All TV adverts and no action

[T_i_B]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1592254,00.html

Turn on the TV in southern California and as likely as not (unless you have TiVo or some other devilish device) you will see an advert. And, as likely as not, that advert will concern Governor Schwarzenegger and his latest exercise in "blowing up the boxes" of government, kicking out the special interests and bypassing the legislators to go straight to the people of California.

Next month, Californians will be urged to go the polls to choose between an array of confusing ballot propositions. Call it what you will - Swiss democracy California style, direct government or an attempt to bypass a sometimes uncooperative legislature - the people of California don't seem too enthusiastic about having to go to the polls again: 2005 was supposed to be a rest year before Arnold's likely re-election bid in 2006, the year when the politicians might do their job instead of asking the voters to sort out their differences for them.

The place they are spending their money is television, buying TV adverts in the most expensive advertisement market in the country. California, the experts say, is too large, too diffuse, for the more traditional methods of electioneering: mail drops, poster campaigns, door-to-door canvassing. Only the bright lights of television can bring in the voters.

That theory was born out last year, when Governor Schwarzenegger lent his muscle to the campaign against a proposition to repeal the state's three strikes law. Arnold's TV appearances, with the tough guy striding purposefully through a gallery of hoodlums who might very possibly be released to murder your children should the measure be passed, succeeded in turning the vote round and preserving the existing three strikes law.