Be scared...

I can’t think that it’s entirely out of place that Halloween comes this year as close to general elections as they can get. This year’s mid-terms have to be as scary as they come.

And here I am, back in the Golden State to cast my vote. Life is good.

For years after leaving California for the East Coast I voted absentee from here—the ballots are always so much more interesting than any other state. (Don’t get worked up—I only voted here, never in North Carolina or Virginia until I finally moved back from Europe in 2001. And then I stopped voting here. I wasn't double-dipping.)

In California we vote on both referenda (potential laws proposed by the legislature for public endorsement because they haven’t the spine to enact them on their own) and initiatives (grass-roots measures that originate by petition from the citizenry). There’s always at least one measure that’s completely whacked and usually (at least for the past 25 years) something to do with marijuana.

This year that would be Proposition 19, which would legalize (and tax) the general sale of weed, not limited (as it is now) to medical purposes. There’s been surprisingly little advertising about this, although the two major newspapers in the area—San José Mercury-News & San Francisco Chronicle—are both opposed to it.

There’s a good deal more flapdoodle about Prop. 23, which has been funded by oil companies to rescind an earlier law encouraging clean energy. Quelle surprise on that one. Then there’s Prop. 24, which would do something about corporate tax breaks, although I can’t really figure out what, exactly, and is being positioned as a “job-killer” by ads I’m assuming are funded by, you know, business (although, thanks to the US Supreme Court, it’s hard to tell who, exactly, is behind “issue” campaigns).

We have a couple of interesting races, too, which may have made the national press: there are very visible (although not at all enlightening) campaigns for the offices of Governor and of US Senator.

Schwartzenegger has served his constitutional limit of two terms, so it’s a green field for the two major gubernatorial candidates, former Governor Jerry Brown (Dem.) and Internet billionaire Meg Whitman (Rep.). (This being California, there are also candidates from the Peace and Freedom, American Independent, Green and Libertarian parties. Try and match that in Washington.)

A couple of things I find interesting about this race is that there’s been remarkably little advertising on TV (at least on the cable channels) until just a couple of weeks ago. Most of that was by Whitman (who famously has spent more than $140M on her campaign) badmouthing Brown—sadly (for those who’d like to see some civility and attention to issues in these races), her points have frequently turned out not to have a strong basis in facts. Moreover, the elements she trumpets are mostly irrelevant.

Brown has kicked in recently and his ads are equally off-point. Whitman, CEO of eBay (which connection might not be such a positive, as she’s also the head of PayPal) was outed by celebrity-in-her-own-right attorney Gloria Allred (notorious for grabbing headlines for clients’ charges, but we never seem to hear how the cases are settled) for allegedly knowingly employing an illegal alien as a housekeeper. Brown jumped on that for a while before apparently coming to his senses.

Then there’s the fight for the US Senate: incumbent Barbara Boxer (Dem.) vs. challenger and computer billionaire Carly Fiorina. Fiorina was invited to leave the CEO position of HP by the board of directors in 2005 after the merger with Compaq turned out to be not such a brilliant move, but she’s presenting herself (as Whitman is doing) as a take-charge change agent who can go to Washington and turn things around for Californians. Boxer, from what I’ve seen, hasn’t been saying much of anything, until just the past week or so.

(There’ve been debates between these two sets of candidates; but, honestly, it’s still been hard to get any sense of their focus—other than getting elected, of course.)

So it’s kind of hard to choose among them. The major news media across the state have endorsed Brown over Whitman; the Mercury-News has even accused Whitman flat out of being a liar. Interestingly, the Chronicle declined to recommend either Boxer or Fiorina. Their rationale is that Boxer has basically accomplished bupkis in her 18 years in office; and while they reckon that Fiorina actually can get things done, they’d be the wrong things for the state.

Swell.

(I'm only sorry that I’m in the wrong district to cast a vote against Nancy Pelosi, who has turned out to be one of the biggest political hacks to grace the halls of Congress—which has seen some giants of hackery.)

So, dunno what the elections in your state look like; but here in California I’m feeling scared…very scared.