“I wouldn’t urinate down his throat if his heart was on fire.” – James Carville on Nader

When Jason and I started this site in 2003, two things drove us: the Bush administration’s mis-governance and the gubernatorial recall election in California. With our state still dealing with the fallout from the 2000 energy crisis, brought on by Republican deregulation of the state’s power generation and transmission system, residents saw their rates spike as governor Gray Davis was forced to sign emergency contracts at inflated prices just to keep the lights on. Sensing an opportunity to flip the governorship of the nation’s largest (and richest) state, the President and his advisors refused to expedite Federal Energy Regulatory Commission investigations and relief in the hopes that Davis would be so weakened that he would lose his seat in the 2002 election. Owing to an exceptionally weak challenge from Republican Bill Simon in that election, Davis won a second term, but still-high power bills and an unforgiving public left him mortally wounded.

Even after California Republican Congressman Darrell Issa set the wheels in motion for a nearly unprecedented recall election, Davis was favored to hold and serve out his four-year term, one he earned just months prior. That is until Issa cried his way through a press conference announcing that he was withdrawing from the race to make way for Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Schwarzenegger, who had long toyed with a run for office but shied away from the long and arduous campaigns, now needed to mug for the cameras and play to disaffected voters for just two months. And despite being dogged by sexual harassment charges, numerous verbal gaffes and running on a platform that consisted of “I’ll figure out how to govern once I get elected,” Schwarzenegger rode his movie catch-phrases and psuedo-tough-guy bravado straight into the governor’s mansion. It was little comfort for Davis when FERC finally levied fines against Enron and others for defrauding the state out of billions.

Schwarzenegger then proceeded to bring K Street to Sacramento, taking pay-for-play to a new level. As he talked about reform out of one side of his mouth, he was soliciting huge contributions from corporations seeking to do business with the state out of the other. He launched one of the largest power grabs in American politics with his 2005 special election, costing the state and local governments millions of dollars. His rise to power and exercise thereof was not only caustic, it was embarrassing. Take Carville’s feelings toward Nader, multiply them a few times, and you’ll have a rough approximation of my view of Schwarzenegger.

Yet if California’s election were held today, I would leave the box next to Schwarzenegger’s challenger, Democrat Phil Angelides, blank.

One year ago, Schwarzenegger’s approval rating was 31%, half of what it had been earlier that same year. His vanity special election was headed for a brutal defeat on all measures, thanks to staunch opposition from teachers, police, nurses and prison guards. Democratic prospects for reclaiming the governor’s office looked bright. Until the primary battle between Angelides and Steve Westly turned into the kind of fratricidal disaster that even the Swift Boat fools couldn’t hope to replicate. Radio and TV ads with wild accusations ran so often I had to cut back on media consumption. For two men who agreed on almost all issues, Westly and Angelides played mutually assured destruction better (or at least more extensively) than Saint Ronald Reagan ever did. I voted, electability in mind, for Westly, but by then it made little difference that Angelides won by a few points, the bitter primary campaign would have made it nearly impossible for either man to win the general election.

It’s one thing for me to throw in the towel on the race, something else entirely for Angelides’ own campaign to act as if they’ve done the same thing. As Schwarzenegger widens his lead, Angelides is just nowhere. He has failed to rally his base or reach out to the squishy middle. His communications game has been close to non-existent. And in the latest bit of incompetence, his aides hacked into Schwarzenegger’s server, downloaded audio files and released them to the media in an attempt to embarrass the governor – an action akin to a multi-billionaire robbing a bank.

Believe me, back in 2003 I’d have promised to donate to, work for, and vote for anyone running against Schwarzenegger. If Angelides can’t run a better campaign than this, he doesn’t deserve my vote, and unless something drastic happens, he won’t get it. One look at the polls tells me I’m not alone. Maybe I would pull out the old fire extinguisher…