Terminator needs magnifier: Arnold Schwarzenegger, who voted with his wife, Maria Shriver, at a Pacific Palisades mansion, pulled out his glasses to find his name on the lengthy ballot. “I just went through 10 pages, and you always look for the longest name,” said Schwarzenegger, whose name is one of the longest–but not the longest–on the ballot. That honor goes to Democratic candidate David Laughing Horse Robinson, an Indian tribal chairman.
A prayer of winning: After Gov. Gray Davis voted, he went to church in West Hollywood and prayed. Just to the north, porn star Mary Carey also went to church–but to vote. Carey cast her ballot at the First United Methodist Church wearing a tight pink halter-top and short skirt. Carey said she hadn’t been to church in awhile and said she wanted to make herself “look innocent.”
No safety net: “Other defeated politicians have been able to fall back on a network of friends and admirers. Gray Davis doesn’t have that,” said Jack Pitney, a Claremont McKenna College government professor. “He has burned people on his way up, and if he should fall to Earth, he is going to find that it’s scorched earth.”
Faint praise: “Everybody knows that Gray Davis was a jerk, but I don’t think that’s cause to be recalled,” said Michael Mazzocone, of San Francisco, who voted no on the recall.
8 bucks a vote: The candidates for governor raised $75 million for the 75-day campaign. With nearly 10 million Californians voting, that works out to about $8 a vote. California, which still faces an $8 billion budget deficit, spent another $66 million for the recall election.
On second thought: “I don’t need to take money from anybody. I have plenty of money myself,.” Schwarzenegger said Aug. 6, after declaring his candidacy on nationwide television. Schwarzenegger raised $18.25 million, more than any candidate in the election.
Grope gripe: “If he is elected, I would like him to talk about it and address it — if not to me, then to his wife,” said Eda Zahl of Hollywood, voting yes on the recall and for Schwarzenegger, despite her concerns about allegations he groped more than a dozen women.
Network magnet: There’s nothing like a celebrity to whet the network news appetite for politics. The nightly newscasts of ABC, CBS and NBC devoted more than four times as much coverage to the California recall election than they did all the nation’s gubernatorial elections combined in 2002. An analysis by the Washington-based Tyndall Report found that the three networks aired 169 minutes of stories about the recall from Aug. 1 through Oct. 3. More than one-third–69 minutes–focused exclusively on Schwarzenegger. That compares to 40 minutes devoted to all 36 governors’ races last year.
If you must know . . . : At first, Davis wouldn’t say how he voted on the second ballot, the one to determine who would succeed him if he were recalled. “I voted for the most qualified person on the second ballot. You can probably figure out who that is.” After being prodded by reporters, Davis said he voted for Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, with whom he has had a chilly relationship.
“Where’s Arnold?”: Bustamante’s father had a little fun at his son’s expense while searching the bed-sheet ballot of 135 candidates to replace Davis. “I’m looking for Arnold, where’s Arnold?” the elder Cruz Bustamante joked at the polling place in Fresno, where the lieutenant governor lived for many years. “You want to sleep outside tonight, for the rest of the month?” responded Bustamante’s mother, Dominga.
Deja vu: “Didn’t I do this last year? That was the quickest four years,” said Angela Cohan of Beverly Hills, who voted Tuesday, 11 months after Davis was elected to a second 4-year term.
In like Flynt: The real estate agency where Gov. Gray Davis voted in West Hollywood was almost directly across the street from a retail store operated by Hustler magazine, the X-rated men’s publication owned by Larry Flynt, another candidate. Before Davis arrived, Flynt moved through the media gantlet so he could vote. Flynt said he voted “no” on the recall but selected himself as the replacement.
