October 2006 | From the Editor
November Elections
Which Ballot Initiative Would I Rather Have a Beer With?
After shaggy Matt Gonzalez lost to our current GQ-posing mayor, after the Governator terminated the un-telegenic Cruz Bustamante, and after the worst president in American history “won” a second term at the expense of another Democrat with the personality of an ironing board, I saw a bumper sticker in the Mission District that said, “Not my mayor, not my governor, not my president.”
I nodded my head and thought, “Right on!” but I already knew we were in the minority.
Those three races reveal the place charisma and money hold in American democracy. The fact that the candidate with the most of each always wins is the biggest single testament to marketing I can think of. The executives on Madison Avenue must be … well, if not proud, at least self-impressed with their power of persuasion.
At the same time, we, the people, should be hanging our heads in shame for being so easily led. So predictably dupe-able. Many Americans are like my good friend Jimmy’s dad back in Toledo, Ohio, who voted for George W. Bush in 2000 because he “would rather have a beer with Bush than with Al Gore.”
In an age when elections are more about image than issue, what gets me excited for election day November 7 are California’s ballot initiatives — Proposition 89, for example. By installing a system of public financing for the campaigns of state politicians, that measure would sever from the corporate teat officials whose answer to the question, “Got milk?” is always, “Hell yeah.”
True, corporations and industries can — and do — “buy” thousands of signatures to get their own agendas on the ballot. But initiatives are also the best tool for causes that might never be advanced by elected officials who answer first and foremost to their big business campaign contributors. They can be a little shot of democracy into the arm of the larger corrupted body.
Soon, that white booklet from the elections board will appear in your mailbox. Study the proposals. Scrutinize the websites, follow the money and ignore the glossy cards that come in the mail. Eight out of ten are from progressive-sounding corporate fronts trying to defeat the measures or tout their own with fake, people-friendly, grass-roots-sounding attributes.
It’s confusing, but at least when it comes to the propositions, marketers don’t have pretty faces to confuse us with. Ballot initiatives are about ideas — not charisma, name recognition, excellent hair, who slept with whom or who didn’t fight what war hard enough. At the very least, no one asks before voting, “Which proposition would I rather have a beer with?”
See you (I hope) on Election Day. After we win, let’s have a beer together.
—Todd Spencer
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