Saturday, August 23, 2003

More Recall Madness

A new Los Angeles Times poll has Cruz Bustamante way ahead of Arnold Schwarzenegger, 35% to 22%. Following them are Tom McClintock with 12%, Peter Ueberroth with 7%, Bill Simon with 6%, Arianna Huffington with 3%, and Peter Camejo and Larry Flynt tied with 1%. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3%.

I don't believe this poll is any more valid than the one the other day that had Bustamante slightly ahead, or the one that had Arnold ahead. For emphasis: I don't believe any of these tell us how folks will vote in October.

However, there's one interesting thing here. The California Broadcasters Association has announced a debate, to be held September 17, of candidates on the second part of the ballot. Gray Davis will not be invited, they say, but they will ask the top six contenders, as determined by non-partisan polling in the coming weeks. If any of the six decline, they say, a chair will be left empty for them.

Now, if they choose to use the L.A. Times poll as their guide, the top six would be Bustamante, Schwarzenegger, McClintock, Ueberroth, Simon and Huffington. I have a hunch they picked six as the cut-off because they figured it would be those six; that the joke or fringe candidates like Flynt and Gallagher would be far enough behind the sixth place contender to justify excluding them. But Simon has dropped out...so does he get included? Why leave an empty chair for a guy who says he's not running? But if you leave him out, you have to include Camejo...and LARRY FLYNT! That's right: We may have a crippled, "loose cannon" pornographer in our gubernatorial debate. This could be very entertaining, and make the whole recall look even sillier than it already does.

They may have to include Flynt, anyway. He's within the margin of error of Huffington, and can afford lawyers who can certainly argue that he can't be excluded from a debate that includes her. Between now and the 17th, he could easily get 2% or 3% in some poll and even be ahead of Simon...so then how do they keep the publisher of Hustler's Hometown Honeys out? I don't know either, but I bet they try to modify or apply the rules so they don't have to build a wheelchair ramp to the stage.

• Posted at 10:21 PM · LINK

Artwork Online

My friend Frank Giella is a fervent collector of fine original comic book art. You can browse an online gallery over at his website.

And as Ken Quattro just informed me, Frank owns (and is displaying) the original art to the Alex Toth Super Friends cover that I wrote about in this item. You can go directly to Frank's display of that piece of artwork by clicking here.

• Posted at 7:06 PM · LINK

Highly Recommended Reading

You should always read Joshua Micah Marshall's weblog, Talking Points Memo. But this latest entry may be the most important thing he's ever posted.

• Posted at 1:58 PM · LINK

Recall Thoughts

The polls on the recall seem to be all over the place. Schwarzenegger and Bustamonte seem to be out in front, and if you take the margin of error into account (as almost no one does), they're neck and neck. Polls also say that Californians are ready to boot Mr. Davis, though perhaps the tide is turning in his favor. Maybe.

It strikes me that all this polling is pretty meaningless. There are still a lot of undecideds, at least with regard to the second part of the ballot, and voters don't know very much about what either Arnold or Cruz intends to do. Before election day, each will probably have a "scandal" or two, and that may affect things, as may voters coming to understand more about the procedure. In the last week, I've explained to three separate friends, all of whom I would rate as quite intelligent, that no matter how they vote on Part One of the ballot, they can still vote on Part Two. All three thought that if they voted to keep Davis, they'd have no say in his replacement. If that's widespread, that could signal major shifts in the weeks to come. This kind of balloting is utterly unprecedented and that further cripples the polling process, which is based on taking current samplings and plugging them into models of past elections. Since there's never been an election quite like this one, the pollsters are flying blinder than usual.

My gut feeling at the moment, which is almost as worthless as the polls, is that the first half of the ballot will be a squeaker, hinging on which side is more motivated to actually cast ballots. I feel Davis will do better than a lot of people expect, but that's only if he doesn't do something real stupid before October 7. And I sure wouldn't bet money that he won't. At the moment, he looks like he's running against George W. Bush and a Republican effort to undo elections. That will only get him so far, which probably won't be far enough. At the moment, the person out there making the best case that Davis doesn't deserve to be blamed for the state's fiscal crisis is Peter Ueberroth, and no one's listening to him.

Bill Simon, who I saw on TV yesterday vowing he would never drop out of the race, has dropped out of the race. His spokesperson said, "There was absolutely no pressure, no phone calls — this was a decision made by Bill Simon based on rational conclusions," and of course we don't believe that for a minute. In any case, most of his support will probably go to McClintock. If McClintock stays in to the end and splits the Republican vote, we're probably looking at Governor Cruz. If McClintock gets out, then the race is Arnold's to lose, and he might do just that. The Republican base can't be that wild about a guy who's pro-choice, in favor of some gay rights, thought the impeachment was a sham, makes violent movies, smokes dope, has more rumors of marital infidelity than Clinton ever had, etc. It won't take a lot of sizzling revelations to discourage those folks from flocking to the polls.

But who knows? I have an uneasy feeling that the end result will be a governor who has a lot less support than Davis. That is, Davis will lose because only 47% of the state wants to keep him...but then he'll be replaced by a guy who's wanted by 28% of the state. That such an outcome is even possible ought to alarm some people. Is this the kind of Democracy we want to bring to Iraq? But I keep reading articles by folks who think any process that gets rid of G. Davis can't possibly have anything wrong with it.

Some articles are now saying that Rob Reiner seriously considered entering the race. If you think you're sick of "Terminator" references dominating the election coverage, just imagine how looney it would be with "Meathead" on the ballot.

And I just read that Gallagher is trying to get himself included in some of the major debates. If he gets into one, and if he will answer some question about the budget by smashing a watermelon, I swear to God I will vote for him.

• Posted at 1:16 PM · LINK

Con Job

Over at IGN FilmForce, Peter Sanderson has a regular column on comics, which is always worth reading. If you missed this year's Comic-Con International in San Diego, it's especially worth reading since he's serializing detailed coverage of some of the programming. Here's a link to Part One of his report. Here's a link to Part Two, which includes his take on the annual Jack Kirby Tribute Panel. And here's the latest (but not the last) part, which is Part Three. Peter is a wise and perceptive soul, and I'd probably say that even if he didn't say such nice things about panels I host.

• Posted at 11:48 AM · LINK

Superman Beheaded!

What I posted a few items ago prompted some e-mails asking about the Super Friends comic where, I said, an Alex Toth cover had been altered by someone pasting in a Curt Swan photostat. I was asked for the issue number, so here it is: Limited Collectors Edition #C-41. And while I was looking that up on the Internet (rather than walk all the way into the next room to find my copy), I noticed that DC Comics is currently making a poster out of that cover but that — miracle of miracles! — the Superman head on it is now by Toth, not Swan. How did this restoration occur? Well, it's not the way you might think. I wrote up a little piece on this and illustrated it with enough images that it wouldn't fit on this page. So I've posted it over here. You have to really be into comic book trivia to care about this kind of stuff but some of us are just that way.