http://news.pacificnews.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=2b2fda7241241ba88cab43b821c1e251
Pacific News Service The Woman Behind Arnold's Defeat Analysis/Commentary, Kathleen Sharp, New America Media, Nov 09, 2005 Editor's Note: Forget sexist language or charges of groping -- California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's biggest "woman problem" is the head of the state's nurses union, who led a successful movement to defeat his special election initiatives. SANTA BARBARA--Women have had a bruising time in the public eye lately, ranging from Judith Miller's deceptive reports in the New York Times to Harriet Miers' embarrassing qualifications for the Supreme Court. So when a woman manages to outperform the most confident governor in America, it's worth celebrating. On Tuesday, Nov. 8, every one of California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's pet initiatives failed, in large part because of Rose Ann DeMoro, the chief executive of the California Nurses Association (CAN). She and her 65,000-member union spent most of this year building a broad-based populist movement that the once-powerful governor tried to dismiss with glib one-liners. Certainly, one reason Schwarzenegger's initiatives failed was widespread anger over his $70 million "special" election. Lengthening the probationary period before teachers can qualify for tenure (Prop. 74), weakening the unions (Prop. 75), bypassing elected lawmakers on fiscal matters (Prop. 76) and privatizing the redistricting process (Prop. 77) were not going to solve California's financial problems. But voters may not have gotten this message if it weren't for DeMoro and her indefatigable nurses. Early on they stressed that Schwarzenegger's election was a corporate power grab at the expense of California workers. The nurses hammered home this message almost daily, even when they risked being ostracized. As Lou Paulson, head of the California Professional Firefighters, said: "Rose Ann and the nurses showed us that the emperor had no clothes." Their activism started last November, after Schwarzenegger suspended key portions of the state's nurse-to-patient ratio to help hospital chains. "That really angered us," says DeMoro. But the nurses protested tentatively, almost timidly, until one pivotal day last December. While the governor addressed a state convention of 10,000 women, a few nurses unfurled a protest banner that read "Hands Off Patient Ratios." Schwarzenegger grinned for the TV cameras, then said: "Pay no attention...to the special interests. I am always kicking their butts." DeMoro was outraged. "For the Governor to denigrate nurses -- a historically female profession -- while speaking to an audience of women is an affront to women everywhere," she told CNN. Because Schwarzenegger had shut them out of the health-care debate, the nurses decided to take their case to the streets. "We were told to not make waves, that the people of California would turn against us to support their popular governor," DeMoro says. At the time, Schwarzenegger had a 65-percent approval rating, along with fawning cover stories in Fortune and Vanity Fair magazines. Even so, the nurses continued marching while the state's firefighters, teachers, and law enforcement unions watched from the sidelines. DeMoro rented a plane to buzz wealthy guests at the governor's gated Brentwood mansion during his Super Bowl Sunday party. The nurses flew it over Wall Street while the governor held a $10,000-a-plate fundraiser there. They dogged him in Chicago at a lavish fundraiser, flying a banner that read "Don't Be Big Business' Bully." When the governor reneged on his oft-repeated promise to restore $2 billion to education cuts in February, students and teachers joined the nurses. They gathered with pickets one rainy day at a Sacramento theater where the governor was about to watch the premiere of "Get Shorty 2." But when nurse Kelly Di Giacomo was whisked out of the movie line and into a back room, protesters grew worried. The governor's security team grilled the petite nurse for over an hour until she finally asked why they considered her a threat. One of Schwarzenegger's bodyguards pointed to her scrubs and explained. "You're wearing a nurse's uniform." "Oh, sure," she said, drolly. "The international terrorist uniform." That intimidating experience emboldened the nurses, whose protests began attracting media attention. By spring, TV news cameras were moving their soft-lens focus from Schwarzenegger to the growing crowds of angry workers, most of them women. In March, Schwarzenegger's popularity dropped to 55 percent, and a California court ruled that the governor had indeed broken the law by suspending the state's nurse-ratio regulation. By then, however, the governor was trying to gut California firefighters' and police officers' pensions, mimicking a Bush administration proposal. That effort galvanized the conservative law enforcement community to join DeMoro's ranks for the first time. That spring, firefighters joined a crowd of 4,000 nurses, parents, teachers, and state employees to object to the governor's rash of cuts to middle- and lower-class programs. By April, even die-hard Republicans were growing wary of the governor's company. When former Secretary of State George Shultz showed up for an Arnold fundraiser in San Francisco, he was visibly shaking as 5,000 booing protesters met him in front of the Ritz Carlton Hotel. Hotel workers later reported that 80 percent of the $100,000 seats went empty that day. "I'm convinced that the protesters scared them away," said CNA organizer Shum Preston. By summer, the folly of holding a special election seemed obvious, but DeMoro didn't let up. In August, CNA nurses flew to Boston to protest Schwarzenegger as he tried raising election funds by re-selling three dozen Rolling Stones tickets in his sky-box for $100,000 each. Picketing CNA nurse Stephen Ingersoll couldn't afford a ticket to the Fenway Park concert, but he stood outside and calmly explained his, and CNA's position to Boston reporters. A group of non-union nurses were so impressed with his aplomb, they asked Ingersoll: "How do you guys do this?" It's simple, he told them: "When there's an issue that needs to be debated, we just go to the streets." By September, DeMoro and the nurses were inviting workers of all stripes to join them, which attracted some Hollywood guild members. Documentary film maker Robert Greenwald ("Wal-Mart"), Oscar-winning actor Sean Penn and movie actress Annette Bening attended the nurses' convention in September, where Warren Beatty had asked to be the keynote speaker. "We're fighting star power with star power," said DeMoro. By the time Beatty lent his voice to CNA ads that ran up to election day, Schwarzenegger's ratings had sunk to a low of 37 percent. "Instead of attacking the real problems of our schools, Schwarzenegger attacked school teachers," Beatty said. "Instead of attacking the cost of healthcare, he attacked nurses. Instead of increasing our safety, he attacked police and firefighters." That tactical mistake cost Schwarzenegger his special election initiatives and turned California's nurses into grass-roots heroes in other parts of the country. Nurses in Illinois, Massachusetts, Arizona, and Mississippi have asked DeMoro for help in challenging the growing clout of corporate hospital chains and other states' anti-worker initiatives. To be effective, the CNA has created a subsidiary called the National Nurses Organizing Committee, which allows it to organize nurses outside of the Golden State. This fall, the NNOC welcomed 2,000 Chicago nurses into their fold, and it anticipates more members by year's end. As for Schwarzenegger, he's lost more than his special election. He's managed to squander his once-bright political future and to jeopardize the pro-business platforms of other Republican leaders in outlying blue states. And all because of a woman. Kathleen Sharp is a Santa Barbara-based writer who covers California politics. She is the co-producer of the documentary "The Last Mogul," in theaters now. Post a Comment ---- To the Editor: Kudos to Rose Ann DeMoro, head of the California Nurses Association (CAN) and her 65,000-member union for leading the charge to defeat Governor Schwarzenegger. But let's not forget his sexist language or charges of groping, against Schwarzenegger as the editor's note suggests. Let's not allow the allegations of 16 brave women who went public with charges to what amounted to criminal conduct against Schwarzenegger while he was running for Governor to be marginalized and with terms like groping, sexual misconduct, or even sexual harassment. (You don't go to prison for sexually harass sing your employs or co-workers.) Sexual Battery is the more accurate and criminal description of Schwarzenegger actions as described in the Los Angeles Times and elsewhere by those who were victimized by him. >From Webster's Dictionary: Grope Feel up: to touch or fondle (someone) for sexual pleasure to find (as one's way) by groping >From California Criminal Code: Sexual Battery: Any unwanted touching of an intimate part of another person for the purpose of sexual arousal. "Touching" means physical contact with another person whether the individuals involved are clothed or unclothed. "Intimate part" means the sexual organ, anus, groin or buttocks of any person, and the breast of a female. (Penal Code Section 243.4.) Sexual Battery is a Megan's Law Registrable Sex Offense in California. Many survivors of sexual battery suffer the same long-term psychological post-traumatic symptoms as those who have experienced rape or sexual assault that includes penetration. It's no accident that a misogynist like Schwarzenegger set his first attacks on nurses and teachers, both fields dominated by women . Let's also salute those 16 women who at great risk to themselves, their families, and their careers tried to warn the voters of California. If only we had listened.... Karen Pomer Co-Founder Rainbow Sisters' Project For Women Who Have Survived Sexual Assault ### http://tinyurl.com/b5qkb Robert Scheer: Who's the Girlie Man Now? You have to love California. Yes, I'm buzzed by the stunning rejection of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's referendum revolution aimed at turning this blue state red. That the voters soundly defeated his proposals to punish the public sector unions and legislators who dared to cross the Terminator is a bellwether moment for the nation. Schwarzenegger was defeated primarily by the hardworking public sector workers of the state: the teachers, firefighters and other civil servants who are sick and tired of being pitted by politicians against those they are so dedicated to serving. "We're the mighty, mighty nurses" the joyous healers chanted in a victory conga line the night they brought the bully down. Frankly, I feared that what was left of Schwarzenegger's blustery charisma along with the endorsement of some of his proposals by all of the state's big newspapers and the Republicans' attempt to drag their base to the polls with an anti-abortion initiative would fool the voters. That it didn't, along with the rejection of Bush backed candidates in New Jersey and Virginia, trumpets a message of hope for the country. Hope, because California is not some bohemian outpost divorced from mainstream American reality, despite the incessant repetition of that caricature. After all, this is the state that gave the nation Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan and fell once again for the Republican big business populism of Schwarzenegger just two years ago. The caricature is a joke. California represents the cutting edge of the nation, certainly in media, science and economic innovation, but also very much in its politics, which make the state's palpable energy possible. That point was lost on all seven of the state's top daily newspapers, which endorsed the governor's plan to take the power to draw election districts away from the legislature, a move, like the previously successful term limits initiative, that only would make the lobbyists and their campaign contributions more important. Because of "safe" or less contested races, legislators at least have the potential to pay attention to their constituents rather than to those who finance the hotly contested races. It is not true, as The Los Angeles Times editorialized, that under the current system, "extremists reign," but rather that responsible legislators can focus on constituent needs rather than waging costly electoral battles financed by lobbyists. The Times went so far as to bemoan in the body of its lead election news story the voters ' refusal to heed Schwarzenegger's effort at "reforming" California's "notoriously dysfunctional politics." Dysfunctional? Compared to what? The politics of Texas where the death penalty is the most active social service program, or is it Kansas, which has decided that the theory of evolution is no longer science? What The Times and Schwarzenegger consider dysfunctional is actually functioning representative government, where the little guy gets a chance at being heard, the sort of government we no longer have in Washington. The power of the corporate interests has been checked primarily by the state's huge public service workers unions. Their grassroots tested power is what has allowed the state to remain economically vibrant by being responsive to the needs of ordinary folk and not just the richest winners in the economic lottery. This was an election in which voters thanked the civil servants, from teachers to correction officers, who serve them year in and out. That victory for the progressive base was echoed in the Democrats winning the gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia as well. In New Jersey, Jon Corzine, one of the toughest liberals in the nation, beat back those who sought to turn this millionaire businessman's social compassion into a negative. So, too, in Virginia where Timothy Kaine, a Catholic, refused to abandon his church's opposition to the death penalty despite the most vicious right-wing attacks. The lessons of Tuesday's election both in the bellwether state of California and across the nation is that Lincoln was right : the American people will not forever be fooled. The negative message of the Republican right, even when fronted by a smirking action hero, has lost its power to terrorize voters. Bob Scheer is the editor of www.Truthdig.com *** REMINDER: Monday, November 14 Journalist Robert Fisk at UCLA The War for the Middle East: History Unlearned 7:00 - 9:00 p.m. Grand Ballroom Ackerman Student Union UCLA Robert Fisk is the Veteran Middle East Correspondent for The Independent (London) Author of: The Great War for Civilization: The Conquest of the Middle East(2005), Pity The Nation: The Abduction of Lebanon (2002) Winner of: Amnesty International Award, 2000; David Watt Memorial Award, 2001; and seven-time winner as the British International Journalist of the Year UCLA parking: $8.00 Take Westwood Blvd. entrance to campus from Wilshire Blvd. This event is Free and Open to the Public Sponsored by the Center for Social Theory and Comparative History and Academic Advancement Program For more information call: Center for Social Theory and Comparative History: (310) 206-5675 Or Jeff Cooper, AAP: (310) 206 2912 ************ Tuesday, November 15: Robert Fisk at USC 12 Noon - 2 PM USC Room 101 Mudd Hall of Philosophy Fisk will be signing copies ofhis latest book, The Great War for Civilization: The Conquest of the MiddleEast, which will be available for purchase at Mudd Hall. Sponsored by the Center for International Studies at USC. For more information, call(213) 740-0800 or email [EMAIL PROTECTED] ********** Wednesday, November 16: Robert Fisk at Cal Poly Pomona 12 Noon - 1 PM Cal Poly Pomona Bronco Student Center Centaurus Room(1329) 3801 West Temple Avenue Pomona 91768 ### ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Get fast access to your favorite Yahoo! Groups. 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