California Governor Recall
The polling is a bit erratic in support for Newsom. Some polls yesterday suggested his support is close to 60% while others have straddled the 50/50 threshold. However, this doesn't take into account voter turnout, and so far voter turnout among the younger, more reliable liberal age bracket has been only ~10% (however there is still 2 weeks left). The movement has gained enough traction that the mainstream media is talking about and analyzing the recall movement.
So, what are everyone's thoughts on this recall? Particularly interested to hear from those living in LA/SF.
Not a CA resident, but think about it this way. In my state, there are generally one or two ballot propositions. The problem: like 98% of those go through. The major challenge is getting it on the ballot. Once it's on the ballot, a lot of people are going to go "whatever" and just vote for it, even if they don't know a hill o' beans about it. Some of the dumbest stuff you could imagine.
Despite the fact that every California governor since the mid-20th-century has been embroiled in these kinds of recall talks, only one governor has actually faced a recall: Gray Davis. He got booted because of the energy crisis, economic struggles from the dot-com boom, and an increased car registration tax that was extremely unpopular. If you ever want to get a kick out of how evil people can get, read up about Enron's Project "Death Star," which was basically them manipulating the absolute crap out of California energy prices using their trading desk.
The fact that this is even on the ballot is horrible news for Gavin, and you can list plenty of reasons why people would boot him (wildfires, PG&E, French Laundry, homelessness crisis that gets touted by the media, etc.). Larry Elder isn't nearly as powerful as Ahnald and never will be. With that being said, I think ballot momentum is a powerful thing, and Gavin is in real danger here.
One last thing that I think bodes well for Gavin. Gray Davis won his 2nd term with 47.26% of 7.7MM votes. Ahnald won with 48.6% of 9.4MM votes, so Ahnald beat Gray Davis' original election in terms of vote share and voter turnout. Gray Davis had weak vote share on weak turnout. Through Ahnald's victory, he had more of a mandate than Gray Davis ever had. Gavin on the other hand won his 2018 election with a whopping 61.9% of the vote, so very powerful, at least in 2018. Voter turnout was better than either the 2002 or 2003 elections. Between that and the mail-in ballots that are being sent to CA voters, he stands a decent chance.
Lifetime CA resident, and supporter of the recall. I have witnessed the increase in homelessness and crime as a result of his policies in the past ~3 years. The other problem is, the man that is in the lead to replace him is just as crazy, but on the other side of the isle. To me, it’s political theater more than anything as his replacement will only be in office for ~1 year as the next election cycle is coming up.
Another strong difference with this recall is that the first occurred within the first 10 months of Gov. Davis' 2nd-term. We're 3 years deep here. Plenty of Gavin's opponents could easily say "what's the rush? We'll get him in '22."
Given how far off the rails CA is "equally crazy but on the other side of the aisle" could at least help bring it closer back to some sort of equilibrium, no? It's not like Elder would be a dictator and able to implement 100% of his platform on day one, but he might be able to help get the state moved back in the direction of something resembling sanity. If you get into a bath and it's ice cold you don't try to fix it by setting the water coming out of the faucet to your ideal temperature, you just use the hottest water you can because it will bring the overall bath up to a nice moderately warm temperature much faster.
I'm not a CA resident but have a lot of family there and there is a lot I genuinely do love about the northern part of the state (LA area is an irredeemable shithole for reasons that include, but are far from limited to, politics), in a lot of ways I'd like to spend some time living there but especially having a family there's no way I could justify raising kids there right now.
Newsome, has to go anon. California is in such a state. Taxes high everywhere. Homelessness, don't get me started.
Born and raised Californian here. Yes, Newsom sucks, but I hate the recall. It may be constitutional, but the way it's executed is stupid. The recall and replace votes should be on two separate ballots.
Newsom could have like 48% of CA voters vote for him to stay but get recalled and replaced by someone with 20% of the vote (the plurality of the 40 something contenders). That's frankly ridiculous and no need to respond with wELL tHaTs tHe lAw yes I know its the law but like I said its fucking stupid. The chief executive of the largest state in the country should NOT be able to win with like 20%
Libs are fucking up places at such pace that I'm going to need an intern to dunk on them when I'm busy.
Busy? What else do you do besides tend to your strange obsession with politics on a continent an ocean away from where you live? Like I seriously doubt I could even name the president from whichever eastern European country you hail from. Yet here you are opining on a recall special election in one U.S. state because your hatred of anyone left of Attila the Hun knows no borders. Deeply bizarre.
The irony here is that Attila was a no border activist from Asia with little appreciation for Western culture.
Basically a liberal. Blessed be Aetius for kicking his ass.
Living in the South Bay/Central Coast area.
I am against the recall for various reasons:
1 Year term - this is waste of 276M and most of it is coming out the county level budget. So fuck the recall supporters wasting my local tax dollars. Especially since those tax dollars are the ones I care most about.
Weak candidates - The Republican party doesn't seem to be selling a moderate R that can win so hard pass.
I will wait for the 2022 primaries to see if there are any good options.
Good reminder, been meaning to fill in my ballot to vote that asshole out. Let’s hope he’s gone.
Amen to that. When cities are filled with homeless and human excrement is in the streets, cost of living sky high, taxes overburdened. The buck has stop somewhere.
Non-Californian here. Newsom will probably win decisively and, if not, the margin of fraud will give it to him. That margin is nothing new in elections and complaining is beta (https://graymirror.substack.com/p/vae-victis)
What California’s Republicans, who I am sympathetic to, are not doing is organizing an effective strategy and are instead lashing out. They passed Prop 187, Prop 8, got Arnold in, and still enjoy some of the benefits of Prop 13. I referenced all four because all of them were ignored, bypassed, or eroded by the opposition. Unlike a normal state, most of the grandchildren of CA’s residents circa 1960 no longer live there and cannot live there while maintaining some semblance of post-WWII prosperity. Electing Larry Elder for a year is an amusing prank, and little more than that. The middle class will continue to erode in CA, leaving the affluent (you, WSO posters, are in or will be in this group no matter how mistreated you feel by your gubmint) and hordes of foreign proles (anyone can become an American with this Citizenship Paper prize I found in my Breakfast Cereal box!!!) to keep the state going. Eventually some of the former will decide the crime, Turd World education standards, taxes, and harassment by the authorities is not worth the beach. With Larry Elder in power for one year, the opposition can blame the mayhem, incompetence, and decay in human quality on him. Don’t be a scapegoat.
I was waiting for that. Now that Trump has wrongly convinced a third of the country that the election was stolen, all future GOP losses will be chalked up to "fraud" and a good chunk of the country's electorate will never again see a Democrat win as legitimate. Pathetic and scary.
I clicked on the report you linked, and they referenced the betting market swing on election night as evidence that the election was stolen. LOL. These are the same betting markets where I made thousands AFTER the election was over betting on Biden to win, because you could still get 1:9 odds due to all the Trump lackeys thinking the election was stolen.
If someone thinks America is a democracy, they are stupid. Fraud or no fraud.
If you read Gray Mirror carefully, he is explicitly agnostic as to whether shenanigans went down. What he has said, repeatedly, is that the US can easily remove all doubts of fraud if USG so desired. Don't be scared if 50 million Americans or whatever it is think the election was stolen, middle class Americans have proven for decades that they do not matter and have little ability to change the direction of the US.
As an ex-Californian, I struggle to believe this election will even be fair. Newsom is going to have just the right amount of mail-in ballots to keep him afloat.
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