Cooper says 'it's democracy, stupid'

I keep trying not to post about the recall, but it's hard. In tomorrow's LA Weekly, Marc Cooper lets loose his inner Jill Stewart and columnizes that the bleating elites (the word appears four times) are all wrong -- these are exciting times, it's not a circus and chaos won't reign. His chosen populist candidate is...well, see the end of the column.

The L.A. Times (and other major metros) has also helped promote the circus theme, giving undue attention to the carnival candidates. A strange twist, as this is the same Times that barred Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader from the presidential debate it organized during the 2000 campaign. Times management argued at the time that Nader wasn't a serious enough candidate to warrant inclusion. Nader's mistake, apparently, was to not have Gary Coleman chauffer him down to Spring Street in Agelyne's pink Vette.

The Weekly's cover package on the recall also includes takes by just about the entire retinue of regular front-of-the-book writers. Plus Erin Aubry Kaplan gives her account of the Ward Connerly race initiative.

Finally, here's the final list of 135 candidates in the recall...Dan Weintraub has a new photo up at California Insider -- this election has aged him already!...his colleague Dan Walters opined to Kitty Felde today that political reporters are cranky about the recall because the odd-numbered off years are usually when they can coast...and SoCalLawBlog has a sunny new logo. For comprehensive links to recall news and views given pretty straight, go see the PrestoPundit.

Edited 1:45 a.m. Thursday