I’m not capering and singing over Arnold Schwarzenegger’s win in California; not only do I think he faces tremendous problems, but I wasn’t all that impressed by what I heard from him (I was, to be sure, much less impressed by his competitors).
But Howard Dean’s spin on the whole thing seems partisan to the point of goofiness:
Today’s recall election in California was not about Gray Davis or Arnold Schwarzenegger. This recall was about the frustration so many people are feeling about the way things are going. All across America, George Bush’s massive tax cuts for the wealthy are undermining state budgets, causing cutbacks in services and increases in local property taxes.
See, people weren’t really angry at Davis for being a slime-ball politico who never met a special interest he wouldn’t pander to for contributions (which he would then repay handsomely). They were really just angry at George Bush, and, well, sort of, er, misread the ballot to think it was him they were recalling. Yeah, that’s it. It was that whole Florida I-voted-for-the-wrong-person hoohah again, only, uh, without the wrong person’s name actually being on the ballot.
So either we have the people being deluded by misdirected anger to take it out on the wrong person (an odd stand for an ostensibly populist candidate like Dean to take), or else, well, maybe it was about the candidates.