[Mb-civic] 2 takes on Arnold's loss

[Mha Atma Khalsa]

http://news.pacificnews.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=2b2fda724124

1ba88cab43b821c1e251 

Pacific News Service 

The Woman Behind Arnold's Defeat 

Analysis/Commentary, Kathleen Sharp, 
New America Media, Nov 09, 2005 

Editor's Note: Forget sexist language or charges of
groping -- California 
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's biggest "woman problem"
is the head of the 
state's nurses union, who led a successful movement to
defeat his special 
election initiatives. 

SANTA BARBARA--Women have had a bruising time in the
public eye  lately, 
ranging from Judith Miller's deceptive reports in the
New York Times to 
Harriet Miers' embarrassing qualifications for the
Supreme Court. So when 
a woman manages to outperform the most confident
governor in America, it's 
worth celebrating. 

On Tuesday, Nov. 8, every one of California Gov.
Arnold Schwarzenegger's 
pet initiatives failed, in large part because of Rose
Ann DeMoro, the 
chief executive of the California Nurses Association
(CAN). She and her 
65,000-member union spent most of this year building a
broad-based 
populist movement that the once-powerful governor
tried to dismiss with 
glib one-liners. 

Certainly, one reason Schwarzenegger's initiatives
failed was widespread 
anger over his $70 million "special" election.
Lengthening the 
probationary period before teachers can qualify for
tenure (Prop. 74), 
weakening the unions (Prop. 75), bypassing elected
lawmakers on fiscal 
matters (Prop. 76) and privatizing the redistricting
process (Prop. 77) 
were not going to solve California's financial
problems. 

But voters may not have gotten this message if it
weren't for DeMoro and 
her indefatigable nurses. Early on they stressed that
Schwarzenegger's 
election was a corporate power grab at the expense of
California workers. 
The nurses hammered home this message almost daily,
even when they risked 
being ostracized. As Lou Paulson, head of the
California Professional 
Firefighters, said: "Rose Ann and the nurses showed us
that the emperor 
had no clothes." 

Their activism started last November, after
Schwarzenegger suspended key 
portions of the state's nurse-to-patient ratio to help
hospital chains. 
"That really angered us," says DeMoro. But the nurses
protested 
tentatively, almost timidly, until one pivotal day
last December. 

While the governor addressed a state convention of
10,000 women, a few 
nurses unfurled a protest banner that read "Hands Off
Patient Ratios." 
Schwarzenegger grinned for the TV cameras, then said:
"Pay no 
attention...to the special interests. I am always
kicking their butts." 

DeMoro was outraged. "For the Governor to denigrate
nurses -- a 
historically female profession -- while speaking to an
audience of women 
is an affront to women everywhere," she told CNN.
Because Schwarzenegger 
had shut them out of the health-care debate, the
nurses decided to take 
their case to the streets. 

"We were told to not make waves, that the people of
California would turn 
against us to support their popular governor," DeMoro
says. At the time, 
Schwarzenegger had a 65-percent approval rating, along
with fawning cover 
stories in Fortune and Vanity Fair magazines. 

Even so, the nurses continued marching while the
state's firefighters, 
teachers, and law enforcement unions watched from the
sidelines. 

DeMoro rented a plane to buzz wealthy guests at the
governor's gated 
Brentwood mansion during his Super Bowl Sunday party.
The nurses flew it 
over Wall Street while the governor held a
$10,000-a-plate fundraiser 
there. They dogged him in Chicago at a lavish
fundraiser, flying a banner 
that read "Don't Be Big Business' Bully." 

When the governor reneged on his oft-repeated promise
to restore $2 
billion to education cuts in February, students and
teachers joined the 
nurses. They gathered with pickets one rainy day at a
Sacramento theater 
where the governor was about to watch the premiere of
"Get Shorty 2." 

But when nurse Kelly Di Giacomo was whisked out of the
movie line and into 
a back room, protesters grew worried. The governor's
security team grilled 
the petite nurse for over an hour until she finally
asked why they 
considered her a threat. One of Schwarzenegger's
bodyguards pointed to her 
scrubs and explained. "You're wearing a nurse's
uniform." 

"Oh, sure," she said, drolly. "The international
terrorist uniform." 

That intimidating experience emboldened the nurses,
whose protests began 
attracting media attention. By spring, TV news cameras
were moving their 
soft-lens focus from Schwarzenegger to the growing
crowds of angry 
workers, most of them women. 

In March, Schwarzenegger's popularity dropped to 55
percent, and a 
California court ruled that the governor had indeed
broken the law by 
suspending the state's nurse-ratio regulation. By
then, however, the 
governor was trying to gut California firefighters'
and police officers' 
pensions, mimicking a Bush administration proposal. 

That effort galvanized the conservative law
enforcement community to join 
DeMoro's ranks for the first time. That spring,
firefighters joined a 
crowd of 4,000 nurses, parents, teachers, and state
employees to object to 
the governor's rash of cuts to middle- and lower-class
programs. 

By April, even die-hard Republicans were growing wary
of the governor's 
company. When former Secretary of State George Shultz
showed up for an 
Arnold fundraiser in San Francisco, he was visibly
shaking as 5,000 booing 
protesters met him in front of the Ritz Carlton Hotel.


Hotel workers later reported that 80 percent of the
$100,000 seats went 
empty that day. "I'm convinced that the protesters
scared them away," said 
CNA organizer Shum Preston. 

By summer, the folly of holding a special election
seemed obvious, but 
DeMoro didn't let up. In August, CNA nurses flew to
Boston to protest 
Schwarzenegger as he tried raising election funds by
re-selling three 
dozen Rolling Stones tickets in his sky-box for
$100,000 each. 

Picketing CNA nurse Stephen Ingersoll couldn't afford
a ticket to the 
Fenway Park concert, but he stood outside and calmly
explained his, and 
CNA's position to Boston reporters. A group of
non-union nurses were so 
impressed with his aplomb, they asked Ingersoll: "How
do you guys do 
this?" 

It's simple, he told them: "When there's an issue that
needs to be 
debated, we just go to the streets." 

By September, DeMoro and the nurses were inviting
workers of all stripes 
to join them, which attracted some Hollywood guild
members. Documentary 
film maker Robert Greenwald ("Wal-Mart"),
Oscar-winning actor Sean Penn 
and movie actress Annette Bening attended the nurses'
convention in 
September, where Warren Beatty had asked to be the
keynote speaker. 

"We're fighting star power with star power," said
DeMoro. By the time 
Beatty lent his voice to CNA ads that ran up to
election day, 
Schwarzenegger's ratings had sunk to a low of 37
percent. 

"Instead of attacking the real problems of our
schools, Schwarzenegger 
attacked school teachers," Beatty said. "Instead of
attacking the cost of 
healthcare, he attacked nurses. Instead of increasing
our safety, he 
attacked police and firefighters." 

That tactical mistake cost Schwarzenegger his special
election initiatives 
and turned California's nurses into grass-roots heroes
in other parts of 
the country. 

Nurses in Illinois, Massachusetts, Arizona, and
Mississippi have asked 
DeMoro for help in challenging the growing clout of
corporate hospital 
chains and other states' anti-worker initiatives. To
be effective, the CNA 
has created a subsidiary called the National Nurses
Organizing Committee, 
which allows it to organize nurses outside of the
Golden State. This fall, 
the NNOC welcomed 2,000 Chicago nurses into their
fold, and it anticipates 
more members by year's end. 

As for Schwarzenegger, he's lost more than his special
election. He's 
managed to squander his once-bright political future
and to jeopardize the 
pro-business platforms of other Republican leaders in
outlying blue 
states. 

And all because of a woman. 

Kathleen Sharp is a Santa Barbara-based writer who
covers California 
politics. She is the co-producer of the documentary
"The Last Mogul," in 
theaters now. 

------- 


http://tinyurl.com/b5qkb 

Robert Scheer: Who's the Girlie Man Now? 

You have to love California. Yes, I'm buzzed by the
stunning rejection of 
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's referendum revolution
aimed at turning this 
blue state red. That the voters soundly defeated his
proposals to punish 
the public sector unions and legislators who dared to
cross the Terminator 
is a bellwether moment for the nation. 

Schwarzenegger was defeated primarily by the
hardworking public sector 
workers of the state: the teachers, firefighters and
other civil servants 
who are sick and tired of being pitted by politicians
against those they 
are so dedicated to serving. "We're the mighty, mighty
nurses" the joyous 
healers chanted in a victory conga line the night they
brought the bully 
down. Frankly, I feared that what was left of
Schwarzenegger's blustery 
charisma along with the endorsement of some of his
proposals by all of the 
state's big newspapers and the Republicans' attempt to
drag their base to 
the polls with an anti-abortion initiative would fool
the voters. That it 
didn't, along with the rejection of Bush backed
candidates in New Jersey 
and Virginia, trumpets a message of hope for the
country. 

Hope, because California is not some bohemian outpost
divorced from 
mainstream American reality, despite the incessant
repetition of that 
caricature. After all, this is the state that gave the
nation Richard 
Nixon and Ronald Reagan and fell once again for the
Republican big 
business populism of Schwarzenegger just two years
ago. 

The caricature is a joke. California represents the
cutting edge of the 
nation, certainly in media, science and economic
innovation, but also very 
much in its politics, which make the state's palpable
energy possible. 

That point was lost on all seven of the state's top
daily newspapers, 
which endorsed the governor's plan to take the power
to draw election 
districts away from the legislature, a move, like the
previously 
successful term limits initiative, that only would
make the lobbyists and 
their campaign contributions more important. 

Because of "safe" or less contested races, legislators
at least have the 
potential to pay attention to their constituents
rather than to those who 
finance the hotly contested races. It is not true, as
The Los Angeles 
Times editorialized, that under the current system,
"extremists reign," 
but rather that responsible legislators can focus on
constituent needs 
rather than waging costly electoral battles financed
by lobbyists. The 
Times went so far as to bemoan in the body of its lead
election news story 
the voters ' refusal to heed Schwarzenegger's effort
at "reforming" 
California's "notoriously dysfunctional politics." 

Dysfunctional? Compared to what? The politics of Texas
where the death 
penalty is the most active social service program, or
is it Kansas, which 
has decided that the theory of evolution is no longer
science? What The 
Times and Schwarzenegger consider dysfunctional is
actually functioning 
representative government, where the little guy gets a
chance at being 
heard, the sort of government we no longer have in
Washington. 

The power of the corporate interests has been checked
primarily by the 
state's huge public service workers unions. Their
grassroots tested power 
is what has allowed the state to remain economically
vibrant by being 
responsive to the needs of ordinary folk and not just
the richest winners 
in the economic lottery. This was an election in which
voters thanked the 
civil servants, from teachers to correction officers,
who serve them year 
in and out. 

That victory for the progressive base was echoed in
the Democrats winning 
the gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia as
well. In New Jersey, 
Jon Corzine, one of the toughest liberals in the
nation, beat back those 
who sought to turn this millionaire businessman's
social compassion into a 
negative. So, too, in Virginia where Timothy Kaine, a
Catholic, refused to 
abandon his church's opposition to the death penalty
despite the most 
vicious right-wing attacks. 

The lessons of Tuesday's election both in the
bellwether state of 
California and across the nation is that Lincoln was
right : the American 
people will not forever be fooled. The negative
message of the Republican 
right, even when fronted by a smirking action hero,
has lost its power to 
terrorize voters. 

Bob Scheer is the editor of www.Truthdig.com 

*** 




	
		
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