KIND OF REMINDS US OF ITALIAN POLITICS
California's Recall Governor's Race Gets Whackier and Whackier

First, it was the recall movement engineered by God-only-knows-who. The Democrats claim it has been the Republicans, which may very well be true since a wealthy Republican politico first got that ball rolling. But the polls have been showing that the recall movement has been a grassroots effort crossing all political lines.

Next, just about everyone began announcing his or her candicacy for Gray Davis' seat, from Davis' own Lieutenant Governor to a pink-and-blonde porn "actress" (euphemistically referred to as a "model" by the mainstream media) to porn kingpin Larry Flynt. Now action film star Arnold Schwarzenneger has declared his own intentions to Terminate the current Governor.

Of course, entertainers running for public office in California is nothing new. Witness Pat Brown and Ronald Reagan. But the last time a porn star ran a high-profile campaign for public office was back in 1990 when Italian porn queen Ilona Staller was elected to the Italian Parliament, where she later flashed her breasts to her colleagues and voted for things like sex for prisoners, sex education for young kids and sexual liberation for everyone. And just before the first Gulf war, she publicly offered to have sex with both George Bush, Sr. and Saddam Hussein in order to avert the coming war. (How that would've worked she never said.)

So there is a precedent established for porn stars running for public offices and actually serving in them, and California seems the most likely place to continue that tradition. After all, as in Italian politics, California politics seems run more and more by weirdos.