Although his live announcement was bumped off the evening news to cover MJ, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger did indeed announce that Californians will go to the polls this November to vote on a series of initaitives that Schwarzenegger has been touting on behalf of big business. Knowing that Arnold's extra election is a self-serving waste of taxpayer money (there is another perfectly good and already budgeted election scheduled for next June), most Californians oppose Arnold on this one.
Of course, taxpayers will pick up the $80 million tab. But the real sponsors of Arnold's election are the corporate heavy hitters who have plunked down millions to produce Arnold's come-back show. Here's how you might find his big donors sprinkled into the campaig nover the next six months.
From now on all campaign rallies will begin with a "Go Team Arnold" cheer from the San Diego Charger cheerleaders -- brought to you by team owner Alex Spanos, Schwarzenegger's top donor with $2,114,700 delivered.
Silver chocolate coins will be handed out to children along the campaign route courtesy of financial firm American Sterling Corporation ($686,200 to Arnold).
In a pitch for his redistricting initiative, Arnold will ride across legislative boundaries on a William Robinson-bred Lusitano steed ($1,650,000).
Each budget reform ad will end with: "For all your budget needs, shop Target ($340,000) and vote Arnold."
One ad, with the theme of getting your fiscal house in order, will be filmed outside of a William Lyons-built home ($716,200). In the ad, Arnold will tout the importance of refinancing debt and remind Californians that at Ameriquest Capital ($1,561,400) you can get a new mortgage in minutes.
And rather than directly answering questions about why he's wasting $80 million on this election, Arnold will simply direct Californians to get all the info they need at Fox News ($502,400), unless they speak Spanish, in which case they should turn to Univision ($2,292,400).
Check out the the Top 100 sponsors of Team Arnold.
And for quite a laugh see Arnold as a real-life pitchman in Japan . (Lost in Translation 2, anyone?)
Read more about Arnold and his donors at ArnoldWatch.org