For the past week or so, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has been making “robo-calls”—auto-dialed telephone calls delivering pre-recorded messages—reminding Californians to vote on Tuesday, Nov. 8.

But, tellingly, these calls are not going out to all Californians.

California’s Republican Party has contracted with a firm called TargetPoint Consulting, a company specializing in “micro-targeting.” This technology, according to the Los Angeles Times, gives politicians information about constituents “down to such details as their magazine subscriptions, buying habits and TV viewing preferences.”

 

The old adage is still true: “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good people do nothing.”

 

The Schwarzenegger camp is only calling people that it knows are hardcore supporters. They would just as soon that the rest of us—most of us—stay home.

Last week, Schwarzenegger visited a sports bar in Fresno. His campaign touted the visit as a kind of town-hall meeting in which the governor hung out with real people.

But the Fresno crowd, like a similar audience in Marina the previous week, was hand-picked. From the LA Times: “In a county that is about 40 percent Democratic, the Fresno bar looked like a Republican Central Committee meeting with big-screen TVs and blue blazers. Young men with T-shirts that read ‘College Republican’ circulated in the crowd.”

This is not the genuine populist excitement that Schwarzenegger was able to kindle during the recall campaign. The governor does not have that kind of support any more. His poll numbers are way down, plummeting in response to his own blunders and those of his president.

But the governor doesn’t need that much support this time. He is counting on the fact that nearly half of the voters in California will not bother going to the polls this week. So if he can rally his troops—devoted Republicans—to go to the polls, then his evil plan will succeed.  

The old adage is still true: “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good people do nothing.”

Not Exactly Evil, But…

This is one of those pre-election diatribes urging everyone to vote. It is not an effort to shame anyone—it is rather an effort to use the power of reason to get people to take a detour on the way to work or on the way home from work, or to take a spin to the polling place during lunch break.

A lot is at stake this week, for California and for Monterey County. The four propositions that Schwarzenegger is pushing, disguised as populist reform measures, are mostly cynical ploys to take power in Sacramento away from Democrats and unions.

There are many other important issues on the ballot. For residents of Salinas, Measure V is a do-or-die, put-up-or-shut-up proposal that will improve life in the city, or not, depending. Measure C would result in more sprawl in the Salinas Valley (and sprawl really is evil). Measure W could give Peninsula residents control of their water—which could prove to be an important thing to have control over.

Even the school board votes, the special districts—this is the stuff that can really matter to the way we live, the way our neighbors and kids get to live. This is the stuff that, when we pay attention to it, it makes a place feel more like home, and it lets us feel as if we have some control over our lives and our world. Which, if we take it, we do.

I know who reads this newspaper, and I know that not every one of you will vote exactly the way I want you to. But I guess I’d like it if you people who disagree with me vote anyway. Because I would rather live in a community with people who care enough to bother to vote. Even if we disagree.

I also know that most of you do feel the way I do on many issues—I have seen the polls. Arnold Schwarzenegger does not want you people to vote. Did he call you? No. See what I’m saying?