2003 California Governor Recall Election
The Los Angeles Times released a story about Arnold Schwarzenegger and subsequent allegations that he was a womanizer guilty of multiple acts of sexual misconduct in past decades. The story was released just before the 2003 California recall, prompting many pundits to charge that the timing of the story was aimed specifically at derailing the recall campaign. It was not the only embarrassing story about Schwarzenegger to surface just days before the campaign: in addition, ABC News and the New York Times reported that in 1975 Schwarzenegger had praised Adolf Hitler during interviews for the film Pumping Iron, which was responsible for the bodybuilder-turned-actor's fame. The twin controversies later led L.A. Times columnist Steve Lopez to coin the term "gropenfuhrer" to describe California's governor-elect; a series of "Doonesbury" strips made the term famous.
Read more about this topic: October Surprise
Famous quotes containing the words california, governor, recall and/or election:
“We have advanced by leaps to the Pacific, and left many a lesser Oregon and California unexplored behind us.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Three years ago, also, when the Sims tragedy was acted, I said to myself, There is such an officer, if not such a man, as the Governor of Massachusetts,—what has he been about the last fortnight? Has he had as much as he could do to keep on the fence during this moral earthquake?... He could at least have resigned himself into fame.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
““Why wouldn’t it scare me to have a fire
Begin in smudge with ropy smoke, and know
That still, if I repent, I may recall it,
But in a moment not: a little spurt
Of burning fatness, and then nothing but
The fire itself can put it out, and that
By burning out....””
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)