Terminix – Why Arnold?
COMMENT
by Richard Reisman
Maybe he isn’t the top policy wonk. Maybe he doesn’t know where all the bodies (dollars) are buried as does Tom McClintock. Maybe he hasn’t always behaved in an upright manner. (Any one else come to mind?) So what?
Arnold is an outsider unbeholden to the special interests responsible for the mess in Sacramento. And Arnold is a media magnet. And that’s what we need.
The atrocities our state government commits will be harder to continue in the backwaters of Sacramento if someone pays attention.
When Arnold becomes governor, the media will pay attention. Lots of attention. As he focuses in on issues, the media will start writing about them,and proposed reforms.
Parasitic groups infest California, threatening the host (the general public). They lock onto friendly, mostly Democratic politicians who attach their money sucking teeth into the body politic.
There are the prison guards who get huge compensation increases after big campaign favors. Then there are the tort lawyers, a huge source of campaign money, who are given procedural and substantive rights to use state courts to extort money from people and governmental bodies.
Don’t forget gaming tribes, who, after throwing unprecedented money into the political system, walk away with $5 billion of gambling profits, with virtually no taxation.
(Why does Cruz Bustamante’s “tough love” tax plan go after cigarettes and alcohol, but not gambling? Instead, his third and largest target is the “vice” of income.)
When Arnold’s attention,and that of the media,is focused on California’s problems, editorials will rail against these practices (well, some will). The front page will quote the man in the street being outraged. The politicians carrying the water for the special interests will be pressured to respond.
And if they don’t? We’ll see initiatives designed to clean up the system and put the special interests on the defensive. As Arnold campaigns for reform-minded candidates and blows the whistle on the source of campaign funding for recalcitrant members of the Legislature, perhaps the tide will turn.
That’s why Arnold. Parasites, you’re terminated.
,Richard Reisman
