It’s not like I haven’t been here before. I was 9 when I first tasted the sting of electoral defeat. I was the only kid in my fourth grade class who supported Mondale but I still thought it was possible he could win. I was too young to understand exactly why we hated Reagan so much, but my grandparents, both New Deal Democrats, taught me early on what the values of the Democratic Party were – equal rights, helping out the little guy and expecting the rich to pay their fair share of the taxes. As I grew up and learned more about political issues and history, I grew into those beliefs and in fact, instead of rebelling against my childhood influences, I actually moved past them, further left. I was, am, and always shall be a liberal. I’m proud of it. We’ve allowed that word to become taboo, to become a charge leveled against us rather than the badge of honor it should be.

I spent the rest of my adolescence being politically active and vocal at school. I worked on the Dukakis campaign (and learned early on that I am ill-suited for phone bank work). When the ’92 election came, I was a senior in high school and ready to work my ass off. And I did. Starting in the early primaries I volunteered at county headquarters for all of our statewide candidates and eventually Bill Clinton. I loved Bill Clinton. I loved now Senator Patty Murray. I loved our local representatives; I loved all the people running around the country like Barbara Boxer and Carol Moseley Braun. I was in love with the Democratic Party. And then we won. The only race we lost in which I could actually have voted (I was still 17) was for the Lieutenant Governorship of Washington. And the incumbent, a moderate Republican, won that and it was for an office with very little power. It was euphoria. I remember when the state was called that finally put Clinton over in the Electoral College. We were screaming. I was hugging people I had never met. But we still had to work because the polls were still open in our state and we needed to make sure people didn’t stay home and not vote, like they had in ’80. It was a glorious moment and one which made me fall in love with politics, like a first drink or a first hit of some taboo narcotic. And just like a drug, the returns have been diminishing ever since.

And now they have hit a new low. I didn’t think it could be worse than 1994 Republican landslide. Or the impeachment. Or the rape of the democratic process that was Florida 2000. (And I’m not talking about the recount; I’m talking about the purging of black voter rolls and other improprieties in the state in which the candidate’s brother in governor). But now I have to confront a dark truth.

Arnold Schwarzenegger is the governor of California.

Look at that sentence. Hurts, doesn’t it? Even if one is a Republican (not that there’s anything wrong with that) one has to wonder, “Is that the best we can do?” The man has absolutely no qualifications to be a governor of anything. He claims to be a businessman, but who actually buys that he oversees day-to-day operations of the businesses he owns? How much actual producing does he do on his movies? And we all know Dyan Cannon was the real director of Christmas In Connecticut. Arnold Schwarzenegger has put me in the untenable position of saying nice things about Ronald Reagan. Yes, Reagan was an actor. But he was also the head of S.A.G., if not one of the largest unions in the country at least one of the most powerful. He had qualifications. And while he was an actor, he was never a blockbuster one. And he tended to play upstanding citizens or inspiration coaches. I’m not saying that someone who plays a cybernetic hit man from the future can’t be qualified to govern. But what does it say about the man we’ve elected that the majority of his roles feature him shooting, killing, stalking, beating up men and women and doing it all with a nihilistic, Teutonic swagger? These are the roles in which he’s interested. Ronald Reagan played American heroes and platitude spouting mentors. That’s exactly the image he presented in his political life. Arnold is the Terminator. I think we have reason to be afraid.

I’m not going to talk about the allegations of groping other than to say that I believe them. I’m not going to discuss the Hitler quote except to say that it sounds far-fetched. In the end these things don’t matter. The conservative hacks attacked Clinton’s character because attacking his policies didn’t work. Why didn’t the anti-recall forces attack the fact that Arnold HAS NO POLICIES. Other than repealing the car tax, which is simple and easy to understand, has Arnold shown any initiative in coming up with a plan to save the state? In the campaign, did he ever do anything but spout one-liners, more culled from his films, and go negative on Davis? How did he sway so many voters? Or, in other words, how could so many people be so stupid?

I started off talking about my long-standing liberal views and that might lead one to think I’m only pissed because a Republican won. And I am. But I’ve watched my candidates lose to Republicans before. Sometimes it stung, sometimes it was inevitable and sometimes it wasn’t a bad thing. (Washington Secretary of State Ralph Munro is a good man.) But this one is killing me not because we lost to a conservative (and in fact Arnold is fairly moderate, at least where my civil rights are concerned). What sucks is that Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has no business at this level of politics, was swept in to office by the most partisan, un-Democratic means.

This recall has been touted as the very height of Democracy. The voters spoke yesterday. And certainly, anytime we have an open and fair election that is a triumph of Democracy. And the recall process is necessary. The people must have a voice. But the recall process began two months after Davis was re-elected. The people had already spoken. The man wasn’t even given a chance to do the job in the second term before the recall started. What kind of respect did Darrell Issa and his cronies show for the electorate? The Republicans have decided that if they can’t win an election fair and square, they will find any other means to gain power, whether through an impeachment or questionable practices regarding minority voters in Florida to stopping the counting of votes to recalling a man before he can actually start his term. And the candidate they give us is an action movie actor with no governing experience and a tenuous grasp of the language. But I guess once George W. Bush is president, articulate speech and great oratory are considered passé.

So, yeah, I’m pissed. I’ve lost before but never like this. And even though I watched some people I had great respect for lose to crypto-fascists in 1994, this one stings more. The people of California have spoken. I just wish they’d learn to think before they do so again.