CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, APRIL 9, 2024, OR THEREAFTER
BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“RECALL’S
REAL REASON: GOP WANTS NEWSOM OFF THE ROAD”
Republicans
behind the new recall drive against Gov. Gavin Newsom made a bit of a slip the
other day, revealing the real reason behind their effort:
Get
Newsom off the road, where he’s been about the most effective surrogate
President Biden has had during his reelection effort. Everywhere Newsom goes,
he picks up IOUs from local Democrats, too, non-fungible currency he will be
able to use in four years or so, if and when he makes his own run for the White
House.
Yes,
California Republicans realize Donald Trump is the current frontrunner in his
campaign to oust Biden and regain the White House for four more years (or more,
if he can somehow engineer an end run around the Constitution’s 22nd
Amendment and its two-term limit for presidents). But they also see that Newsom
has become enough of a thorn in Trump’s side to rate a skit on “Saturday Night
Live” and a disparaging nickname from Trump (“New-scum”).
Newsom
has also advertised on his own in Republican-run states, getting sufficiently
under the skin of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to engineer the first nationally
televised debate between two governors with no known future in some other
office at stake.
So
Republicans are doing what they can to keep Newsom off the national road by
trying to make him the first California governor ever to face two ballot recall
drives. (Others have faced more attempts, but only two ever made a ballot).
They
haven’t been able to find anything criminal about Newsom or any moral failings
Newsom hasn’t already confessed to and apologized for (like his long-ago
marital infidelity and the infamous French
Laundry restaurant incident, where he dined out with friends in a swank
eatery while ordering other state residents to lock down in the midst of the
Coronavirus pandemic).
Instead,
they’re going after him for policy differences: They don’t like his okay of
Medi-Cal health benefits for undocumented immigrants, they don’t like
California’s taxes and its high spending on efforts to reduce homelessness,
they didn’t like school closures during the pandemic.
Some of
those were among the grounds they gave for the other recall the GOP engineered
against Newsom, that one soundly beaten back in 2021, barely a year before
Newsom was due to face the voters anyhow. Many voters saw it as a colossal
waste of money, and voted “no” on those grounds alone.
This
time, recall sponsors will need to gather 1.38 million valid voter signatures
before the end of May in order to get a recall question and a list of
alternative candidates for governor onto the November general election ballot.
That’s hundreds of thousands more signatures than are needed to qualify an
ordinary initiative or referendum for a statewide vote, making the new recall
unlikely to get a November vote.
So this
recall – if it qualifies – will likely need a special election, costing tens of
millions of dollars and coming less than two years before Newsom will be term
limited out of office anyhow. This from a party that often grouses about
excessive and pointless government spending.
If it all
sounds like an unnecessary exercise in futility, that’s because it may be. And
not merely because the GOP has virtually no one ready to step up as a credible
alternate candidate, the way muscleman actor Arnold Schwarzenegger did in the
state’s only successful gubernatorial recall, against ex-Gov. Gray Davis in
2003, when he had three years left in his second term.
Nevertheless,
Newsom’s team insists he won’t ignore the new recall effort. “We are taking it
seriously,” said longtime Newsom spokesman Nathan Click. “These Trump
Republicans are targeting Gov. Newsom because he’s out there defending
democracy and fighting for the reelection of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. He’s
not going to be distracted from that fight. Democracy is on the ballot, and
he’s going to keep fighting.”
If that
eventually helps Newsom raise money for a presidential bid of his own and makes
him the Democrats’ de facto leading spokesman should Biden lose this fall, so
much the better for him. Just like the last time, the recall advocates might
again be doing him a big favor.
-30-
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, visit www.californiafocus.net
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