So Damned Angry At Sacramento & Washington They Forgot To Vote

In California, we're on a (much) higher spiritual plane, though not so concerned about trivia like democracy.

Counting those who are eligible to vote — not just the registered ones — Tuesday's showing drops from the tentative count of 25% to an even worse 15%. Thus, it was possible for a ballot measure to win with the approval of about 8% of voting-age citizens, and nominees to be selected by even fewer in multi-candidate contests.

This is not necessarily unusual in the state. In the East, prognosticators figure that bad snowstorms or monsoon rains will deter voters. Here, all it seems to take is a glimmer of something better to do — a sunny day, a good movie, a utility closet in desperate need of rearranging.

Against this backdrop of apathy & alleged anger, the chosen are at it.

"It's not enough for someone rich and restless to look in the mirror one morning and decide, 'I want to be governor of California.' We tried that. It didn't work," Brown said.

[...]

Whitman, the Republican, grew up in an upper middle class household on Long Island and attended Princeton and Harvard before starting a corporate career at Proctor & Gamble, Disney and Hasbro. She brought her executive pedigree to eBay in 1998 and helped the online auction site mature into a multibillion dollar company. The company made her a billionaire, and she now lives in Atherton*, a Silicon Valley suburb that is among the state's top five wealthiest communities.

But frugality ensued. Really:

Despite her wealth, Whitman thanks her mother for instilling a sense of frugality. In her book, "The Power of Many," she recalled that as a child, the Whitman family would vacation on St. John in the Caribbean by camping in a toolshed — paying the owner for the privilege — when they couldn't get a campsite.

As usual, the most telling aspect is that NutMeg believes this to be indicative of her regular ol' non-elitist ways. Is she going to tell us her family hitchhiked to St. John?

*Where we lived from earliest memory until 10. (In the poorer end of town, we assure you.) Had our fool parents held onto the dump, they could have unloaded it on a Silicon Valley zillionaire, & we wouldn't be here doing this tight now, that's for damn sure. But nooooooooo!