Can they recall?

In little more than 24 hours, the CA polls will open for the recall election. What will voters be thinking about? Will they recall the reasons so many thought Bush was more likable than Gore and therefore should be president, because 4 years of him on TV would be easier to stomach? Or that there was really no difference between Bush and Gore so it didn't matter which one you voted for, or especially if you voted for someone else?

Do they recall that when they took out their frustrations on their ballots, the U.S. was at peace, and the federal government had huge surpluses predicted into the indefinite future--enough to fix social security and Medicare and redress the inequities and injustices and meet the federal responsibilities pretty much everybody agrees on, but that the Reagan-Bush era bled of funding?

Arnold was a bad idea before, and for California, quite possibly a tragic idea. Now of course it's worse. On Sunday the allegations against him virtually disappeared from TV news. But to read a detailed story about even the latest round (which brings the number of women lodging accusations to 15) is to be convinced that there's something really wrong here.

Hold your nose, California, and vote against recall. Vote for Bustamante. Despite the conventional wisdom, which is puzzling at best, that he has run a bad campaign, he remains the most viable, honorable and most attractive candidate. He'd probably make a better governor than Davis. He'd certainly shake things up, and the issues would be defined for all to see, instead of this murky muddiness coming out of Sacramento.

But what we definitely don't want is the kind of whim and denial in the voting booth that gave us Bush, war, confusion, billions of dollars of debt and responsibilities way into the future, crippling our own country, causing untold suffering and hardship, and leaving us more vulnerable than ever.

Unfortunately this sorry circus probably won't even be over soon---the vote counting may turn into another extended nightmare. Yet as weird as this campaign has been (when the guy who promoted the recall ends up advising people to vote against recalling Davis, and one of the candidates drops out and throws her support against the recall) this isn't virtual reality. What happens Tuesday will have real consequences for real people throughout California, the U.S. and the world. As well as for the world that will face beings not yet born.