RECALL OFFERED BRIEF PROMISE OF REAL DEMOCRACY.

Byline: Kimit Muston Local View

I was only 650 signatures and $3,500 away from being the next governor of California. But then, weren't we all this year?

Hey, I would have signed your petition if you had signed mine, and if at least 10,000 of us had signed each other's petitions, we wouldn't even have had to pay the $3,500; it would have been like a two-for-one double political coupon day. Every citizen of the state of California could have run for governor for free! No more representatives; all of us would have represented all of us!

In other words, democracy.

Well, sort of. I figure that I would have promised to vote for you if you promised to vote for me and then whoever lied and voted for himself would have become governor with two votes - in other words, just another politician.

Still, this recall election is not quite what Plato had in mind, either. When that bitter old fascist looked Athenian democracy straight in the eye 2,400 years ago, he found it a little nearsighted and decided it needed the corrective lens of a ``Republic.''

``Give me an elected government ruled by a ruling class,'' cried Plato - which was his nickname, his real name being Aristocles - and surprisingly enough, Plato deserved to be one of the ruling class.

What a piece of luck that was for Plato.

Of course, in California we prefer to pick our leaders not by class but by ability - the ability to raise campaign money.

Well, it's all spilled milk under the bridge now. Saturday was the last day to get your name on the ballot. We missed another chance at real democracy.

I guess we'll have to put up with the republic for a little longer.

Now, it's a conventional battle royal, a championship bout for the belt with an emotionless killing machine in one corner and in the other corner, Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The movie Terminator meets the political Terminator; the press is loving this. The voters, maybe not so much since this special election could cost $70 million, or about half as much as the average Schwarzenegger movie. Still, my assessment is that Arnold is a shoo-in if he can get through his first difficult press conference without yelling, ``Cut!''

He's got so much help.

First there was neocon congressman Darrel Issa, R-Vista, who spent $2 million of his own money to create this ballot so he himself could get his name on it. Suddenly that doesn't look like such a good investment anymore. I'd say Issa bought a lemon, but I don't want to bring up any bad memories.

I will say this to Arianna Huffington: You're one of my favorite public minds, but honey, announcing your candidacy at 10:45 in the morning, during the ``I Love Lucy'' re-runs?

Who was supposed to be watching, your kids?

Thirty minutes later and you would have been live on the local news shows all across California.

In the profession of politics, this is known as bad timing. Of course, if you had waited 24 hours, you might have saved yourself the trouble. All that's left for you now is to suck a few precious votes away from the Democrats, which is much the same role you played in the 2000 presidential election, when you stumped for Ralph Nader.

I'm beginning to think you are actually part of the vast right-wing conspiracy, Arianna.

But as usual, the GOP's best allies are the liberal Democrats. They started jumping ship on Davis even before Arnold's announcement.

I swear, as much as I want to like liberals, they always manage to convince me otherwise. They have an absolute sense of moral superiority over the rest of us, but absolutely no sense of self-preservation or discipline. They're like crossing a suicide bomber with a homing pigeon. I almost feel inclined to vote for Davis just to stick it in the liberals' ears.

Almost.

And what about Davis, the legendary political gunslinger?

He's got money (bullets) and a killer instinct. So how come he didn't shoot somebody to get a balanced state budget without raising the auto registration fee by 300 percent?

If he had, he might not be facing recall.

I guess I'm lucky to be out of the line of fire, but I could have saved California from debt, depression and feng shui, and now the world will never know of my brilliant plan.

Next time we form a country, we ought to try democracy. And Plato be damned.