My recall dilemma

I had it all written. This week's column was done and I was merely spell-checking and proofreading. I found a wrongly punctuated sentence and cursored up and used the delete button. Only then, it took my entire column with it and – poof – another couple hours of my life gone. It was my fault, I should have saved my work after every paragraph. Or, if I was really obsessive, after every sentence. But no, I knew better – and in the "knowing better," I saw my page flash before my eyes.

After about another hour of mentally cursing at my computer for not being able to retrieve the last document and at myself for not saving said document, I now find myself rewriting that which I had originally intended to write. Only now, it's not the same subject matter.

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Nope.

A couple of hours previous, I was all ready to lecture America as to why each person not residing in California should take the governor's recall election there seriously ... blah, blah, blah. I still contend that it is important, and thus I hope you will take it seriously – even if not a Californian.

I also still believe – as I have once today already written and destroyed – that most of the country doesn't have the foggiest clue as to what this whole thing is about. Why should Chicagoans or any Midwesterners, or New Yorkers or any East Coasters give this thing any attention at all? Most of them don't care. Most of them would rather watch the fake blind guy begging for money in the subway than read anything about this – one of the most confusing soap operas ever played out on a state's political stage.

But the truth is, I'm glad I lost my column because I no longer believe that Americans need to care.

Yeah – that's the ticket – why care about it in the first place?

Do you realize the lunacy that it appears to the rest of the nation when Californians sit around like Popeye the Sailor and get so riled up at each other that their faces contort and smoke blows out their ears? They invent silly little words that sound to the rest of us more like cartoon characters or someone's horribly bad sci-fi movie script from 1963 – calling each other names like "Tombots," "Cruz Cruisers" and "Arnoids."

Do you think Chicagoans have sympathy for you just because your car tax quadrupled this year? Hey, as Mayor Daley always says about taxes, "The more the merrier!"

Do you think New Yorkers will ever sympathize with people who get 70-degree weather 11 months of the year? No! They are thrilled for you.

Why should anyone pay attention to another single thing that the 9th Circuit Court ever does for the rest of its existence? Isn't that just the court where all the judges are really the ones who remind us of that scandalous uncle we all have in our families? He makes us laugh because he's so old and strange – but we always feel creepy around him.

And if all this weren't bad enough – the crazies over at the Free Republic are going ballistic on anyone who dares to disagree with this guy McClintock. The Internet is in an uproar, cable news is force feeding it to us every 15 minutes and, yet – outside of California – we just don't care.

When did I figure this scientific fact out?

Today, after my column blew apart in the Jerry Seinfeld nether region of all that's weird and ultimately unfixable – cyberspace.

After it did, I was researching stories for my radio show. Of course, last week I was genuinely appalled at the unbelievably humiliating fact that Gray Davis (the joker who caused this whole mess) fought for and signed a bill into law that gives illegals – people who have no prayer of being here legally because they got here under false pretenses, and some of them may even eventually hijack more airplanes and drive them into Disneyland or the Golden Gate bridge – driver licenses in the state of California. Heck, I was ready for the people of America, in this post 9-11 age, to find him guilty of treason and, like they used to in the old days out west, sling a rope over a tree and stretch his neck.

But I read today that 14 other states already give driver licenses to illegals. So, if we aren't more worried about people who aren't supposed to be here than that – why make a fuss over the California thing?

Today ABC News also ran a report how there is a stronger and stronger movement to let 16-year-olds vote. Well isn't that dandy ... like the mind-control experts, er, I mean educators in our public schools, aren't just waiting to begin that little crusade. And there are nearly 20 states that have some sort of committee either exploring the idea or putting the bills in place to actually be passed. While we are at it ... maybe convicted persons serving time in federal prisons should vote too. Uh – wait – that was intended to be sarcastic, but I forgot that the Rev. Jesse Jackson has been working on that one for a while.

I have heard it all. Yes, Peter Robinson, I know that Mr. McClintock is the conservative savior of the state of California – you keep singing that song to the choir over at the National Review again and again. And yes, Mr. Hewitt, I have seen the expert legal opinion of yourself as to why Gov. Ah-nohld (queue the Austin Powers music) could raise "14 bil-lion dol-lars" in three days toward the re-election of George W. Bush. But, really, will it make a difference that is measurable tomorrow? So Pat Buchanan did give us Ruth Bader Ginsberg on the Supreme Court, but doesn't that make those "Jewish moms who should be Supreme Court justices" jokes all the more effective?

Just think what juicy bits it would serve bloggers:

The United States today decided to accept California Gov. Cruz Bustamante's proposal of returning the state of California and the majority of the Southwest back to the control of Mexico.

Instapundit could begin the very first "Cali-Mexican Blog Alliance." Andrew Sullivan would be thankful that Mexico took the "gays" without harassment, and James Lileks would be banned from ever re-entering the state. Heck, perhaps Matt Drudge would even get his hands on the secret, blue-stained documents that finalized the transition of power.

Then the L.A. Times could doctor a picture of Ah-nohld beating up on the smaller in stature McClintock for losing him the race in the first place.

I guess it all is a circus – as circuses go – but in the end it is the legal process of what is happening to the most influential state in our nation. Should the governor of California turn out to be a Republican, with massive name recognition, he would indeed be able to help candidates from the GOP raise enough money to hold on to seats like the soon to be vacant one in Illinois, and possibly even help first timers win – like John Thune vs. Tom Daschle in South Dakota.

The truth is, everything I wrote in the first column today was true, but unfortunately so is this one. Most likely America will yawn as McClintock makes a rush toward the finish-line, garnering somewhere along the lines of 16 percent of the vote, and in the end that will hand victory to Bustamante by some 8 to 9 percent. And if that is the case, I will guarantee you that Ah-nohld's and McClintock's numbers together would have beaten him.

If Ah-nohld pulls it out, America, but especially the administration, will be better off. But if we keep on giving out driver licenses to anyone who shows up for one, we may not be around long enough to know what impact this or any other election will have on the nation in the first place.

Its awfully hard to sort out demographics of voting patterns while floating in the midst of a mushroom cloud.