**
Yeah sure, why not? What was illegitimate about it? I think you need to define the term you are going for more specifically.
No. The fact is nobody can. There may be a different reason for every participant who participated in the recall.
I also don’t see why it has to necessarily between November and January that Davis did something. He could have done something earlier that came to haunt him, but really the only criteria needed is the desire by voters to recall him. Davis needn’t have done anything.
Mooo!
Since my answer doesn’t have anything to do with the economy, I guess I don’t have to answer these.
It is my pleasure to be the penetrating laser of enlightenment, leading you through the darness of ignorance to the sun source of truth that is myself.
The recall was legitimate because the laws of California allowed for it, and with, if I’m understanding it correctly, only 12% of the populace calling for recall and with no requirement of malfeasance on the officeholder’s part. (If I’m incorrect in this, I’m confident I’ll be corrected.) Is that a stupid-ass thing to allow? Yes. An elected official should be allowed to have his/her run to try to do the job he/she was elected to do, and then kicked out if the job’s undone, in the following election. Recalls IMO should only be available for reasons other than “we don’t like how he’s doing his job.” So do I think using a recall in this way is generally bogus? Yes. But it’s what your state has provided for.
It doesn’t.
I think the entire fiasco undermines the way elected offices are generally expected to work: You run for office, you’re elected, you have a term of years in which to do the best you can, you run for re-election based on your performance. And I think the Cali Republicans will have to be very careful in the coming years, as I’m certain the Dems will be only to happy to hoist them on their own petard, given the chance to do so. The Reps have shown that recall can be an effective political tool; they are fools if they think the Dems won’t try to use it as well.
You need to check your numbers w/ the offical CA Sec of State web site
No on recall: 3.56M
Arnold: 3.74M
Bustamante: 2.43M
McCLintock: 1.03M
The conventional wisdom is that the Governor is helpless before the almighty forces of the career politicians in Sacramento. And that the vast forest of initiative mandated controls on government ties Arnie’s hands. He will therefore fail, and the Republicans will take some of the damage Davis was getting.
And there’s a good chance that this is exactly what will happen, which is why the Republican establishment was pretty much against the recall.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. I would say it would be that way if almost anyone else was elected - Bustamente, McClintock, etc.
But that’s why the people of California elected Arnold, IMO. Because they see that he can bring something to the table the others can’t - massive popularity, charisma, personal fortune, and access to the media. He has a HUGE bully pulpit. The question is, will he use it?
Here’s what Arnold needs to do - He needs to go to Sacramento, and put all the cards on the table. He needs to say, "Here’s the deal, guys. This state is a mess, and you aren’t helping. Time to break the logjam of special interests. I’ll take the heat on this, and go to the people to tell them why we’re doing what we’re doing. I’ll stake my personal reputation on it. You can tell your constituents that the people of California have issued a mandate for change. Being an outsider, and not beholden to special interests, I’ll adjudicate this process and make sure that the pain is distributed on both sides of the aisle.
And, if you DON’T go along with me, I’ll take that to the people, too. I’ll name names. I’ll go into your district, and explain to the good people there that their desire for change is being thwarted by you. I’ll be on the Tonight show talking about it. I’ll be on CNN every night. I’ll force this to be a refendum on my popularity against yours. Wanna take that bet?"
This can be done. My own province, Alberta, bucked the same conventional wisdom. When Ralph Klein took power, he announced cuts in the very heart of government. Health care funding was cut. School funding was cut. Nothing was off the table. Government wages were frozen, and in many cases rolled back (my wife took a pretty hefty wage rollback).
The special interests HOWLED. There were marches in front of the legislature. The heat on the government was immense. But Klein stood his ground, took his case to the people, and got support from a big chunk of the population. Within a couple of years, our budget was balanced, and we started pumping out surpluses. He let a little trickle back into the government to undo some rollbacks, but applied the majority to the debt. Within four years, we CRUSHED our debt. Now our interest payments have gone from 21% of the budget to about 2%. All that extra money we didn’t spend on interest became available to the government. He used some to cut taxes, some to increase government a bit, and today, he’s very, very popular. Alberta has the healthiest economy in the country by a huge margin. And even many of the people who were dead-set against Klein’s reforms are today looking back and saying, “Well, he was right. It was painful, but we got through it and now we have one of the best economies in the world.”
Arnold is the only one who can make changes of that scope. Sure, the odds are against him. But no one else had a chance.
And I think Arnold’s going to do exactly what I said. He’s putting an army of people behind him, on both sides of the aisle. Did you see all the Shrivers and Kennedys standing behind him? They weren’t all there just to stand in yet another convention hall on yet another election night. He’s sending a message. He’s got a TON of heavyweights behind him. I think he plans to twist some arms, and I think he’s got a lot of people in his court.
As an aside, I wouldn’t be surprised to see his wife heavily involved in this. She can win over Democrats and moderates. And don’t be surprised to see the Kennedy and Shriver women getting involved as well. I wouldn’t be surprised if they see Maria as being a torch-bearer for the Kennedy/Shriver political dynasty.
For Arnold to pull this off, he has to be exactly what he claims to be - a fiscal conservative, but a social liberal. If he starts cowtowing to the Republican party on social issues, he’ll lose the support of moderates, the Democrats in Sacramento will smell blood, and he’s done. He has to build a truly widespread coalition. My sense of the electorate all through North America these days (other than the hardcore lefties and righties) is that the Democrats and independents are willing to take smaller government and lower taxes, and the Republicans are willing to move away from social conservatism. In other words, that middle ground of ‘independents’, who have always been strong on the military, fiscally conservative, and socially liberal, has reached a tipping point. It used to be about 20% of the electorate, with 40% aligning with parties on each side. I think it’s grown to be more like 40%, with 20% being ‘hardcore’ Republicans and Democrats. That puts the center in power - Arnold’s win may be the first event in a big sea change in politics.
Mr Sam Stone, I think your last paragraph is spot on. The only thing that makes me nervous is, as the middle/independants increase, the hardcore left and right get even more rabid and unpredictable.
Damn Sam, you da man.
I think you nailed this mother.
Good job.
Yes (though it’s mostly a regurge of Sully): the key factor that Arnold brings to the table is a fresher popular mandate. I don’t seriously think that Arnold has better or worse platform than Davis about what needs to be done with the state. I think he has, merely because of a) the quirk of how he rode into office on an admittedly pretty cravenly concocted public outcry (given that the original movement leaders were going against the recall by the end of it in sour grapes), and b) some nice new connections, he has more leverage.
Unfortunately, he also has some rather bad connections. It’s great and all that he’s going to take on the unions and the tribes, which are indeed bothersome interests. But it’s not so great that he’s in so deep with the very energy market milkers that, along with the fucked up legislature that botched deregulation, got the state into the energy crisis in the first place. It’s a bit like throwing Bonnie out of office and replacing her with Clyde.
But, I also concede that the gov’s office in Cali is not really so much a seat of power too much beyond being able to bully pulpit. The legislature is a real bother, and very powerful. What is IS a great place for is fundraising for the party in power, and that’s mainly why this is a great win for the Pubs insofar as trying to get leverage on that part of the country.
And still I don’t see an answer to my real question, I see alot of justifying: “Gee, the law allows for it”. I’m not questioning it’s LEGALITY. let’s say I’m questioning the ETHICS of it.
Was it ethical or even REASONABLE (not legal, not “allowed for” in the letter of the law) for Darrell Issa to start a recall drive the same month that Davis was inaugurated for a second term he’d been elected to mere weeks before? Was there a * legitimate reason? * Because the ONLY reason I can see for miles is that the republicans wanted a do-over and they saw their chance. In other words, slime, slime, slime.
Anyone?
Stoid:
The reason typically reported in the News was that Davis spoke about a budget surplus a few weeks before the election, then announced a $38B deficit a few weeks after the election. There was a tremendous sense of betrayal. Kind of like when Bush Sr asked folks to “Read my lips”.
Stoid: Do you realize that you are asking about the “ethics” of a particular political campaign? I’m afraid whatever ethics there once were associated with that process went the way of the Dodo bird many years ago. One might as well ask about the ethics of the Gray Davis (and Democracts) campaign to smear Riorden in the GOP primary so that Simon would be elected. No one forced the GOP to ditch Riorden, just as no one forced the electorate as a whole to ditch Davis. Blaming “dirty politics” is pointless. All politics is dirty, and Davis is well known as the king of dirt.
You seem to imply that this recall was some sort of anomaly. Every CA governor since the mid 60s had a recall campaign started against him. This is the only one that had enough traction to fly with the voters. Gray Davis blew it. Issa was the catylist, but Davis has no one but himself to blame.
"I think the entire fiasco undermines the way elected offices are generally expected to work: You run for office, you’re elected, you have a term of years in which to do the best you can, you run for re-election based on your performance. "
There are plenty of election systems in this world where you don’t get a “term of years.” Take, for example, our neighbors to the north. Recall in the US has some similarity to no confidence votes (or the “snap elections” called by the PM when he/she is popular) in parlimentary democracies.
And lets face it, the people of California had a chance to vote, they voted in droves, and threw the bum out.
Stoid, don’t you think that if the voters in California thought the recall was unjustified that they would have voted against it? Or are the voters to stupid to make their own decisions, and wise philosophers should make the decisions for them?
Do you believe in democracy or not?
“Was it ethical or even REASONABLE (not legal, not “allowed for” in the letter of the law) for Darrell Issa to start a recall drive the same month that Davis was inaugurated for a second term he’d been elected to mere weeks before?”
I believe that the recall petition drive was started by a man named Costa in Sacramento, not Issa. Issa just kicked some cash in.
And if you want to talk ethics, how about Davis’ “pay to play” fundraising philosophy? And how about the Oracle bribes?
Cite on the 38billion figure? I hear that thrown around a lot by Republicans, but there seems to be a lot of confusion, and getting the 38B figure seems to take some pretty specious accounting. 8B seems to be the current year deficit.
No doubt we’ll be hearing the 38B figure a lot for awhile, so that when it eventually magically transforms back into an 8B deficit, Arnold will be regarded as a great hero.
I think you are still dodging the central question.
We elected him in November.
The recall drive started in January.
Why? What happened between November and January that justified undoing an election that was barely certified? How was it NOT that the Republicans didn’t like the result so they exploited the law to get a second chance because they didn’t like losing in November? How was it not that?
Ethics IMO are morals for professions. So since the recall didn’t deal with any particular profession (except politics), I don’t see how it was unethical. Politicians tend to equate “ethical” with “legal” anyway. (And here I’m speaking about their professional morals; their personal morals may differ widely based on the individual.) IOW, to a politician, if it’s not illegal or dishonest, it’s probably okay. The recall wasn’t illegal or dishonest; therefore it was probably ethically okay. Reasonable? Sure. It was a procedure explicitly allowed under the law, and to the benefit of the party spearheading the recall.
Do I personally think it was the right thing to do? No. As I said, I think if a person is elected to office, that person ought to have his or her term to do the job, in the absence of malfeasance justifying removal from office. And I think it’s a weapon the Republicans may live to regret wielding, if it ends up being wielded against them.
So IMO it was a perfectly legal, probably ethical, eminently reasonable procedure that should never have been allowed in the first place. And if Californians have any sense – a proposal which, with all due respect, is up in the air at the moment – they’ll change the law so that this can’t happen again. JIMHO.
IMO that’s exactly what it was. But how are the Republicans wrong to do a thing that your laws specifically – if stupidly – allow them to do? I don’t think it should have been allowed, either, but the fact is that it was. The procedure is in place to remove a governor without allegations of malfeasance, or even misfeasance, and with only 12% of the vote needed to trigger a recall election,and at any time, even if he or she was just elected (or re-elected). That’s just stupid, IMO, but it’s not stupidity you can blame the Republicans for exclusively.
You want to argue that they were somehow required to give him what you consider a fair chance to do the job, but the fact is, they weren’t. And I really don’t think you can blame them for not refraining from doing something they had every legal right to do.
It’s a dumb-ass law, that’s all.
Hey, Stoid.
Join up now.
Hasn’t even taken over yet, and they’ve already got a Yahoo Group going to recall him. 
I don’t like Arnie’s accent.
I’m starting a petition drive for signatures on a recall election tomorrow.
It’s not very ethical, according to Stoid, but it will be legal. I just want to undo an election that is barely certified. I don’t like the result so I am exploiting the law to get a second chance because I didn’t like losing yesterday.
Who’s with me!
Sorry. I am a smidge bugged with some of the posters in this thread. I could start a recall petition for any reason I see fit. Frivolous reasons would be hard pressed to generate signatures. Signatures in this recall were fairly easy to come by. Californians were, apparently, dissatisfied with the status quo, even if it followed on the heels of a general election.
The reasons for the popularity of the recall petition don’t matter. Registered voters saw fit to sign them. We had an election yesterday. The majority of voters chose to recall Gray Davis from office. Pesky democracy, always putting power into the hands of the unwashed masses.
Personally, I think Davis inherited some serious problems from previous administrations. Tough titties. When you got to office we expected you to fix them all right away. We’ll give you six months or less…
I say that with tongue firmly in cheek, but it is somewhat the case in politics.