Total California Recall
[David Horowitz: Arnold is "the only possibility of a win for state GOP"]
FrontPageMagazine.com ^ | August 11, 2003 | David Horowitz
Posted on 08/11/2003 9:16 AM PDT by RonDog
From the outset the California recall was a bad idea for Republicans. It was a lose, lose, lose situation. Without the recall Republicans would have contended for an open seat in 2006 against a non-incumbent Democrat running on a crippled legacy. The recall introduced three basic possibilities into this mix, all of them bad.The first of these would be a defeat of the recall and hence a win for the Democrats. The second would be a victory for the recall but the election of a Democrat to replace Davis, forcing Republicans to face an incumbent in 2006. The third would be a victory for the recall and a Republican governor. Ironically, this would have created the possibility for the worst scenario of all.
The victory of a Republican would have meant a conservative governor with a plurality of 20 percent. Even this would probably be optimistic since Republicans notoriously lack discipline, guaranteeing a full Republican field. Thus a conservative victory would set up a conservative disaster.
If Issa, Simon or McClintock had indeed won with 20 percent of the vote, he would have absolutely no mandate to govern. He would inherit a $38 billion deficit. He would face an overwhelming Democrat majority in the state legislature and the press. Moreover, being an isolated conservative with a small constituency, he would be unable to counter these disadvantages by going over the heads of the legislature and the media to the public to promote his agenda. He would have no popular base in the state. Thus, he would have no option to reduce the deficit by cutting the programs and payrolls fattened in the Davis years as the economy and state revenues were bottoming.
In other words a Republican victory would have led to the discrediting of fiscal conservatism and the prospect of twenty years of unchallenged liberal Democratic rule.
But the entrance of Arnold Schwarzenegger into the race has changed all that. Suddenly Republicans have an opportunity to take back the governorship, revive their all but dead party, and make themselves competitive again in the Golden State...
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