Thank You, California Nurses

by paradox

Before anyone forgets amid the euphoria of batting around Arnold’s political testicles with badminton rackets this morning, I would like to say a special thank you to the California Nurses Association.

Only 18 months ago Arnold was considered to be unbeatable for 2006. Being the rank corporatist Republican liar that he is, he told the nurses that their extremely hard-won patient ratios meant nothing to him. They, the law and their patients would suffer and die as he lied about heisting the money.

Some lines are just never crossed—the risks are so horrifying one just never goes there. Like lying to your wife, the consequences are going to be nuclear and leave nasty scars (assuming one survives), no matter how stupidly one rationalizes the act. Arnold is a novice and a dumbass, so I guess it isn’t surprising, really, that he thought he could cross nurses over their patients.

It simply didn’t matter that Arnie was hugely popular, that most analysts thought he could get away with it, or that organized labor had not won a big fight in a while. The nurses knew damn well a thief had come in, stolen what they had worked a generation for and was laughing as he gave them the finger across the street. Get out the mattresses and die going down, if it means that, for something like this could never stand.

They dogged him relentlessly at every public appearance, becoming a great story picked up over the country. They aired commercials, got on the news cycle agenda with creative tactics and relentlessly messed with the Arnold message machine. They got into his head and knocked him down, and when he was there they stepped on his neck until the results came in.

Along the way a lot of other people stepped up, encouraged by the results. It gained momentum and this morning that odious lying Republican cretin is politically crippled.

Thank you. Thank you for showing us all what courage is, for what the will to fight against the violation of core principles can really produce. The results be damned, sometimes, no matter what anyone says, you have to go out there and defend who you are, or never bother showing up at all.

One also has to do it very publicly over a specific media-easy fight to prove to everyone who you are, that there are limits, and that one won’t be perceived as weak. I’m sure I don’t have to play that record again for this crowd.

Thank you, California Nurses. I and the rest of the state and country so owe you. You’ll always have my vote for any your issues for the rest of my life. I won’t forget.