OK, California has officially passed Oklahoma on the states whose voters have lost their minds list. At least we managed not to elect our local celebrity (a Hall of Fame QB) governor, though just barely.

Oklahoma has a long history of falling for the name recognition voting trap. In the late1970s a man named David Walters was running for governor when his campaign was derailed by some pretty serious criminal charges over how his campaign was financed. (I don't remember if he ever served time, or just plea bargined.) So who did Oklahoma voters elect to two terms as governor only four years later? You got it. Seems that most people only remembered they'd heard Walters' name before, not in what context. Walters ended up nearly being impeached and inflicting countless other ethical scandals on the state. It's not like the guy had a history of this kind of behavior. (And for those of you who read this blog a lot and know my political leanings, Walters was a Democrat, so this isn't a partisan thing.)

But Walters was a career politician, if an ethically bankrupt one. He wasn't an aging movie actor who avoided all debates except the one where he had the questions in advance, and spent most of that trading put-downs with Ariana Huffington (who also should not have been running, in my opinion). I've always thought it was kind of stupid and xenophobic that U.S. Presidents had to be born in this country, but at least we are all saved from the spectacle and speculation of Ahnold in 2008.