As a Minnesotan, let me assure everyone that Jesse Ventura, along with the Minnesota Republican Party (the party he made pacts with to get his legislation passed in the state legislature), ran the state of Minnesota into the ground.

I know of very few people who voted to elect Ventura, who would have voted for him a second time. They realized, after four years of that vicious, destructive lunatic, who cared not a damn for governance, the political process or the people of the state of Minnesota, that they were idiots for having voted for him "in protest" in the first place.

If there is anything for Californians to learn from Minnesotans (and fat chance that could ever happen, with the media cultivating a greater circus atmosphere than actually exists on the ground), it is that we should never hold the government in such contempt, that we blithely throw away our votes on a protest vote, as was the case with Jesse Ventura, and which is certainly the case with the recall of Gray Davis.

It needs to be remembered that this recall was started by a Republican with an agenda. The agenda was to take advantage of widespread anger over the California budget mess, and manipulate a takeover of the governorship in California for the Republicans and the benefit of the Bush campaign's re-election chances for taking home California's huge cache of electoral votes. If the Republicans win, and it is very likely they will with Arnie as their preferred candidate with the best shot at getting in, they will control a lot of important things (think Florida 2000, and who sat in the governor's seat and the secretary of state's office) that influence the outcome of elections on the state level in 2004.

And that is all the California recall is about. It is a Republican tactic to steal the California governorship, the same way the Republicans stole the Florida election in 2000.

So, who is the secretary of state of California, and to which party do they belong? If it is a Democrat, expect to see that person run out of office by the Republicans next. That is what the current Republican governor of Minnesota is doing right now to the Democratic secretary of state. to wit:

Minneapolis Star Tribune article "Pawlenty vs. Hatch"

The article begins:

"Minnesotans can expect a long season of state-government investigations, with barely muted partisan undertones, into business relationships of top elected officials, centered on Attorney General Mike Hatch and Gov. Tim Pawlenty."

This is the national re-election strategy of the Bush campaign, people. It is a strategy of legalized graft and corruption of the political system. The Republican Party is now, officially, much more corrupt than any Republican or Democratic eras past in US history, and there have been some real doozies. The current neocon conservatives have made Tamany Hall look like a Sunday picnic.