The Out-of-Touch Party: What the California recall tells us about the Democrats

The Weekly Standard ^ | 10/20/03 | Noemie Emery

[Pokey78]

GOVERNOR ARNOLD is bad news for the Democrats. Republicans now hold the statehouses in the four largest states. But the really bad news is that the Democrats running for the honor of contesting George W. Bush in the 2004 showdown are being picked by a primary audience that is so out of sync with the national mainstream that the two of them barely converge. Think of the California recall as a trial run for the national election: Track the primary themes as they played out in the recall, and the picture you see is a field in denial, a party at war with reality.

Nothing works up a Democratic primary crowd so much as tirades against Bush. The trouble is that all the charges of fool, fraud, fake, and miserable failure reflect the fever swamps of the liberal psyche much more than the facts on the ground. Bush has hardly succeeded in everything, but he rallied the country after a terrible blow, launched two successful wars, locked up a large chunk of the terrorist network, and kept the country safe from attack for two years. The economy took a big hit but has since shown resilience. This isn't total success, but it hardly qualifies as failure, and most people know it, among them the voters in California, who were asked to turn their thumbs down on the recall to send a message to Bush.

The most aggressive Bush-baiter was Arianna Huffington, who attacked Arnold as being a clone of the president. She expressed this view at great length at their single encounter. After this debate Schwarzenegger soared, while Huffington's share in the polls fell from 2 percent to 0.4, at which point she dropped out and went to work for Gray Davis. And this in one of the most liberal states in the country, which Bush lost to Al Gore by 11 points.

Another pet theme on the Democratic primary circuit is the alleged and dire far-right-wing plot to subvert democracy. This was said to begin with Bill Clinton's impeachment (an attempt at a "coup" that would have made Al Gore president), then went on through the Florida recount (which Gore "won" and was somehow deprived of), through the redistricting ruckus in Texas, and reached its supposed apex in the recall election.

The trouble of course is that the recall was legal and that it followed the course prescribed in the California constitution. Many Democrats supported the recall, and some also backed the Republican candidates. Likewise, the levels of rage at the impeachment and recount, though deep, were never too wide. Deep feelings on both of these issues were confined to narrow tranches of partisans at the two ends of the spectrum, while the middle remained unengaged. The impeachment itself, and the acquittal that followed, were met by the public with few signs of emotion, and the consensus that seems to have emerged in the aftermath is that impeachment followed by acquittal is really what Clinton deserved.

In the Florida recount, people understood the election to have been a tie, knew it was within the margin of error, and knew a clean win was not possible. But they also seemed ready to accept as the winner whoever emerged under the laws in place at the time. Republicans played rough, and pushed every advantage, but so did Democrats. Few outside the far left were enraged by the Supreme Court's decision, which most saw as the only way out.

The first sign that the warning of possible putsches might not be a winner happened of course in the 2002 midterm elections, widely seen as a test of whether the results of the recount were understood to be legitimate. Al Gore traveled from one coast to the other invoking the outrage of Florida. Democrats' poll numbers fell when he did so. In Florida itself, scene of the crime, Democrats planned to wreak terrible vengeance. Millions were spent in an effort to take down the president's brother, who won in a landslide. What didn't work in Florida in 2002 didn't work in California in 2003, either. What a surprise.

For two months, the California recall battle and the primary fight among Democrats have been running alongside one another on parallel tracks. In the primary world, made up of activists, talk of plots and fury at Bush are the tickets to cheers, and to prominence. In the real world, made up of a general audience, they turn into millstones, or worse. Bush may still lose--there are too many variables--but not on these grounds or these issues.

"Arnold will lose," wrote Michael Tomasky on August 13 in the American Prospect, a magazine that has felled vast tracts of forests to further the proposition that the worst man in all of human history is George W. Bush. The reason was the sharp division in the political culture. "A series of corrosively divisive events have made Americans choose sides," he explained. "The Clinton impeachment, the 2000 election, and the debate over the Iraq war have been the main events."

As a result, he said, people would be voting core values. He was right. They just did.

[Agnes Heep]

They're not just out of touch; they're positively psychotic.

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[ridesthemiles]

I personally hope the DemoRats don't get it. I hope they don't get it for about the next 50 years or so.

Maybe we can turn this country around.

Maybe I can feel safe in my home/neighborhood.

Maybe I can feel confident that my taxes buy sonething really useful instead of lots of "feel good" programs I can't afford for myself or my family, but I am forced to pay for them for others.

Maybe I can make long term plans for my own future and financial safety and not face the explosive tripling of my car/truck tags.

Maybe I can know that the really deserving are getting a hand out/hand up that is not obscenely bloated.

Maybe I can drive on my states roads and not worry that people that totally don't even belong here are cruising around with no insurance, no ability to read the signs, and probably very limited ability to drive fast on roads much better than where they came from.

Maybe I can have faith in what a politician tells me instead of a lie of immense proportions about how much the state had squandered in our taxes and how much the state debt was.

Maybe some real accounting practices will be enforced on state budgets.

Maybe the law enforcement will get serious about ALF/ELF/First Earth and their domestic terrorism and get these people into jail for the rest of their life.

Maybe the attitude that can find one plant 3 inches high in a 400 acre pasture, prohibiting the farmer from using this land can be refocused to find the 8 foot high, 3 foot wide multi-thousand marijuana plants growing throughout the nation.

Maybe the Republicans will get a clue from this election, also, that we are angry at all the parties that have allowed this decay to become a daily event, and that we are ready to recall alot more people sitting on their dead asses in Sacramento. The network is firmly in place and will only need a nudge and a fresh petition.

[Rocko]

Excellent article.

[jammer]

I'm having as much trouble accepting that the California election was a trial run of the 2004 presidential election as I am having accepting the notion that the anger of the voters is a generic anger, to be expressed against incumbents, i.e., George Bush, in 2004.

Methinks California is a unique situation, to which too many people on both sides attempt to draw analogies.

[jammer]

Well said!

[harpu]

"I personally hope the Demo_Rats don't get it. I hope they don't get it for about the next 50 years or so."

Here, I think you dropped this 'n' sometime during your response.

[goldstategop]

I doubt it. Think again - how do Republicans take a nearly combined two-thirds of the popular vote in what is supposed to be a Democratic state? Billary, Terry McAwful, Jesse Jackson, and Phil Burton have yet to offer a convincing theory to answer this question.

[DoctorZIn]

This post has been added to the… California In Transition- Must read Threads!

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[Tall_Texan]

Agreed. Thank you.

[Bullish]

As usual, the very last people to get it will be the far left democrats. The common folks understand far more than they're given credit for.

Clintons democrats are consumed and driven by sheer hatred and rage towards W, and Republicans in general. All they have in their toolbox is lies and slander against a good man, that doesn't play well at all to average Americans.

Since the far leftist dems running for pres are all operating on blame Bush first, they don't stand a chance. They will lose and lose big. People aren't as stupid as they think.

[Snake65]

Well said. You've got my vote for response of the day.

[Tamzee]

A great read, thank you!

[CyberAnt]

How did you know what I was thinking.

[CyberAnt]

"the consensus that seems to have emerged in the aftermath is that impeachment followed by acquittal is really what Clinton deserved"

I don't agree with the author's one statement.

Rush revealed that during impeachment, the liberals were screaming that 70% of the "American People" did not want Clinton removed from office.

However, what the liberals neglected to reveal (and the author neglected to find out) was that just ONE YEAR LATER, that same 70% of the "American People" felt Clinton SHOULD HAVE BEEN REMOVED FROM OFFICE.

And .. when Clinton left office, his personal approval number was 25%. I believe President's Bush's personal approval number is still in the 70's (which, by the way, the media never reveals).

If the democrats continue to follow the Clintons, they will end up going off the cliff. Even those democrats who see the truth will be powerless to stop it. The Clinton's hatred of Bush will end up destroying them .. and the CA recall is just a sample. Their over-the-top "exposure" of supposed character flaws will appear to be just that .. over-the-top.

If this HATE-Bush keeps up .. I predict a replay of the CA recall will happen in 2004.

[jammer]

GSG, which do you doubt? My statement that the situation is unique or the author's statement that it is a prelude to the general election? I think you meant the author's, but wasn't quite sure.

[jammer]

Or if you mean the Dem's spin, which I guess you did, I'll wager you do more than doubt it: I'll wager you think, as I do, that they scraped that off the barnyard.

[TheAngryClam]

The same way that Republicans become governor of even more Democratic states like Massachusetts, Hawaii, and the like- by running as a Democrat with an "R" after the name.