Naaoooo Smith. Other announced candidates: The entire cast of "Chicago" is running as a team, busy stuffing ballot boxes, and have already carried Cook County, Illinois. Mark Spitz is testing the waters. Walt Disney’s cryogenized corpse has had a cool reception among the electorate. Marlon Brando could be a contendah. Charlie Manson has a cult following. The statue of Seabiscuit at Santa Anita is running, coming up on the rail, and is expected to beat the stuffing out of Trigger, who is a real dark horse. A bunch of bananas in our local Albertson’s is running on a split ticket, and Don Pardo and Ed McMahon are expected to announce soon. Heck, I’m running, too, and so is Lee, plus three of the semi-feral cats that hang around the trailer park, a raccoon who raids our garbage every night, and the ’84 Pace Arrow that we live in. I don’t know what their platforms are, they’ll have to tell their own lies, but I’ve made up a list of campaign promises: If elected, I promise never to set foot in Sacramento. Nothing but a bunch of crooks there, anyway. I plan to relocate to some country with no extradition treaty (purely as a precaution, I’m for honest government) like Brazil, and govern by fax and email. I’ll never waste your time by appearing on TV. Let’s face it, on television I’d have about as much charisma as old roadkill, and I could give George Bush stammering lessons. I’ll appoint a gubernatorial stand-in to read my speeches, some glamorous Hollywood star. Maybe Dustin Hoffman, or Cloris Leachman. I’ve got positions on the issues, too: THE ECONOMY: Arnold’s scheme to balance the budget is, frankly, laughable. But I have taken a look at the state, and have realized there are basically three things in California that are thriving: Hummer dealerships, the Lottery, and Indian gaming. Forget about the Hummers, the real money is in gambling. I propose that we immediately make the lottery odds better. Every Californian who buys a Lottery ticket for a dollar gets at LEAST a dollar back, plus there would be LOTS more intermediate prizes of $1,000 to $100,000 dollars. Soon we’d all be big winners, we’d all be rich! (Odds for out-of-staters would remain as crappy as they’ve always been, but by the time they realized that we’d have cleaned them all out.) Also, I’d immediately declare all Californians honorary Indians and allow everyone to open a casino in his or her garage. I’d put up signs at every highway leading into the state with our new motto: "Welcome to California. Loose Slots!" TRADE: The Midwest grows all the corn and wheat and soybeans, and California grows everything else. And apparently doesn’t charge enough for it, or else why the big deficit? I propose we nationalize all the farmland, and double or triple the prices we charge for our fruits and vegetables. If people in other states don’t want to pay that much, well, too bad, Charlie. We’ll cut off the supply. In a week we’d see salad riots, people storming the A&P pathetically begging for artichokes, arugula, endive, and baby lettuce. In a month millions would be suffering from beriberi, ricketts, scurvy, and other scrofulous diseases. In another month the cheap wine would run out and drinkers would be forced to the hard stuff; productivity would plummet. In three months they’d be happy to pay whatever Californians want to charge. See how simple these things can be? FOREIGN POLICY: I can’t reveal most of this for reasons of state security, but I have plans. BIG plans. I’ve heard that a foreign power is stockpiling and testing weapons of mass destruction in Nevada, and something will have to be done about that. (Hint: California National Guard vs. Nevada National Guard; where would you put your money?) Rumors keep coming in that the State of Utah and parts of Idaho are dominated by a mysterious religious cult, a la Waco’s Branch Davidians. Things could get hot for them. Arizona is flat out STEALING Colorado River water that by rights belongs to Southern California. Frankly, we would like to divert most of the Columbia up north, too, something those uppity Oregonians have historically resisted. Watch it, beaver-brains. And how about those Hi-waiians? Every year they siphon off millions of people who could be surfing California beaches and spending money at Disneyland. How about if we just fly right over Pearl Harbor this time and bomb Waikiki? Huh? INTERNAL AFFAIRS: For many years people have said California really should split into two states, as the north hates the south and vice versa. California is basically Los Angeles, San Francisco, and a lot of wasteland. Now, I have noticed that the San Andreas Fault runs from some spot on the northern coast, dips into the ocean and returns south of San Francisco, cuts north of Los Angeles, and is then lost somewhere in Mexico. I propose that all Californians assemble on the fault line, from Cape Mendocino to the Salton Sea, and choose up sides, standing on the North American Plate or the Pacific Plate. On a signal, we all start jumping up and down in rhythm. We could park a lot of those mega-blaster cars on the line, too, all playing the same rap song by Coolio or Tupak Shakur (who is also running, by the way). Something should shake out soon enough. Then, we could elect governors for West California and East California, and quickly have TWO recall elections! POWER: Problem: A few years back a handful of companies manipulated the power grid and money and futures markets, created artificial shortages, and California ended up holding the bag, big time, while these thieves walked away with billions and billions of dollars. (This is at the root of the whole recall hoo-hah. The voters blame Governor Black-and-white Davis for this.) Solution: Hang ‘em. String them up from their own power towers. I guarantee you, these dudes won’t have to see very many PG&E executives dangling from 100 megawatt power lines, hair fluffed out like smoking dandelions, sparks shooting from their fingertips, before they will BEG us to take all that money back. Let’s string up all the Enron execs while we’re at it. I don’t know if they had anything to do with the power crisis, but it’d be lots of fun, don’t you think? So all y’all, please vote for me! You say you don’t live in California? Who cares? We don’t require you to live here to run, you think we’d care if you live here to VOTE? Just write out a ballot on an empty gum wrapper or something, make your mark, and mail it to Sacramento care of "The Great Big Guv Recall Election Of 2003." If you have any household pets (except ferrets, who I assume will vote Wozniak in a landslide), have them vote, too. Or encourage them to run! I welcome the competition. Back to VarleyYarns or Home |