Salon: Arnold Manhandles California

[kskiska]

Schwarzenegger wins a new role in a landslide. But who will he play: Jesse Ventura? Pete Wilson? Playboy predator? Or tough independent who stands up to his GOP friends?

Californians elected a new governor Tuesday. Sometime over the next year or so, maybe -- just maybe -- they'll find out who he is, how badly he has treated women over the years, and what he plans to do as the governor of the nation's largest state.

In early results, California voters are approving the ouster of Gov. Gray Davis by a wide margin. In the race to replace Davis, a Democrat who was reelected to office just 11 months ago, bodybuilding actor Arnold Schwarzenegger is leading Democratic Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante and conservative Republican state Sen. Tom McClintock. One minute after the polls closed in California Tuesday night, CNN and several other networks called the race: Davis out, and Schwarzenegger in.

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"I've resigned myself to a Schwarzenegger governorship, and I'm hoping that he's everything he's telling me he is," Mark Williams, a conservative Sacramento radio talk show host told Salon a few days ago, as the Terminator's victory began to appear inevitable. "People so want Davis to be out of there that we may be looking at mass denial as to what Schwarzenegger could possibly be. With every day that goes by, I think we may be coming closer to the time when people start saying, 'Why didn't anybody tell us what he was really like?'"

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"Our concern is whether this recall is going to be a recall of the progressive gains we've made in California," Helen Grieco, the executive director of the California chapter of the National Organization for Women, said Tuesday afternoon. "What's going to happen to family leave, to a full platform of choice? What's going to happen with universal healthcare? We may see restrictions on women's reproductive rights, no progress on civil rights or domestic partners' rights, a whole variety of things -- let's just say the whole progressive agenda may be at stake."

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http://salon.com/news/feature/2003/10/08/arnold/index.html

[Speck Tater]

1. His first act in office...

Governor Schwarzeneger has declared Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico to be part of the axis of evil states and has called upon New Mexico to cease its production of burritos of mass destruction immediately or face threat of invasion. Intelligence professionals in Rhode Island report that they have documents proving that Nevada has negotiated to purchase yellow cake mix from Arizona, and if that should fall into the hands of the New Mexico Democrats it would destabalize the entire region.