Like any good Republican–and only good Republicans–we got to participate in a telephone poll last night. One of the first questions the young lady on the other end of the line asked was, if the election was held today, who would I support, “Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Governor of California, or Phil Anga … Angluuuuh … Auuuunglish … I'm sorry, I cannot pronounce his name.”
“Angelides?” we offered.
“Oh, is that how you say it? Angelides, the state treasurer.”
Now, truth be told, we don't know which of these tongue-twisting crackers we're going to ultimately vote for (like it matters the way Republicans have rigged elections in this country). But we do believe in fairness so, just to see where this deal was going, we replied:
“Phil Anga … Angluuuuh … Auuuunglish … aw, the second guy, the one who doesn't call our home state 'Callyfornyia.'”
“Angelides?” she shot back perfectly.
“Yeah, that one, the one who wants to take the state backwards.”
From there on in, we answered everything as raging Left as possible. The questions concerned mostly the campaign-finance proposition that'll be on the next ballot, and the more the pollster brought up the gloom and doom that will befall this state should the measure pass, the more we replied we strongly support it.
Then it go to who we'd trust when it came to their views on the subject.
“The U.S. Chamber of Commerce?” she asked. (They oppose campaign-finance reform.)
“Those pinko commie bastards?” we replied. “Strongly disagree!”
“The California Nurses Association?” (They support the proposition.)
“Mmmmm, nurses. Whatever they're selling, we're buying. Strongly agree!”
This went on and on and on–must they always call at the dinner hour?–and we predict that when we answered we're Republicans who like the direction the state is going under Schwarzy and are very dubious of the Demo-gripped state Legislature–well, it must've thrown their whole Automated Answer Oscillator 3000 into a tizzy.
Please call again.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.