On a Beverly Hills stage Tuesday night next to his wife, Maria Shriver, Schwarzenegger pledged "to find common ground" with his Democratic adversaries in Sacramento.
He should have done that months ago. Now he’s road kill and the Dems don’t need him.
"The people of California are sick and tired of all the fighting, and they are sick and tired of all the negative TV ads," he told supporters at the Beverly Hilton. He did not concede, saying instead that "in a couple of days the victories or the losses will be behind us."
Arnold, Arnold, Arnold. YOU were the one who started the fight. And through your monumental arrogance and ineptness, managed a defeat of epic proportions. Now do us all a favor and shut up.
Dogging the governor, as it has for months, was the California Nurses Assn., which organized a luau at the Trader Vic’s in the same hotel. As Schwarzenegger’s defeats mounted, giddy nurses formed a conga line and danced around the room, singing, "We’re the mighty, mighty nurses."
CNA seriously kicked ass the entire campaign. They did everything right and never let up, not even for a second.
And one of the things they very clearly did right was a CONSTANT PUBLIC PRESENCE, dogging the Gov every single day, PUBLICLY demonstrating their opposition. PRECISELY how Cindy Sheehan made (and continues to make) such an impact on the country on behalf of the antiwar movement. It’s of course easier said than done, the nurses (and others who were in the struggle) were defending their jobs which is a lot motivating than more “abstract” (for most people) things like opposing the war.
The nurses did NOT win the struggle by sitting home and writing letters to their representatives in Sacramento. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but without the public efforts, the private stuff has no force.
Sue diligently wrote letters to legislators for some time until she realized that all she ever got back was a form letter, which was often off-topic, and which never addressed the issues she wrote about.
CNA ran a public, smart, in-your-face campaign against Arnold and the anti-union proposition. Like you said, that’s the way to do it. The struggle has to be public and determined.
CNA organizers (Hi, Sean!) are no doubt still dancing in the streets…