California: America's High-Stakes Experiment Book

I would give this 2.5 stars if I could. This was a re-read for me, but I had read it so long ago I forgot most of it. This is a good primer on some California politics stuff, as well as the dysfunction of the government. The general thesis is that Californian's stop wanting public services as soon as outsiders (ie brown people) started using them. But it is a bit more complicated than that. Anyways, a good primer with a lot of interesting stuff about the recalls and the Schwarzenegger election.

The most interesting part of this book was the recall section, not because of the author but because of the parallels with the current election. Schwarzenegger ran on the idea that he was "too rich to be bought by special interests," he was an outsider, and that he just "spoke the truth." Also when all his stuff about sexual assault and terrible language around women came up, he passed it off as "rowdy movie-set talk." It caused his polls to dip, but then they went back up because America is sexist.