Funny or Die has produced what has to be one of the best political videos we’ve seen in California for a very long time. Starring Megan Fox (of Transformers fame) and Brian Austin Green (of 90210 fame, of course!), it mocks Arnold Schwarzenegger while showing the impact of his war on public education. It’s a must-see:
The ad directs viewers to Say No To Cuts, a website put together by the California PTA and the Wonderland Ave PTA that is collecting signatures on a petition that will be delivered to the governor and to legislators later this month.
What the video shows, once again, is that Californians do not support Arnold Schwarzenegger or his budget cuts. They just don’t. The polls that have been done so far indicate that the public prefers higher taxes to cutting K-12 budgets, and while nobody seems to have asked “do you support the $17 billion in education cuts made since 2008?” such a poll would likely find widespread public opposition and outrage. There’s a reason Arnold’s disapproval rating is at a record level of over 70%.
It’s taken Megan Fox and Brian Austin Green to tell Californians what their media should have been telling them all along – Californians want to fund schools properly. We’ve been saying that here at Calitics for years, but maybe it takes a clever Hollywood video to get the state’s political and media elite to wake up to that reality.
Public opinion polls show a large amount of cognitive dissonance. Most opinion polls show people want smaller state government, but balk at specific cuts proposed except for parks and prisons.
Similarly, most people handily reject the middle-class tax increases that the democrats in the state legislature forced upon the people, like the ones passed during the last budget crisis.
I’m thinking we should just hire Funny or Die to make all the Democratic Party’s commercials. That was a better argument against budget cuts than anything I’ve seen yet from official channels.