Political work at the California State Fair in Sacramento is typically a low-key, people-friendly affair. Office holders and would-be office holders typically make a pilgrimage out into the heat of Cal Expo, where they shake a few hands, kiss some babies, eat a corndog and sing the praises of California agriculture.
Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, for example, will be out there this evening, visiting the Republican Party booth in one of the halls and hoping desperately that some desperate newspaper or TV station, stuck in the August doldrums, will send out a reporter or a camera crew to ask him about his campaign for governor.
It’s generally considered bad form to do any serious politicking, especially since most of the fairgoers wouldn’t pay any attention anyway.
When Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger made a sweaty late afternoon visit to the fairgrounds a couple years back, for example, he petted a couple of horses, nuzzled a piglet and ate a locally grown peach.
The peaches “are delicious and special, just like California,’’ he opined.
That’s about as controversial as politics generally get at the fair.
Not this year, though.
One of the highlights of the fair is the Hall of Counties, where most of the state’s 58 counties put up a display, highlighting their crops, their tourist attractions and some of the local landmarks. They run heavily toward mechanical cows, rows of produce and Chamber of Commerce brochures.
But that’s not the route San Joaquin County decided to take. Their 2009 display features the phrase “Stop Feeding the Monster,” and includes an oversized mechanical robot menacing what appears to be a map of the Delta.
The robot bears an eerie resemblance to the T-800 robot of “Terminator 2,’’ which in the movie was surrounded by the flesh of Arnold Schwarzenegger, the current governor.
The entire display is a screed against plans for a new Peripheral Canal that would move water from the Sacramento River around the Delta and ship it to farmers in Central California and the mega-cities farther south.
Although the words “Peripheral Canal” almost never pass his lips, Schwarzenegger has come out in favor of a water project that bypasses the Delta, arguing that it needs to be part of any plan to improve water quality and storage capacity in the state. But many Northern California environmentalists, politicians and, most importantly, voters, are convinced the plan is simply a water grab that will only make a bad situation worse in the Delta.
The Peripheral Canal as a solution “is a monster waiting to suck dry our most precious natural resource for its will,’’ a sign on the San Joaquin County display warns.
It’s only a display at the fair and it’s only one county, but the over-the-top rhetoric should be a warning to the legislators now trying to cobble together a water plan for the state.
The canal isn’t part of any of the current options being discussed, but if even the possibility of that sort of massive water transfer shows up in the ultimate legislation, the howls of outrage from Northern California could make it impossible to pass a plan that can protect the state’s water supply.
Of course, the governor has no room to complain about anyone inflicting politics on the fairgoers.
On the inside cover of the fair’s official program, which is handed out free to everyone who comes through the gates, there’s a welcoming message from the governor, which includes a shot at his political adversaries.
“When I heard this year’s theme was ‘Weird, Wild and Wacky,’” Schwarzenegger wrote, “I thought the Fair was going to have an exhibit on some of the bills our legislature tried to pass this year.”
Add rimshot here.
John Wildermuth is a longtime writer on California politics.