Editorial: A letter of welcome to a California ex-governor

Allow us to be among the first to say it: Welcome to UCLA, Mr.
Gray Davis.

When we heard the ex-governor of this state was packing his bags
and heading south to do some lecturing at the UCLA School of Public
Affairs, we thought we’d reacquaint you with some student
sentiment.

After all, the last time you were at UCLA with any sort of a
brouhaha was the summer of 2003, when you kicked off your
anti-recall campaign in Ackerman Grand Ballroom. Kind of ironic
that you launched your re-election campaign at one of this
country’s most prestigious public universities at the same
time you had just cut $400 million from University of California
funding that year and sent student fees up 30 percent.

But never mind. You can count on us students to welcome you back
with open arms. We’re interested to see what pearls of wisdom
you’ll bring here, what with your wealth of political
experience and all. Your resume reads about as impressively as any
California politician’s could: Los Angeles assemblyman, state
controller, lieutenant governor, governor, then … well,
we’re not sure what you’ve been up to since 2003, but
we look forward to hearing about it in one of your lectures.

By the way, why did you stop attending UC Board of Regents
meetings after you became governor? You seemed to show up to them
often enough when you were lieutenant governor. You actually had
good things to say, such as when you opposed raising the salaries
of high-paid UC officials or when you talked about putting up a
ballot measure to guard against sudden student fee hikes. Did those
meetings just get boring for you? Because we know you’d never
have used them as a chance to climb the political ladder.

And as an ex-Democratic politician, you’ll have plenty of
company here on campus. In fact, it seems like UCLA is becoming a
virtual elephant’s graveyard of politicians who have landed
in Westwood, such as former presidential candidates Al Gore and
Michael Dukakis and former State Assembly Speaker Herb Wesson. At
this rate, UCLA will be a political powerhouse to rival that of the
state capital.

While we appreciate having yet another defeated political power
broker on campus, don’t take it the wrong way if we say we
wish you still had your old job in Sacramento. Because it’s
pretty clear at this point that the recall wasn’t a
resounding success.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who campaigned on the promise of
going to Sacramento to “clean house,” clearly
hasn’t done so. His job approval among Californians is so low
that some analysts have compared them to yours when you were still
in office. He’s more or less still beholden to “special
interest.” And while Schwarzenegger has a lot more charm and
charisma than you had (no offense; he is an actor), that
hasn’t worked wonders for the condition of the state.

In some ways, your coming back to UCLA is poetic justice for all
of us. Students get back the man who was in office when university
funding started to go down the tubes. Meanwhile, you get a nice
perch in Los Angeles from which to watch your friend Schwarzenegger
deal with low approval ratings and hostile state legislators. Mr.
Davis, kick back and enjoy the show. This is Hollywood, after
all.

And at the very least, you can take solace in one certainty
while you’re here: We won’t try to recall you.