I did exactly this, and I for one welcome our new pink & blond overlord.
Her billboard decrees will put shameless Trump’s tweets to shame.
I sent in my ballot today, because I’m leaving on vacation tomorrow and won’t be back until it’s over. I’d hoped to find someone I could stand to vote for in case Newsom is recalled, but they all seemed like idiots to me. I left #2 blank.
I wouldn’t rest easy based on that. I live in Ted Lieu’s district, we’re purple leaning blue. Last night on my after-dinner walk I saw 4 Elder lawn signs along with 6 generic “Yes” on recall signs. Only one “no” on the recall sign.Face it, Newsom gives off a sleazy politician vibe, so any enthusiasm is more “Fuck those assholes in the GOP” than “Yeah, you go Gavin”.
That said, I’ve already voted, and I’ve pestered my son and normally-apathetic-about-voting-except-once-every-fourth-November wife about voting. “It’ll take you 2 minutes to fill in the ballot, and if you sign here on the the outer envelope I can drop it in the box for you!”
Check the “Elder” signs. At least three I’ve seen today, including one 4 doors down from me want you to vote Elder For Governer. (Yes, they are professional signs, done by a shop.)
Oh, I’m certainly not. The same article I saw mentioning that breakdown noted that A.) only about 20% of the electorate had voted at that point (confession: I haven’t yet - tomorrow, perhaps) and B.) Latino and youth voters are lagging as usual. Like I said still a long ways to go.
If the super-enthused pro-Newsom voters have mostly shot their wad and the anti-Newsom vote comes in solidly and steadily (with a big jump on the 14th, the “official” voting day), we could easily see Elder get it. I don’t fancy Elder’s chance to hold that seat next year in the general election, but he could certainly bollix things up a bit in the short run even assuming Feinstein sails through healthy as a clam. Though short of Feinstein or some other major pol dying, there is probably only so much he could do given the overwhelming Dem dominance of the legislature.
It truly is a messed up system they have. First, especially this late in the term, if the Governor is recalled, the Lt. Governor should get the job. Maybe if earlier in the term the Lt. Gov should take the job until a second election can be held. But the question of “Should the Governor be recalled and if so who should replace him?” is not something that that should be. These should be separate questions and having them done at the same time means that they are not, even if asked as such.
Does the Legislature have enough Dems to impeach and remove Elder? Maybe they could kick him out if he does so much as leaving the toilet seat cover up.
Yes.
But no cause unless he commits misconduct, however defined. And personally I would be just as pissed as I am at this reelection if they impeached even a nutter like Elder without “cause.” What good for the goose is NOT necessarily good for the gander. If you’re going to try and be more moral, you kinda have to act like you’re more moral.
One concerning thing I saw somewhere was that the mail-in voting is skewing early polling results somewhat. Since the Democrats have long been OK with vote-by-mail, the early voting for the recall has been heavily Democratic, while the Republican voters, who have been made wary, if not suspicious, of mail-in ballots (by their Orange overlord), are waiting for election day to cast their “Yes” votes in-person. I am not sure how accurate that assessment is, but it did get me thinking.
Another thing that may be motivating Democrats is that Texas abortion law - the timing of that could be favorable for Newsom.
IMO there will be far fewer in-person votes in this election, from both parties, then usual, for two reasons:
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Every registered voter got a ballot in the mail. All anyone has to do is vote, sign, then drop in the mailbox or dropbox. You have to be a bit paranoid to go to the extra trouble of voting in person.
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Even if you wanted to, voting in person is harder this year than usual. The ballot doesn’t list a voting location, because in this election there aren’t voting precincts in the usual sense. You have to go online to the county website and look up its list of voting locations. Which there are far fewer than there used to be. Because they assume most people will vote by mail.
The voting locations are listed in a separate mailing. It shows the closest ones based on your mailing address. Of course, if you want to vote in person during your lunch hour at work, you still need to look it up online, unless you work close to your home.
Update on my neighborhood walk: 2 more Elder signs, and all of them are spelled correctly. One more “Recall Newsom” sign. No new anti-recall signs anywhere. I noticed I have not seen a single sign advocating any other candidate. Before Elder jumped in, I was seeing Faulconer ads on the local ABC station during Jeopardy. Elder seems to have sucked up all the oxygen in the room, similar to Arnold back in 2003.
I think Faulconer may have abandoned ship at this point, maybe thinking he has a better shot next year, and to keep his head down for now. I was seeing his ads a couple weeks ago as well, but no more.
Last year there were four polling locations where I could have voted in-person, all of them pretty close by, and I voted at a library at the end of the block where I live. Now that library only has a drop box, and while four locations are listed on the mailing, none of them are particularly close by and three of them won’t open for early voting until Saturday.
I remember the 2003 election also being held at an unusual location, so I guess this is par for the course. I prefer to vote in person but might just go ahead and use the drop box.
Larry Elder attacked by a woman wearing a gorilla mask.
A different perspective:
Tomorrow is election day, so be sure to get your ballot in. Latest Fivethirtyeight polling average is +16 against the recall, but don’t be complacent.
Some of the comments here got me thinking: is there a way to change the recall process legally such that if a Governor is recalled by popular vote, the Lieutenant Governor assumes the mantle? I think this would stop this endless recall nonsense, at least the partisan BS around it, and would focus on removing from office someone truly incompetent and dangerous.
By amendment to the state constitution, which can be done with the initiative process. That’s certainly a change I’d support.
In California, the Lt. Governor is elected separately from the Governor.
" California is one of eighteen states where the governor and lieutenant governor do not run as running mates on the same ticket: in California the governor and lieutenant governor are elected separately, although both are up for election in the same year every four years. As a result, California has frequently had a governor and a lieutenant governor of different parties."
Consequently, I could see a GOP strategy of focusing on the Lt. Gov race, winning that race, and then immediately moving into Recall efforts once the inevitable Democratic Governor is elected.