California - the Celebrity State

The Republicans are trumpeting the victory of Brian Bilbray over Democrat Francine Busby in the CA-50th and have even arranged a conference call this morning for sympathetic bloggers with RNC chief Ken Mehlman. I don’t think it’s such a big deal. Bilbray won by only 4.2 percent over Ms. Busby who made an unusually dumb campaign gaffe, implying you didn’t have to be a citizen to vote or some such. In these times that should put you in the political Dempsey Dumpster for life, but she still managed to eke out slightly more votes than Kerry in her district, according to the email from the Repubs, who somehow think this is something to brag about. That’s party politics, I suppose.

Of course, the LATimes (zzzz….) tilts it in the opposite direction:

The first wave of returns for the special election showed Republican Brian Bilbray holding a single-digit lead over Democrat Francine Busby in what would have been a romp for the GOP candidate in most years.

Still, the big winner in this election was a Republican (of the extra-centrist sort)… LAT nemesis El Arnold who gets Phil “Who?” Angelides for an opponent in November. Now who are the citizens of California going to vote for – The Terminator or a faceless land developer (actually a terminator of another sort, but you know what I mean)? Please, Louise. And yet, eighty million or so is rumored to be spent by each side in the coming general election. Think how many schools or hospitals (or even freeways) that could build. Well, at today’s prices, maybe not so many but more than this campaign is going to be worth by a lot.

Another big celebrity winner in this celebrity state was, of course, El Jerry, the only non-actor politician anybody’s heard of out here anymore and he used to hang around with actors… or at least singers. But Brown’s pillow talk with Ms. Ronstadt evidently did not rub off because La Linda is running around like a typical Tinseltown Bush Basher while Jerry himself has adopted, indeed always had to some extent, politics that are far more quirky and sophisticated than that. As noted in yesterday’s post, I voted for him. I hardly voted for anything or anyone else, certainly not either of the Dem gubernatorial possibilities or Senator-for-Life Feinstein. These days term limits are beginning to look more and more attractive to me. If we have to endure all these corrupt, pork spewing hacks, at least we can have new ones every few years.

But speaking of Tinseltown Bush Bashers, one celeb was a big loser in yesterday’s election – Rob Reiner whose early childhood education proposition went down. Can’t say I’m disappointed. The thought of the politically-ambitious Reiner bloviating even more on the public stage sets my teeth on edge. At least next time he ought to learn a bit more about developmental psychology… oh never mind.