Leave it to me to get MAD about something at the last minute. But, well, that's how I am. I'm usually extremely calm through crises, which is a plus, but then get MAD later when it's too late to vent. Well, now I'm PO'ed. And the thing is I don't even like Governor Gray Davis. He's an idiot! He's a jerk! He's shallow and self-absorbed and to some extent he brought this whole recall election on himself by being such a jerk.

But here's the difference between pipe dream scenarios of wishful thinking and anarchic madness unfit for a democracy: We have a system, a political and democratic process system, in this country whereby things are not done randomly, anarchically, unsoundly, stupidly. We have a system that allows for contemplation, explanation, understanding, thorough debate and so forth. We have a system that provides for regular elections to occur, and those elections are generally followed by what occurs in them. We don't have a crazy system of made-up last-minute decisions whereby some random person is selected in the 11th hour to suddenly run a public entity, especially as big as a state-- the fifth largest economy in the world!

So now, what do we have going on? We have a scenario whereby there is now an election in two months that no one is prepared for. No one. County election officials who run elections suddenly have to put together precincts, voting machines, voting officials (of which I'm one and who knows what I'll be doing), and printing cards that no one knows what will even say yet. And to top it off, there may or may not be additional voting issues on this special ballot. (Is this true? This is the first I've heard about other issues on this special ballot. But if it is the case then I am even more MAD. This is an incredibly important policy matter not to be handled lightly and which I am adamantly opposed to and now suddenly it may be on the ballot in two months when no one even knows about it!?! What the hell is that? This was supposed to be on the March 2004 ballot.)

So who the hell knows what's going on? No one. No one. And the only winners in this scenario are the anarchists and the right-wing Republicans. Because it's all just destroying the state. Do you think that this makes us look good to Wall Street? Do you think we could get state loans after this? Do you think the federal government isn't laughing at us? So who's benefitting from this? Right-wing Republicans who want to destroy democracy. And I can't help but feel this is a continued piece of the same pie that's been going on for the last ten years since Clinton became president and they couldn't deal with that. First we had the government shutdown of 1995. Then we had special investigation after special investigation wasting trillions of dollars for nothing that came to nothing. Then we have a complete shutdown of the judicial system because the Republicans REFUSE to acknowledge the win by a Democrat and won't even move forward on his judicial nominations for years, completely shutting the system down. Then we had impeachment that nearly drove the country off the brink. Then we had a presidential election decided by the Supreme Court. Then we had an election where anyone not Republican was considered a traitor and in support of Osama bin Laden and not a patriot, even if they had previously served with distinction in previous battles on behalf of America and their opponents were draft dodgers. Then we had a preemptive war against another country for some shoddy reasons that still aren't clear. Then we have federal "national security" officials tracking down opposing party members around the country for partisan ends. Then and now we have a fake recall election against the largest state's governor. All of these were based upon Republicans sticking it to Democrats anyway they can to get their objective in the partisan wars over government. And what's next? When is the American public going to wake up and see that our democracy is being hijacked by right-wing crazy people who want nothing less than total control and total anarchy?

So now, here we are, with a special election no one is ready for, no one knows what will be included, and no one can say what will happen next. Welcome to anarchic, insane, stupid, anti-public policy, anti-America, anti-people, right-wing Republican America.