Is Democracy Toast? Some Final (i.e. Tardy) Thoughts on the Election
by Jim Washburn
The turnout for the June primary election was the lowest in California history, a good thing, some say, since that means only concerned, informed voters were in the booth.
The results weren't so odious. For example, Prop. 16 lost, as should any initiative that is wholly the product of a corporation-in this case written and funded by, and for the sole benefit of, Pacific, Gas and Electric. But look at the results, and Prop. 16 lost only by the slimmest of margins, and it would have passed were it not for the multitude of "no" votes from diligent citizens who live in areas "served" by PG&E. In the rest of the state, 16 actually showed a small lead, based entirely on voters responding to the fabricated issue created for 16's slick commercials and mailers, raising that alarm that, unless we took drastic and historic action now by passing 16, our elected representatives might be able to make decisions that served our interests rather than PG&E's, just as they always have.
The vote was close enough to raise more concern over this year's Supreme Court decision that corporations can pour just as much money as they like into elections. If Mars, Inc. wants it written into the US Constitution that Snickers Satisfies, there is nothing to stop them, except an electorate informed only by commercials.
Much is being made of the Democratic senatorial primary victory in South Carolina of Alvin Greene, an unemployed unknown who was given murky "involuntary discharges from two branches of the US military and is up on felony pornography.
While SC has many times over earned its reputation as what Jon Stewart calls "America's whoopie cushion," voters there at least have the excuse that Greene is an unknown, or that they were hoping he'd sing "Let's Stay Together" for them.
Californians are certainly in no position to gloat, at least not in Orange County, where there was a total crouton in the race for Public Administrator. Until checking five minutes ago, I didn't know what a Public Administrator does or if we would fare any worse for the want of one. It turns out his office is in charge of probate and conservatorship matters, meaning there are indeed a lot of dollars and people's fates riding on his or her competence.
So how is it that Steve Rocco, who didn't win, did manage to get 32,161 votes? Unlike South Carolina's Greene, Rocco is no mystery, having made national news for his 2004 election to the Orange Unified school board. Like SC's Greene, he got the vote of people who had never heard of him. Once elected, the wool-capped, sunglassed Rocco bought meetings to a frequent standstill by ignoring the business at hand to instead inveigh against a murderous conspiracy directed at him by "the Partnership," comprising local government officials, Albertsons supermarkets, Kodak and the manufacturer of a summer sausage.
This stemmed from a time decades before when Rocco had been arrested for allegedly shoplifting two rolls of Super-8 film and a summer sausage from an Albertsons. Authorities had bent over backward to make the case go away, but Rocco determined to fight every particle of the charges against him, and the matter dragged on, allowing him to see another facet in the conspiracy: after several years, the summer sausage had "mysteriously" disappeared from the police evidence locker.
These were the issues that consumed him while he helped preside over the troubled school district, to no one's advantage. The Times, Register and OC Weekly all gave Rocco's amblings ample coverage, including when he was prosecuted, and convicted, for stealing ketchup from the Chapman University cafeteria in 2008.
So any OC voter with more than three operating senses had plenty of opportunity to have known what they were voting for. The incumbent, John Williams, won, and there seemed other worthy contenders on the ballot, such as Kevin Vann, a man with 23 years in county government and experience as a public administrator. But on election day, Vann came in 4th, trounced by the 32,161 votes cast for a convicted ketchup thief. That was the approval of 11.4 of the voters, which skews well higher than the typical margin of idiocy allowed for by via the "I'm drunk, and I vote" element.
What happens when people spend less time examining their ballot than they do learning to program their DVR?
They get this:
And this:
And this:
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