By RON SCOTT SMITH
May I suggest you vote for Feinstein, Genser, Bloom and Loya? Bobby Shriver will somehow find a way to move on with his life, even if he is unable to buy a seat on Santa Monica’s city council with the blessings of the Chamber of Commerce and the beachfront luxury hotels.
The phone just rang and, seriously, it was Teddy Kennedy asking me to support his nephew. I’m flattered that he remembered the influence Thursday’s opinion page wields around here, and I like New England liberals as much as the next guy — probably more than the next guy. But leave the governance of Santa Monica to the people who have been here battling in the trenches, who know the struggles this town has endured to be what it is.
“What it is” is something many among you apparently have come to think is all wrong, judging by the bitching and moaning expressed in letters written to this newspaper on a near-daily basis. What town could you possibly be waking up in every morning, thinking this is all wrong? Because many happen to be here, laying down their heads on the cold concrete at night to dream their dreams, does that so spoil your Santa Monica experience? That’s a fairly impressive sun glowing off the Pacific right in front of your eyes every evening, have you noticed? Do you have time to remember how lucky you are? Homelessness is a cruel problem of this age, and this city has taken more than its share of that problem upon its shoulders. Somebody’s got to solve it. Einstein’s dead. God knows. There’s no easy solution. If you have one, write it out on the blackboard, soon. Meanwhile, where did you leave your heart? You want Beverly Hills-by-the-sea? Go ahead, it’s your vote.
May I suggest you vote for John Kerry? Nothing like preaching to the choir — as this town will go something like 85 percent for him and this state is so locked into its pre-ordained presidential result that we don’t even get to see the filthy, last-minute political ads running in the “battleground” states that have all the drama and all the fun. What at long last will sway those “undecideds” who will determine the next leader of the free world? The better question might be this: Who in their right mind could be still “undecided” with four days to go, with such clear ideological differences in front of them? Undecided? More like brain-locked.
There’s only one way this failed president could possibly be approved for another term of whatever this is, and it’s because you’re scared to death, just the way he wants you to be, remember? He has your number. You might be even more scared when you consider these numbers of yours that he also has: ■ 2 1/2 Your dollars paid today at the Arco for a gallon of gas. ■ 150,000 Your sons and daughters, your brothers and sisters, your friends, whose lives remain on the line every day after conquering the land where all the gas comes from. Mission accomplished? ■ 1,304 give or take a couple hundred Your loved ones killed in action in the land where all the gas comes from — a small price to pay to keep freedom on the march. ■ 200 billion Your dollars spent in order to keep freedom marching through the land where all the gas comes from, where the natives don’t appear to care much for the notion, thank you, as freedom wears boots and marches all over many of them. ■ 45 million Your fellow citizens living their lives without the freedom to seek medical care if they get sick, other than throwing themselves at the mercy of the nearest emergency room, while that $200 billion marches off with that freedom, half a planet away. ■ 500 billion Your American dollars in the red, while four short — or is it four interminable? — years ago, all those dollars were that much in the black. ■ 0 Weapons of mass destruction found, rendering specious the Bush rationale for going to war and spending precious American and Iraqi lives.
He counts on the “fear factor” to bring him victory on Nov. 2, because if enough Americans remain fearful enough of the evil he has single-handedly identified and put us to war against, he will be reelected. However, if enough Americans entertain a different fear, the same fear I do, (the same fear I had in 2000 when he took the presidency) — that this is exactly the wrong man at exactly the wrong time in exactly the wrong place — then his reign will be over.
In his dumbing-down of America, George W. Bush has put us all in the awkward position of having to choose which fear to embrace. Soccer moms have given way to security moms to form the key voting bloc that he hopes will yield him Tuesday’s decisive margin.
No matter what fears are your fears in these terror-alert-color-coded times we’ve been dragged into… even if you are one fearless mother… may I suggest you vote? (Ron Scott Smith can be reached at edgeofthewest@aol.com. To read previous columns, go to archives at www.smdp.com).
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on October 28, 2004. Read the original PDF.