"We could end up with Mickey Mouse as governor," says Bruce Cain
We already have Howdy Doody, so maybe it'd be an improvement.
Posted on 06/22/2003 12:14:51 PM PDT by Pokey78
A heavyset woman in shorts and tank top jerks her SUV into a parking space and heads for a table in front of a suburban Los Angeles Home Depot store with such intensity you can almost feel her footsteps. Like a suburban cyborg, she fixes her gaze on a man with a clipboard and doesn't let up until she's in his face. "When they first started coming at me . . . with that possessed look, I was a little concerned," says Johnnie Morgan, a paid signature collector. "But I know they mean it for him, not me."
"Him" is Gray Davis, the embattled Democratic governor of California. And what they "mean" is to add their names to the list of residents hoping to kick him out of office, just seven months into his second term. This week, the signatures needed to force a special election to recall Davis could hit a critical mass, turning what was once a routine irritant--every California governor for 30 years has been threatened with recall--into a political drama rivaling any new reality TV froth from Hollywood. The governor's office would be up for grabs and could end up occupied by Republican muscleman Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is expected to join the race once Terminator 3 is safely into theaters. The state has become a national basket case, with a $38.2 billion budget deficit and a legislature that can't agree on anything. Wall Street is threatening to reduce California's bond rating to junk status. Businesses are bailing. And Davis, who is holding the bag for the state's earlier electricity crisis and ensuing financial mess, is singularly consumed with keeping his job. "What we have already is a totally dysfunctional government," says Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a senior scholar at the University of Southern California's School of Policy, Planning, and Development. "But what we could have is a total destabilization of government."
"Could" being the operative word. And while a recall vote looks inevitable, an actual recall is not at all certain. To force a special election in the fall, the anti-Davis forces must produce 897,158 certified signatures, or 12 percent of the vote count in the last election, by early September. Since, inevitably, some signatures aren't certified and the process takes awhile, that means recall backers will need to collect upward of 1 million signatures by mid-July. "We're tiptoeing toward 900,000 right now," says Rep. Darrell Issa, the car-alarm salesman turned Republican California congressman who has bankrolled the recall effort and hopes to install himself in the governor's mansion. That could happen because the recall is a two-step ballot, allowing those who vote to oust Davis in part one to then cast their vote for the next governor in part two.
Republicans are shooting for a fall election because they don't expect voters to turn out in big numbers to support Davis, whose approval ratings are a Nixonian 21 percent. A poll released in mid-June by the Public Policy Institute of California found that 51 percent of likely voters would vote to remove Davis. Democrats may try to contest signatures in hopes of delaying the vote until the California presidential primary in March. That would mean a heftier Democratic turnout, since the Democratic presidential field is crowded; many Republicans would stay home, since George W. Bush is running unopposed.
Democrats are also closing ranks, because they don't want another Democratic choice on the recall ballot that could give voters more reason to dump Davis; several potential challengers, including Attorney General Bill Lockyer and Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, said last week that they would not add their names to the candidate list.
Who's in? Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein hasn't ruled out running, but it's not clear who else might be on the ballot, which could be huge, since it takes very little to qualify--$3,500 or 10,000 signatures. "We could end up with Mickey Mouse as governor," says Bruce Cain, director of the Institute of Governmental Studies at the University of California -Berkeley. Cain believes the recall is a "potential . . . disaster" for Republicans, and some White House political advisers are unsettled. They had expected to have Davis to kick around through the 2004 election and reasoned that an unpopular governor in Sacramento would enhance Bush's chances for carrying the state, while improving the Republicans' ability to unseat Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer. Worse, the recall could simply bomb, further embarrassing California's beleaguered Republican Party, which was swept from every state office in the last election. And all for the chance to fish a floundering state out of the tank--an excruciating task if the current gridlock in Sacramento is any guidepost. The fiscal year begins this week, but a budget agreement is nowhere in sight. Democrats want to combine spending cuts with higher vehicle license fees, a $10 billion loan, and a half-cent sales tax increase; Republicans are dead set against higher fees or tax hikes. Last week, Moody's Investors Service, reflecting growing uneasiness on Wall Street, downgraded California's outlook from stable to negative, which will make it even harder for the state to borrow money to stay afloat.
Pick me.A That won't stop the reformers, most notably Schwarzenegger, who may be the Republicans' best hope, and Issa, who may be Davis's best hope. Davis may have found the perfect demon in Issa, whom he can portray as antiabortion, anti-immigration, and a fringe right-wing opportunist on a power grab. Schwarzenegger is another story. Fresh from his victory last year with Proposition 49, which mandates after-school programs, the actor has both political savvy and off-the-charts name recognition, which would help in a short election season. And he's got the right profile. "Schwarzenegger has the mythology that fits with the times," says Cain. However, he is also politically untested, and there's no telling how he will hold up once the Davis team goes into search-and-destroy mode. Schwarzenegger has been publicly accused of being a womanizer, and his handlers are still waiting to see how his "manliness," as one consultant put it, may sit with voters. Those close to Schwarzenegger say they believe he has not yet had "the talk," as it is known in politics, where all the dirty laundry and so-called opposition research is laid on the table. But many believe that if Schwarzenegger's sins are merely Clintonesque, and that if his wife, Maria Shriver, the media celebrity and Kennedy clan member, has given her support (albeit reluctantly) to the candidacy, that voters will go along.
As those who were waiting in line to sign the recall petition at Morgan's table last week made abundantly clear. "We don't care who it is," as one signer put it. "As long as it isn't Davis."
"We could end up with Mickey Mouse as governor," says Bruce Cain
We already have Howdy Doody, so maybe it'd be an improvement.
I have a feeling that the recall will not help this quest.
...And you might get Al Gore. Whata baaargin!
I think that's right. Problem now is the stone is resting on top of him.
Even in the event Al is insane enough to run, and the unlikely event he wins, so what? Are we going to be any worse off trading one liberal for another? I'd rather take the shot than just sit here watching the state go down the tubes, and bitching about Davis for the next four years.
Has there ever been a California governor who hasn't had this said about him?
I don't understand the hand-wringing tone of this article. The government of California could be "destabilized" by kicking out Gray Davis? That reminds me of the hanky-wetting over the idea that removing Saddam Hussein would "destabilize" the Middle East. California and the Middle East are hardly examples of a stability worth maintaining. They even fret that Mickey Mouse could become governor, but I notice they fail to mention how this could possibly make things worse.
We'll never know. You have to be a natural born citizen to be President.
She's definitely carrying the water for Davis in portraying Issa as an extremist. My bigger problem with Issa is that he is pro-Palestinian (see Debbie Schlussel's column on the topic at politicalusa.com). Not that it's directly relevant to a governorship, but how can a "conservative" defensibly be pro-Plaestinian?
Arnold is a less-than-perfect selection from a conservative point of view, but still the best one we have.
I also wish Karl Rove and the Bushies who would like to see Davis twist in the wind for three more years would get a grip. If someone doesn't get in and at least stop the bleeding in CA (15% or so of the whole economy), the national economy may not recover, giving Hillary the opening she needs.
calgov2002:
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...is a leftist RINO that every 'Rat creams their panties in anticipation of getting for Governor so he can enact their extremist agenda.
"Ahhnold!"
...is a sexual predator who married into the right family who appreciates and worships just that... the Kennedys.
Ahhnold ! The non-Republican, that's who.
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