As I half-snoozed through a Dodger broadcast the other night, my attention was suddenly arrested by a commercial for one of those quick-cash services, featuring the prominent former gubernatorial candidate Gary Coleman.
"Recently, I needed some cash fast," Coleman said, before assuring viewers that he had only to pick up the phone, and "$10,000 was in my account the next day."
That's when I realized that the sponsor had hired the wrong California politician as its spokesmodel. The guy they should have signed up is Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is so desperate for money to fund his new initiative campaign that he had to fly clear out of state last week to siphon it from the trousers of a gaggle of wealthy pals.
Possibly all the wells in California have been tapped out by Schwarzenegger's two-year fundraising spree, which has yielded more than $30 million in political donations. The goal of his recent tour, which stopped in Chicago, Dallas and three Florida cities, was to prime the pump for a new $30-million initiative campaign aimed at a special election he's considering calling for November.
Thus Schwarzenegger once again showed how thoroughly he can corrupt the state's initiative process. Chicago real estate men, Texas oilmen and Florida time-share kings all ponied up, although they swore it was only to prove their devotion to his vision of political reform for California.
In reality, there is scarcely a political or moral principle that this tour didn't compromise. Consider the contortions it forced upon Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who played Damon to Schwarzenegger's Pythias during its Florida leg. Bush had to deflect questions about why he was helping his fellow Republican governor promote a ballot initiative that would hand over legislative redistricting to an independent commission, given that (1) he has opposed a virtually identical measure drafted by Florida good-government groups, and (2) he supports an overall weakening of Florida's ballot initiative process, which has produced numerous citizen mandates he dislikes.
"I support his efforts to bring California out of its morass," announced Bush, the governor of a state that seems to produce new morasses daily.
Although Schwarzenegger's latest round of alms-begging aims to defray the costs of the incessant television ads that will pass for public debate in the months leading up to November's balloting, it will do nothing to help California's county and city taxpayers shoulder the estimated $80-million cost of actually holding the election. (This may explain why the governor is customarily described in the newspapers as "threatening" to call a special election.)
