Take me out to the recall

JOSEPH N. BELL

This is our last meeting before the circus leaves town on Tuesday.

Having just watched an often mindless and mostly uncontrolled

candidate debate, then reading in the Pilot that Arnold had

solidified his support among 100 Republicans gathered at the Balboa

Bay Club with his performance, I can only say, thank God it will soon

be over. If Arnold’s failure to address direct questions and offer

instead pre-scripted, smart-mouth one-liners enhanced his

gubernatorial credentials among locals -- as reported in the Pilot --

then we must have been watching different debates.

Of course, what I saw on Sept. 24 wasn’t a debate at all but a

kind of group mugging that needed the cops more than a moderator. The

only candidate who seemed above it all, retained his cool, spoke in

complete sentences and stuck to the subject at hand was Sen. Tom

McClintock. It would be a pleasure to support him on those grounds

alone if he wasn’t so intractably mouthing all the nostrums of the

hard political right -- including a pledge not to raise taxes under

any circumstances, which would effectively tie his hands in dealing

with our desperate economic problems.

The Republicans shot themselves in the foot by putting up such a

candidate against Davis a year ago, and -- as I write this -- there

still seems a chance that by splitting the party vote on Oct. 7, they

may be doing it again. Only this time, the Republican right would be

performing a considerable public service by protecting us from

Arnold.

None of this should have happened, of course. The guy who bought

this election, Rep. Darrell Issa, is now telling us to vote against

the recall if McClintock doesn’t drop out. That’s good advice for the

wrong reason.

Gray Davis’ poor performance since his re-election is far short of

the malfeasance that would merit a recall. A vote to recall him is a

vote to arm the people and organizations wealthy enough to use this

weapon with a precedent that can force frivolous new elections by

importing an army of mercenaries to gather signatures. If it works

here, it will surely be attempted elsewhere. Only by voting against

the recall here can we make the circus irrelevant.

Meanwhile, I’m filling out an absentee ballot so I won’t have to

wait in line at a polling place while the people ahead of me search

through some 135 names looking for one that speaks to them.

When I finish my ballot, I plan to study a petition for “the

immediate recall and removal of Arnold Schwarzenegger if he should be

elected governor.” If you’re interested, you can find the petition in

the “Doonesbury” comic strip in last Sunday’s Los Angeles Times. Come

to think of it, that’s where this whole fiasco belongs.

*

I went to a viewing last Friday night, but I skipped the funeral

on Sunday. Too painful. Instead, I had a beer in our backyard and

remembered what I was doing a year ago on this date. I was

frantically searching for playoff tickets. The Yankees would be here

for games three and four, and I was prepared to offer up my battered

soul or my family members for tickets. I was saved this humiliation

by a dear friend -- now even dearer -- who had four season tickets

and offered to share them with my wife and me. I was there when the

Angels came back from a five-run deficit. This year, I’ll be watching

TV in the hope that Minnesota does the same thing to the Yankees. My

head will be there, but not my heart.

Astonishingly, the heartbeat at Edison Field on Friday night was

loud and clear, generated by a capacity crowd that would help the

Angels break 3 million in season attendance on the next night.

Astonishing because we were watching the Salt Lake City Angels play

the last-place Texas Rangers, two teams whose playoff hopes had

vaporized many weeks earlier. But the thunder sticks were out, every

Angel base hit was cheered raucously, and the Rally Monkey even made

an appearance -- the only time I’ve seen him (or is it her?) emerge

during this dreadful season.

The next time I connect with one of my shrink friends, I’m going

to ask how the Angels could set an attendance record in the same

season they almost made history by collapsing from world champions to

a last-place division finish. If this was carry-over from the

championship season, then the Angels’ new owner had better bring in

some fresh blood to get the team back on track next year before the

glow of a World Series wears off.

It certainly hadn’t worn off last Friday night. The Angels rallied

and won, the crowd was into the game through the bad innings as well

as the good, and my daughter, Patt, and I sang “Take Me Out To the

Ball Game” for the last time until next spring with championship

gusto.

I can’t ever remember a losing season ending with such enthusiasm.

Maybe that’s because it has now been proven to us that dreams can --

once in a great while -- overpower even the New York Yankees.

It occurred to me as we were flowing with the tide of a happy

crowd leaving the ballpark that we draw all sorts of symbolism from

the start of a new baseball season, but little from the end of an old

one. Spring is a time for renewal, the slate is clean, the shackles

of failure removed, everybody is in first place, life can start

afresh.

But I couldn’t think of any life lessons to be drawn from an old

season that ends in failure. So I made one up. The Angels this year

illustrated a basic rhythm of life: We win some and we lose some --

and life goes on.

Of course, if we never win, the symbolism gets a little dicey. But

the Angel owner can take care of that with an anchor for our pitching

staff and an outfielder who can hit the long ball. Then life can

start afresh next spring -- and maybe we can even forget what I’m

afraid is going to happen on Oct. 7.

* JOSEPH N. BELL is a resident of Santa Ana Heights. His column

appears Thursdays.