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Posted on 08/28/2003 6:11:58 AM PDT by Dog Gone
I was all prepared to just sit back and enjoy the California recall. I didn't much care for the whole business. I didn't like the notion of a do-over election; I thought Californians should have to live with their choice of the shameless Gray Davis for the next four years. Nor did I have a favorite among his likely replacements.
I was totally uninvested. I could just take in the wild fun of the whole thing. For a Penn State alum, it was akin to watching Oregon and Oregon State in the Civil War -- a kick to watch without regard to the result.
Then Davis and his defenders opened their mouths. The more they jabbered, the more I rooted for Davis' recall and, to a lesser extent, Arnold Schwarzenegger's election. It's like capital punishment. Just when I'm ready to reject the death penalty as part of "the culture of death," death-penalty foes make their bogus claims. They're so offensive I hunker back down in the death-penalty camp.
First it was the elite media's bid to undercut the recall by calling it -- what was the sniffy term our herd of independent thinkers came up with? -- a "circus." Then our smart set declared that an action hero, a movie star, a "bodybuilder" just wasn't up to governing California. This is a job for someone with long public-policy experience, someone seasoned in statecraft and budgeting, someone who's been in government for decades.
Yes, a grizzled Sacramento veteran like Davis. The former chief of staff and lieutenant governor has worked out well? That must be why more half of all California and 40 percent of Democrats want him out. Experience is the issue -- their bitter experience with Davis.
Maybe California would like to take a chance on some fresh leadership, an actor even. They did before with Ronald Reagan and seemed to like the result. Of course, our media elites haven't reconciled themselves to Reagan's public-policy career.
Even so, I was ready to ignore all this. Then Davis dragged me into the fray. Last week, he told a crowd that his recall was a "right-wing power grab."
Apparently I hadn't checked my vast right-wing-conspiracy marching orders.
"This recall is bigger than California. What's happening here is part of an ongoing national effort by Republicans to steal elections they cannot win," Davis argued. "It started with the impeachment of President Clinton when the Republicans could not beat him in 1996. It continued in Florida, where they stopped the vote count, depriving thousands of Americans of the right to vote. This year, they're trying to steal additional congressional seats in Colorado and Texas, overturning legal redistricting plans. Here in California, the Republicans lost the governor's race last November. Now they're trying to use this recall to seize control of California . . . "
For starters, I thought Clinton's impeachment was about a president receiving oral sex from an intern in the White House and lying about it under oath. Who knew Republicans planted a thonged Monica Lewinsky in the Oval Office and manipulated the prez into compromising positions, legal and otherwise. And wouldn't Vice President Al Gore -- a Democrat, not a Republican -- have taken over if the Senate had convicted Clinton?
Of course, Gore's not president today. That's because the U.S. Supreme Court, not Florida's, settled the Florida recount issue. Although most independent post-election surveys concluded Bush would have won any reasonable statewide recount, Gore might have won if the Senate had convicted Clinton and Gore had run as an incumbent, or Senate Democrats hadn't wrapped their loving arms around Clinton.
Space doesn't permit a look at Davis' state reapportionment spiel. But his "right-wing power grab" musings on California make plain that he doesn't understand his own state's politics, much less another state's. After all, who will take over if voters give Davis the heave-ho? Schwarzenegger is a Republican and he might prove a fine governor. Still, the pro-choice, pro-gay-rights, pro-gun-control candidate is no right-wing hero. And the other possible replacement in this "right-wing power grab"? California Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante.
True, he's a Democrat, but apparently that just shows how devious and all-powerful the right-wing really is.
It's bigger than California, you understand.
Ahhhh, so true.
Yes it is larger than CA. So large, in fact, that a group of Nevadans is going to try to recall their Republican governor, Kenny Guinn, for his tax-and-spend policies.
The pathogen was introduced via smallpox vaccines. Killer Bees were the result of a failed experiment to disseminate it via bees.
Without the recall, Davis couldn't be re-elected again because of term limits.
If he is successfully recalled this October after serving fewer than 5 years, I don't know if he could run again (theoretically, of course, since his political career is toast). If a president resigned only a year into his second term, he could run again without violating the 22nd Amendment.
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