Yes? He went to a dinner party, which supposedly had covid controls like seating more than six feet apart.
It turned out not to be, and yes, that was a error in judgment, but so?
As a Californian, I am not in favor of the direct voter participation model for initiatives and recalls. If we are to have a recall process, there should be some higher bars to clear (IDK:more signatures needed? some nominal constitutional violations? a review panel?) so that it doesn’t always seem like it’s just politics and opposing-party opportunism.
I don’t love the guy (he always seemed to me to be the central casting version of mom’s new slimy boyfriend) but he is actually fairly competent and his heart is in the right place.
I’m considering voting to recall him if his campaign PAC continues to ignore my “unsubscribe” requests. It’s been two days since they hit me up — maybe the fifth time’s the charm!
(Not really going to vote for recall, but I have to say bad campaign email discipline is very off-putting, and I already find the dude sleazy on a personal level, so I am just waiting for some less-destructive way to put a finger in his eye, someday.)
Really? Unwanted emails get you hot and bothered? In 2021?
DM me your address, I’ll sign you up for some.
Seriously, political fundraisers should honor repeated requests to unsubscribe — perhaps you missed that bit before you implied I’m a hysteric.
Californian here.
I’ve lost a lot of respect over that French dinner with lobbyists and its clear that that Newsom is guilty of hypocrisy. If the game were ‘let’s pick six people and best one gets to be governor’, I’d probably find one of the six better than Newsom.
The problem is that Trumpists are no improvement over essentially bog-standard hypocrisy. I could probably be persuaded to replace Newsom with another democrat, but the GOP out here is as deranged as elsewhere, even if its somewhat smaller. I remember voting for the Govinator, and how he failed to make good on economic improvements that he promised. He’s a cup of cold water compared to what’s running around today.
So, cautiously pro-Newsom for now.
…At this time of year? At this time of day? In this part of the country? Localized entirely within your kitchen?
I don’t know much about Newsom, but I personally wouldn’t vote to recall a competent, well-intentioned politician just for being arrogant and sleazy.
But hey, it’s Californians’ call.
Californian here. Best I can tell is that the recall is about his nerve about hurting businesses so that Californians don’t die. And our deaths per 10K numbers are still pretty good.
I figure that by the time the election happens most everything will be opened again and people won’t get what the problem is. Except Trumpists, of course.
And that’s basically what it comes down to. Newsom has some charisma, but he kinda comes off like Mayor Carcetti in The Wire - well-meaning AND ambitious, highly competent AND morally questionable. It’s interesting to me that he has rung up no ringing endorsements in this (admittedly short) thread, despite being ostensibly on the same political spectrum as most of the SDMB.
I’ll give him his due and disagree with Blue_Max above just a little. I think Newsom is a better choice than any 1 out of 6 Californians. He deserves some credit for all the good he has done and he has a pretty good balance sheet in his favor. When he began marrying same sex couples in SF I was cynical and thought it was a publicity stunt (Newsom was not beloved by progressive establishment in SF - like Harris, Feinstein and most every other non-locally successful SF politico he came from the “moderate” faction). I was worried about the backlash.
But Newsom was proven completely right and it is quite possible that more than any other single person he is responsible for the establishment of same-sex marriage in this country by providing that spark. Universal health care, crime reform including anti-capital punishment, cannabis reform - he’s frankly been on the side of angels most his career. Indeed I’d argue more consistently so than his buddy Kamala Harris. And whatever missteps he may have made in the pandemic, I think the hypocrisy of one of his actions aside, they were inevitable in this fast-changing environment. And I can’t fault his work ethic, he was holding substantive news conferences every day. And he has been practical - during the wildfire seasons he has repeatedly swallowed his pride and played the game to get disaster aid from Trump.
It hurts me a bit to say this, because as I said I think he’s a bit of a dirtbag in his personal mores - but he’d probably make a pretty solid president.
I’m not in favor of recalls generally. But if you do have one it better be for a ‘high crimes and misdemeanors’ level of malfeasance, like robbing the state retirement fund to build a $60 million mansion. Wasting the state’s money on a recall because you disagree with a guy’s politics, think he’s arrogant and dislike his (mostly science-driven) response to an unprecedented emergency? Screw that noise.
Hey, “competent, arrogant, and sleazy” got Cuomo elected three times. Not sure he’s ever been well-intentioned.
I guess that’s an interesting question. If it was possible to recall a governor in New York, would we be seeing an attempt based on the last two months of news? I’d say that the nursing home stuff alone is worse than Newsom’s record on the pandemic. Say that Newsom had that and Cuomo had whatever Newsom’s had. Would that put Newsom in actual danger in California?
He ate dinner in the LAUNDRY ROOM, and that’s supposed to be a token of arrogance? If a hobo comes to my door wanting a meal, I let him sit at the kitchen table.
Even if recalls are a reasonable thing to have (I tend to think they aren’t), the California system in particular is pretty ridiculous, and some group should try challenging it in federal court as a violation of one person-one vote.
The way it works is that if the incumbent gets under 50% of the vote, they’re disqualified, period, even if the top replacement candidate gets many fewer votes. There are no runoffs or instant-runoffs or anything to resolve this. There are also no primaries (AFAIK) to whittle down the potential replacements, it’s just a total free for all. If the recall question gets 50.001% in favor of recall and 49.999% against recall, and the top replacement candidate has 30%, the 49.999% incumbent is thrown out of office in favor of the 30% candidate. (Worse, some of that 30% may be people who voted against recall, in which case it’s really even lower than 30%. Imagine instant runoff voting but where they cut the winner of the first count and then redistribute votes down to prop up someone who’s more like a 3rd or 4th place finisher.)
Compare this to Wisconsin, where it’s basically just an early general election: All of the candidates and votes in a recall election are on an equal footing, and a challenger has to get more votes, period. Whatever you think of first past the post, it’s sure better than second past the post.
Well stated. This system gives the nutters hope they can take a short-cut to the Governor’s office.
We have a real election next year where Newsom is supposed to be challenged the normal way. If (the big IF) he is thrown out of office this year with the recall, and replaced by a nutter, does that person simply complete Newsom’s term, and have to run again in the normal election in 2022? Or are they elected in this recall election for a 4-year term?
He or she would just serve the balance of Newsom’s term, I believe.
The problem is the petition system. With enough money I could get a proposition on the ballot mandating the demolition of the Golden Gate Bridge. Just place a paid signature collector outside of every grocery store asking shoppers to express their support for removing navigational hazards from San Francisco Bay.
Not to mention its dangerous proximity to an enormous quantity of dihydrogen oxide, a known respiratory risk to humans!
Back in the '80s, there was a proposal to undam the Hetch Hetchy and restore the area to it’s natural state, that was put forward as an environmental measure.
The Hetch Hetchy reservoir is the primary source of fresh water for San Francisco. The “environmental” proposal came from the Reagan administration.
The math there isn’t too hard.
For fuck’s sake, it looks like Tom Steyer wants to get involved. Steyer polls the Newsom recall — offering himself as an alternative - POLITICO
Can’t this useless egomaniac just go away??
Yeah, many of the ideas of the Progressive Party at the beginning of the 20th Century like initiative, referendum, and recall, were good ideas in theory, but not so good in practice and need tweaking if not outright elimination.