CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, MAY 14, 2021, OR THEREAFTER
BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“NEW RECALL’S MANY SIMILARITIES TO
THE DAVIS DISMISSAL”
Almost all the usual rules of California elections are off
today, as the state heads toward its second gubernatorial recall election of
the last 18 years.
The list of candidates to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom will surely
be interesting, but perhaps not as odd as what voters faced when they decided in
2003 who should replace then-Gov. Gray Davis. They plainly did not regret
choosing movie muscleman Arnold Schwarzenegger for his most interesting role
ever, reelecting him easily three years later, in 2006.
Like this year’s will be, the timing of that election was a
little weird: Oct. 7, a month earlier than normal fall elections. Then there
was the post-election interaction between Schwarzenegger and Davis. Democrat Davis
and the nominally Republican Schwarzenegger, whose liberal stances on items
like climate change and voting rights made him unlikely ever to win his party’s
nomination in a regular primary, often acted like good buddies during the month
or so before power peacefully transferred.
We may never know if Newsom, target of much more vicious rhetoric
this year than Davis ever heard, would be as gracious. But it’s almost certain
he would not pull the kind of stunts ex-President Donald Trump did while he was
transitioned out of power and into luxurious exile at his Mar-a-Lago resort in
Florida.
Then there’s the list of candidates. With transgender reality
TV star Caitlyn Jenner already on board, the current recall drive just might
match the eclectic mix attracted by the unprecedented 2003 vote.
That ballot featured the diminutive former child actor Gary
Coleman, who freely admitted he was not qualified and planned to vote for
Schwarzenegger, along with former baseball commissioner and Los Angeles Olympics
chieftain Peter Ueberroth.
Thus far, no major Democrat has ventured onto this year’s ballot,
many prominent figures fearing they would become permanent pariahs in their
party if they run. But if a significant Democrat does break loose – and perennial
candidates like Tom Steyer and ex-Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa no
longer qualify as very significant despite Steyer’s billions and Villaraigosa’s
name recognition – that could give Democratic voters a kind of license to vote
Newsom out.
For sure, it would change the current dynamic that sees
Newsom virtually unchallenged when he labels the recall a power grab by Trump
supporters.
In 2003, the sole major Democrat on the list was Lt. Gov.
Cruz Bustamante, who has in fact been a party untouchable since his distant
second-place finish behind Schwarzenegger.
There are no figures this year like either Ueberroth, who could
claim to be a highly capable non-partisan technocrat, or former media mogul
Adrianna Huffington.
But there are plenty of folks taking ultra-conservative stances
even more extreme than those of then Republican state Sen. Tom McClintock, who
talked a lot during campaign debates but didn’t win many votes. In the long run,
that cost him nothing; McClintock has been a GOP congressman from the Sierra
Nevada Mountain foothills east of Sacramento since 2009.
As in 2003, when the recall field included the last previous defeated
Republican candidate for governor, financier Bill Simon, 2018 loser John Cox, a
San Diego County businessman, is in the race. Other significant Republicans include
ex-San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer, who often tries to seem like he’s Newsom’s sole
rival, and Trump’s former acting chief of national intelligence, Richard
Grenell.
So far, there are no single-issue candidates in the field, the
way Los Angeles lawyer Bruce Margolin was last time, running solely to help
legalize marijuana. That’s been done, so no need for such a candidate.
As large as the field will be this time, it may not match the
135 who ran 18 years ago. But one rule that governed then will also apply now:
Newsom can get more no votes on the recall than the total for any candidate on
the replacement list, but would still be replaced so long as the yes’s beat no’s
on the entire recall concept.
All of which makes this vote very different from the norm,
when Democrats might almost automatically dominate because of their sheer
numerical superiority over Republicans.
And then there’s the fact another run for governor starts the
day after recall results are in.
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Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His
book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and
the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover
fourth edition. For more Elias columns, go to www.californiafocus.net
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