Ozzie and Harriet California
Last night I was fortunate to catch the second half of a National Public Radio roundtable between the American Independent, Natural Law, and Green Party candidates in California’s gubernatorial race. It was an interesting half hour. The American Independent party is frightening, seeming to be right of Pat Robertson. In his closing statements, their candidate expressed his desire for the state to — I am not making this up — “return to an Ozzie and Harriet California.” The Natural Law candidate, after she loses this election, could probably get a job writing greeting cards for Hallmark. Her speech was packed full of platitudes such as, “We must remember that our greatest resource is our human resource.” Well, thanks; that was informative.
The Green Party candidate, for whom I am voting, generally came across well. He completely blew his top at one point, however, to the point of near shouting, and in the process seemed to disparage European-descended Americans (he is a Latino.) He did have a bit of provocation: the American Independent candidate had just stated that the solution to California’s immigration problems is to — and again I am not making this up — return to an Ellis Island model in which prospective immigrants are screened for diseases and their criminal records checked to make sure we are not letting rapists and murderers into the state. The quote out of context, unnerving as it is, does not give his sentiment enough force: the intonation and context were akin to his saying “we need to keep those filthy, criminal, diseased wetback animals from polluting our beautiful state”; that is, our beautiful, white, Ozzie and Harriet state.
According to an ABC poll, the Green Party candidate is receiving 9% support (I don’t know if this is all people surveyed, registered voters, likely voters, or some other subgroup.) That’s close to double-digits. Europe went from Fascist leaders to Green leaders in half a century: I can still hold out hope for California.
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