A Hero and Some Villians from the California Recall

The California recall of Gray Davis and the election of Arnold Schwarzenegger may prove to have significant political importance. These events may mark the resurgence of a moribund California Republican Party after former Governor Peter Wilson led it to long-term minority status. Alternatively, they may mark only a temporary success for Schwarzenegger, and prove that celebrity can prop the prospects of an individual, but it is not sufficient to buttress the structure of a political party. Part of the outcome will depend upon whether improved national economic performance in the next 18 months alleviates California's particularly acute budget shortfalls. In the short term, we can find some heroes and villains.

Hero Nominee: Susan Estrich. No one can claim that Susan Estrich is not a political partisan. Certainly, as the national head of Governor Michael Dukakis' presidential campaign, she would not assert that claim. Estrich is now a self-described Liberal commentator on Fox News. Moreover, Estrich is a rape victim, and this experience has motivated her to lobby for laws protecting rape victims as well as workplace protection of women. She has specialized in sex discrimination law for years. Estrich had every professional and political motivation to use, for political advantage, charges against Schwarzenegger for fondling and perhaps assaulting women. Instead, Estrich took the intellectually honest stance of agnosticism with respect to the charges until the evidence was better vetted and anger at the political exploitation of the issue by an obviously partisan Los Angeles Times.

If Schwarzenegger was indeed guilty of being a sexual predator, and had perhaps even crossed the line to illegality, such information is a legitimate topic for news coverage. Estrich agrees, but believed that given that the L. A. Times had been working on the story for seven weeks, last minute revelations smacked of a political hack job. True or false, Schwarzenegger had no real chance to respond late in the campaign. Estrich explained:

"What this story [the L.A. Times expose] accomplishes is less an attack on Schwarzenegger than a smear on the press. It reaffirms everything that is wrong with the political process. Anonymous chargers from years ago made in the closing days of a campaign undermine fair politics."

It is theoretically possible that the timing of the charges leveled in the L.A. Times, falling just days before the election, was a coincidence of the investigative process. But given the paper's editorial stance and the tenor of coverage, that possibility strains credulity.

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