Sept. 4, 2003

COLUMBUS: The California candidate debate started yesterday. They began with five out of the135, so this debate is liable to go on longer than a Jerry Lewis Telethon. And it won’t do a tenth the good.

I figure by the time the interviewers all ask their questions of each candidate, and then bring in another five for the same questions, and so on with another five, by the time they finally get down to the “R’s” it’ll take at least a week, and I’ll be ready for ’em.

Arnold is stalling till he has heard the questions a few times. His advisors are still pondering on some issues and he will make his pronouncements just as soon as they write the script. He figures he’ll be ready to join in on the second round of debates the fourth week of September, and it may take that long to finish the first round.

Frankly, I’m disappointed. No one, from any party, has contacted me yet about resigning as a candidate. I was kinda hoping to get a substantial offer, and then see if anybody would raise it. But I’m afraid the market value of candidates got slammed pretty low when Bill Simon dropped out for nothing. He could have done us candidates a favor and held out for at least enough to cover the filing fee.

Governor Davis is facing a monumental decision, whether to sign the bill to give illegal immigrants a driver’s license. Some folks say there are two million of ’em lined up at the license bureau, with another half a million thumbing in from Arizona. Mr. Davis has asked his Attorney General the one big question that will determine if he signs the bill: If I let them drive, will they all vote “No” on the Recall?

Tune in next week when I will reveal my one and only campaign Slogan. And my slogan will double as a solemn Pledge. I guarantee I’ll keep it, given the opportunity. See you next week.

Historical quotes from Will Rogers: (1928 Life magazine, with only names, locations and a couple of other non-essentials altered to fit.)

Our Party thinks that if a man is in Public life and he can’t find out what is going on without a Committee telling him, why he has no business asking for the Public’s support.

Farm relief: Arnold is honest about that, He says he don’t know a corn stalk from jimpson weed, and that a Tractor might be a mouthwash as far as he is concerned, and Boll-weevil might be a brand of corn liquor, or it might be a fertilizer.

Now as to my own affairs…. I have made a lot of promises, But they were only political promises and I have no idea of keeping any of them.

Of all the Bunk handed out during a campaign the biggest one of all is to try and compliment the knowledge of the voter. And tell him he can’t be fooled like he used to be. Candidates are always complimenting the intelligence of their audience. These fellows know the voters don’t know any more than they did in previous years.

How are the voters going to be any smarter when the Candidates themselves are no smarter? Even with the able men we have this year, you don’t suppose that they are an improvement over Lincoln, Jefferson, or Teddy Roosevelt.

No, we are more “smart Alec” than we ever were, but we are no smarter. We read more and we hear more over the radio, but the stuff we read and the stuff we hear don’t make us any smarter.

The people that write it, and the ones that talk it out over the radio (and television), are no smarter than the ones that used to hand down the dope for our old forefathers.

They go to the polls in an automobile, but they don’t carry any more in their heads than the old timer that went there on a mule. So the old Bunk that you can’t fool the voter is the biggest Bunk there is. He has been fooled all his life and he will always be fooled.

There is just as many half wits voting Republican today because their fathers voted that way as there ever was. There is just as many voting Democratic because they have heard their folks tell about how the Republicans treated them as there ever was.

If the voter is as smart as they say, why do they have to tell him anything, why do they have literature, and campaigns, and speeches? Why does each candidate have to spend millions of dollars trying to buy votes with propaganda?

The oldest form of Bunk in the world is to say how “Well informed the voters are and that they can’t be misled by our opponents.” I doubt if at any time during the history of the world were we ever as downright Dumb as we are today.

I think you will find that Campaigns have ruined more men than they ever made.