CA recall election

I agree Newsom may not be the most popular Democrat in the State but as Governor I can’t really complain about what he has done for the state as Governor.

And IMO Waldman has made a good point.

From Paul Waldman in the Washington Post….

“Opinion: The California recall shows how democracy can spin out of control”

Opinion by Paul Waldman
Columnist
Today at 3:30 p.m. EDT


The recall election of Gov. Gavin Newsom has begun, and while we ordinarily think of governors being recalled only if they engaged in scandalous behavior or epic mismanagement, that’s not at issue in California. That makes this a good case study in how democracy can get out of control.

While involving the people in decision-making is generally a good thing, if we aren’t careful, the procedures we set up to do so can be hijacked by a determined minority who could never get the public to agree with them otherwise. Which might have a particular resonance these days.

The California recall shows how it can happen. Once opponents of the governor gather signatures equal to 12 percent of the votes cast in the last election, the recall gets on the ballot. Then voters are presented with two questions: First you vote yes or no on whether the governor should be recalled, then you vote for the person you would like to replace him if “yes” gets more than 50 percent.

The problem is that a “no” on the first question might represent outrage, or it might just mean “I’m feeling kind of ‘meh’ on him,” which happens to be how a lot of people feel about Newsom.

Here’s where the trouble starts: There are 46 names on the ballot this year, which in theory means that someone could get just 3 percent of the vote and wind up as governor.

That’s unlikely, even if it’s mathematically possible. But what’s much more possible is that the lead vote-getter could wind up with some very small number — 10 or 15 or 20 percent — and win.

Newsom’s popularity has jumped around (especially with the ups and downs in the pandemic), but it has usually been in the 40s or 50s, which is pretty standard for any politician these days. According to polling collected by FiveThirtyEight, only slightly more Californians now favor keeping Newsom than favor discarding him.

Despite the momentary fascination with Caitlyn Jenner’s candidacy (and its deep concern for the sentiments of private plane owners), the leading replacement candidate now is conservative radio host Larry Elder. His views on issues — among other things, he thinks climate change is a hoax and would like to eliminate the minimum wage and Roe v. Wade — could hardly be more out of step with the state he seeks to govern.

Yet there’s a real chance that Elder could become governor, not because he convinces a majority of Californians that he’s the best choice but through a combination of generalized dissatisfaction with Newsom and the fact that Elder’s lib-owning bona fides from decades on the right-wing airwaves are impeccable. That means he can appeal to a relatively small group of conservative voters who will choose him over his unknown rivals. (Kevin Faulconer, the former mayor of San Diego and one of the only actual politicians running, is Elder’s main competition.)

In a state Joe Biden won by 29 points where the GOP is a desiccated husk of its former self, the best chance Newsom has is to persuade everyone not to think about him so much as they think about party. More specifically, he wants them to think about the Republican Party, and vote against it by choosing no on the recall.

That’s the main focus of the messaging for Newsom from the likes of Biden and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who says that “Trump Republicans” are “coming to grab power in California.”

Which is actually the most rational way for a Democrat to think about the recall.
There are good reasons Newsom is not that popular, including his failure to deal with the high cost of housing in California and the attendant homelessness problem, and the fact that the state’s response to the pandemic has been spotty. Newsom has been around state politics for a quarter-century, and nobody ever liked him all that much, even when they thought he was doing a reasonably good job. Even when he takes popular positions or seems to be managing things well, Californians I know regard him as little more than overweening ambition in vaguely human form.

But that doesn’t mean that if you’re a Democrat, the idea of a Republican becoming governor wouldn’t be the worst possible outcome for you. The trouble is that many voters who aren’t attuned to the multistage nuance of the recall process might not quite grasp that. It isn’t hard to imagine that with the delta variant and other problems persisting, a good number of voters could vote yes on the recall just to “send a message” of displeasure.

And then California could have one of the most conservative governors in America. “How did this happen?” people would ask. The answer is that a procedure meant to give the public a voice is far too vulnerable to being taken over by a small minority that can seize power if its timing is right. And that doesn’t sound very democratic.”

I know you like to believe money is the root of all evil.  But it isn’t.

From CA Secretary of State…

“How many signatures are required for a gubernatorial recall?”

“To qualify a recall of the Governor for the ballot, proponents need a minimum of 1,495,709 valid petition signatures. This is equal to 12 percent of the votes cast for the office of Governor in 2018, which is the last time the office was on the ballot. Signatures from at least 5 counties must each equal 1 percent of the total number of votes cast in the last election for Governor in the county. (Cal. Const., art. II, § 14(b)) The total number of votes cast for Governor in the 2018 election was 12,464,235.”

The petition got a little over 1.7M verified signatures.  That means 1.7M CA voters made the decision to sign the petition to recall Newsom.  As far as anyone knows no one paid these folks to sign the petition, these individuals made the decision to sign because they had an ax to grind with Newsom.

I read that some rich guy in So CA did donated to the cause to give it legs but he didn’t start it. Some retired sheriff’s deputy in the northern part of the state got his nose all pushed out of joint by something Newsom did and he was the one who started it.

But at the end of the day it was 1.7M voters who made the decision to sign that petition.  And they are solely responsible for this mess.  

The reality is there is no such thing as the perfect politician that everyone will agree with everything the politician will do when they take office.  So one has to be pragmatic when look at our elected officials.  If he or she isn’t a crook and they just irritate you by not doing what you think they should, then you simply vote him out of office.  Newsom is up for election next year.

This recall was done by individuals who made the decision to sign the petition and not by big money.  Last time I checked $100 bills can’t physically sign a petition.  

Some of the reasons why folks signed the petition…

ABC Channel 7 News….link

“California Gov. Newsom recall effort: Who is behind it, who signed it and why “

From the article…

At first, Newsom brushed off the effort, but once it became clear it would pass, Newsom and the Democratic establishment honed in on their messaging and began calling the recall a power grab by the extreme right wing.

To explore deeper that question of just who is behind the recall and why, ABC7 News Originals went inside the recall organizers' Northern California headquarters in the final weeks leading up to the signature deadline.
Recent Stories from ABC 7 News

Inside the Roseville office, we met Orrin Heatlie, the former Yolo County Sheriff's sergeant who founded the "Recall Gavin 2020" petition, along with a group of volunteers who passionately explained their reasoning for signing it. For many, it began long before the start of the pandemic -- back to Newsom's very first year in office in 2019.

Reason…

One of the first things that he did was to suspend the death penalty indefinitely," Heatlie explained of Newsom's decision to put a statewide moratorium on the death penalty. "He did that unilaterally over the will of the people."

A volunteer named Edit, who was in the mailroom helping organize signatures, opened up a signed petition with a similar note scribbled on it. "'When Newsom took the death penalty off the table, he broke the law,'" the note read. "'Certainly no one person has any right to overturn the established will of the people.'"

"I mean, we get notes like that. This is a real thing. This is the people doing this," chimed in another volunteer, Andrea Hedstrom.

Hedstrom was an anomaly among the group. She was the only registered Democrat in the room and the only one who didn't vote for President Trump in the 2020 election.

Perhaps, most surprisingly, her young son is named Gavin after Gavin Newsom, a decision she and her husband made when they moved to California 10 years ago.

"I felt like California was kind of the land of opportunity and equality and inclusion and everybody's cared for," Hedstrom explained. "And we landed in the Bay Area in Marin County, just a few miles from where, you know, Newsom was living and I had followed his politics."

Since then, Hedstrom's family moved to Sonoma County, where they found more affordable housing. In 2017, after being displaced by the Tubbs Fire, they moved to the suburbs of Sacramento, where they live now.

Reason…

I'm still a Democrat in my heart, in a lot of ways, because I think that it is the party of compassion and inclusion, but this is not compassionate," she said, "To kill businesses, to drive people out of state, to keep children out of school."

Reason…

Another volunteer told us she was also supporting the recall because of the toll school closures have had on her kids. "It's really difficult for these kids, and it's difficult as a parent to see what they're going through," she said.

Reason..

And another volunteer, an immigrant from Hungary, said she was driven to support the recall over fears of censorship. "I know what happened to people who spoke up against the narrative and communism," she explained.

Reason…

But at some points things did veer off into conspiracies. One volunteer brought up a false conspiracy theory about the Dominion voting software and suggested election fraud may have helped Newsom win. "How'd Gavin get into office?" he questioned.

Reason…

Another volunteer questioned why our team was wearing masks. "You're standing there talking to me with a mask on and there's debate over the science," she told us.

We also overheard Heatlie on the phone with a recall supporter who remarked that the pandemic wasn't real. When we asked Heatlie if he felt like he should correct her, he said it wasn't his place.

"I feel like everybody's entitled to their personal opinion and it's not my job to educate people on the pandemic," he said.

Heatlie, however, did say he "absolutely" believes in the pandemic and that he has family who had been hospitalized from it.

Still, these are the kinds of comments looming over the recall effort as Democrats ramp up their strategy against it.

Heatlie himself has been the target for his own controversial comments. According to the Washington Post, Heatlie wrote in a Facebook post, "Microchip illegal aliens. It works! Just ask animal control." The post has since been taken down and Orrin later said it was hyperbole.

"There are people in Switzerland that are attending chipping parties, OK, it's a way of means of tracking people and things like that," Heatlie explained further in an interview with ABC10 in Sacramento. "I just want to put it on the record that I am adamantly opposed to government intrusion in people's lives where forced microchipping, forced vaccines or forced tattooing."

But Newsom and his team have consistently pointed to this post to bolster their argument. "This is, and forgive me, a Republican-backed recall where the principal proponent of the recall effort wants to microchip immigrants," Newsom recently told reporters.

Political analysts say it's not so cut and dry.”

Who is behind it? Are there conspiracy theorists? No maskers? Qanon people? People that don't believe in climate change? All of that? Yes. Absolutely," ABC7 News Insider Phil Matier explained. "But that's not the million plus that signed the petition."

"I think there's some overlap among people behind the recall and Qanon," former Gov. Gray Davis press secretary Steve Maviglio added, "But I think there's some overlap between people signing the recall and people who eat breakfast."

"I know a lot of people, even Democrats, that are very frustrated with the governor right now. I don't know if they're ready to recall, but they want to send a message," he added.

Although people from all sides of the political spectrum may have signed the petition, there is still a stark divide down party lines. A poll from the Public Policy Institute of California found 79% of Republicans would vote for the recall. But among Democrats, 79% would vote against it. This, in a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans two to one.  Me:  This article was written in June when the belief was Newsom would for sure keep his job.

"I think he's under-stepped his power," former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown said in support of Newsom. "There's so many things that his executive power should have given him the courage, or whatever, to do what he needed to do."

Former Governor Gray Davis, who was recalled and removed from office in 2003, said Newsom has nothing to worry about.

"I don't mean to be mean to people, but this is a vanity project because there's no way they're going to win," Davis said. "The Republicans have 26% of the votes. Come on. If you get every single vote, you're still way behind."

Timing is also believed to be on Newsom's side. By the time voting happens, many people may forget the frustrations they had during the pandemic.

Heatlie is keenly aware this could happen.

"Unfortunately, the electorate has a short term memory, and you know, he may stand a chance of gaining some ground back and boosting his popularity," Heatlie acknowledged.

Heatlie said if the recall does not pass, and Newsom remains in office, he'll still feel like he had some success.

"I'll feel as if we've done everything that we could do to give an opportunity to this state to take corrective action," he said.

But would he launch another recall?

"No," he quipped. "This is it."


That was the belief in June.  Now in August it appears Democratic voter apathy has set in.  It doesn’t matter if the Democrats outnumber the Republicans 2 to 1 if they don’t show up and vote.

This is all on the voters and big money has nothing to do with it.

What a dumb ass response. In his mind that stuff like this shouldn’t be allowed to come about someone who is running for public office?