Another Political Earthquake
BARNES, FRED
Another Political Earthquake The Gray Davis recall looks like a Prop 13 replay. BY FRED BARNES Sacramento THE MEDIA and political establishment in California hasn't learned a thing in 25 years....
...The gubernatorial recall may have caught him by surprise, as he'd been focusing on a possible bid for 2006...
...But Democrats are apoplectic and Republicans are hopeful...
...Which bring us to the Democrats' worst fear—a Republican governor...
...A quarter century ago, the San Francisco Chronicle declared Proposition 13 "a revolutionary threat, a total threat, to the stability of all government...
...He says a new Democratic governor would have no more success than Davis in corralling Democratic interest groups and legislators to compromise with Republicans on the budget...
...Polls show Davis's prospects of winning the recall vote are better if there's no Democratic alternative...
...Peter Camejo, the Green party candidate for governor last fall, says he'll run, too...
...The recall was triggered when the state budget deficit, which Davis pooh-poohed last fall, soared to $38 billion...
...The point of the recall, he says, is to show that "the people in California do not consent to what the governor and the legislature are doing...
...Some party leaders worry the effect may be to replace Davis with a popular Democrat, who then would be reelected easily in 2006...
...Former Los Angeles mayor Richard Riordan, whom Simon beat in the Republican gubernatorial primary, is considering a race, perhaps as an independent...
...A populist crusade could do for Republicans what they couldn't do for themselves...
...We can't tolerate the chaos," Warren Christopher, the secretary of state under President Clinton and now a Los Angeles lawyer, said...
...With no Democrat on the ballot, this would be a distinct possibility...
...But the five top Democratic officials under Davis— including Lt...
...From an office behind a Krispy Kreme on the outskirts of Sacramento, Costa runs an outfit called Public Advocate...
...And Issa, suddenly a hero to many Republicans, won't be the lone Republican in the race...
...Bill Simon, who ran a pathetic campaign against Davis last fall but lost by only five points, is likely to run...
...In his first two years as governor, spending rose 37 percent...
...But even if another Democrat replaces Davis, there are bound to be strong political repercussions...
...California firms were wary of the recall, so Issa had to recruit a Missouri company...
...And he bears a large measure of responsibility for the budget problem...
...Focus groups suggest he'd be a strong candidate...
...He's been grooming himself for the past decade to run in California as a Republican...
...And because of gerrymandered districts, agreed to by Democrats and Republicans, "legislators either don't have to worry about reelection at all or fear only the small chance that they will be outflanked by a candidate of their own party in the primary...
...The ballot will ask two questions: Should Davis be ousted...
...Populist revolts normally have such humble origins...
...His allies spread stories about Issa's past, including two arrests for car theft 30 years ago in which charges were dropped...
...Hence, the feeling that California is broken and the state's political class, especially Davis and his allies, isn't fixing it...
...Sundheim said he'd try to narrow the Republican field to a single consensus candidate...
...But Schwarzenegger has enlisted some of the state's best political operatives, notably George Gorton, former governor Pete Wilson's top campaign adviser...
...McClintock may also jump in...
...And then there's Arnold Schwarzenegger, who, of course, starred in a movie called Total Recall...
...Davis's other tack was to keep fellow Democrats, and particularly Feinstein, out of the recall...
...Davis was elected to a second term as governor last November, petitions began to circuFred Barnes is executive editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD...
...It confirmed Davis's unsavory reputation as a politician who relies heavily on negative attacks—he once likened Democratic senator Dianne Feinstein to Leona Helmsley—and rarely on positive appeals...
...He's hired Ken Khachigian, a former Ronald Reagan aide, as his chief political adviser...
...It cost Issa, who made millions in the car alarm business, roughly $1.3 million and made him a credible candidate to replace Davis...
...Democratic party leaders, who dominate California politics, and politically connected elements of the business community say the same thing...
...Duf Sundheim, the new Republican state chairman, thinks the recall will help the party, which has been standoffish to the recall effort...
...Then, what Sundheim calls "a surge" for Republicans in the past few months—6,400 new Republicans in San Bernardino County, a 5-1 registration edge in Orange County, major gains in San Diego County— may become a surge in reality...
...This has happened in eight months...
...Likewise, the recall drive is abetting "the dysfunction" of state government...
...Senate, at a booth, and it showed another booth at which Nazi memorabilia was on display...
...Davis has imposed a hiring freeze, yet 44,000 employees have been added to the state payroll...
...But to advance to stage two, a successful crusade must begin to attract mainstream politicians...
...If we could agree on one candidate, it would be optimal," he said...
...and, Who should Should Feinstein put her name on the ballot, the consensus is that Davis would be recalled and she would be the next governor...
...They have an iron grip on the legislature and such a hold on the electorate that Davis was reelected in 2002 despite being wildly unpopular...
...Schwarzenegger spoke at a rally celebrating the twenty-fifth anniversary of Proposition 13, but he is no conservative...
...The big question is how much the recall movement rejuvenates the Republican party in California, if at all...
...By one recent measure of test scores—8th grade reading—California's schools are last in the nation...
...In 1978, the Los Angeles Times editorialized sternly against the fiscal drain and "chaotic effects" of Proposition 13, the referendum that cut property taxes deeply and touched off an anti-tax wave across the country...
...The critical defection came in May, when Republican congressman Darrell Issa from the exurbs of southern California signed on, set up a third anti-Davis group called Rescue California, and hired a professional signature-gathering firm...
...This cozy arrangement could be overturned if Davis is expelled from office and a Republican becomes governor...
...And the establishment won't know what hit it...
...But now Democrats are in charge of a sinking ship...
...It seeks to put tax-cutting referendums on the ballot...
...This offers to California the opportunity to form a new coalition...
...Somehow, one assumes, this was supposed to 'prove' that Issa was pro-Nazi or something equally noxious, but it had to be the thinnest piece of political propaganda ever conjured up in California," wrote Dan Walters of the Sacramento Bee...
...The revolt is not simply against Davis...
...He led the Republican ticket in 2002 and was defeated for state controller by 16,811 votes out of more than 7 million cast...
...replace him...
...Already there's growing anecdotal evidence of increased Republican voter registration in California...
...Should Feinstein put her name on the ballot, the consensus in the political community is that Davis would be recalled and she would be the next governor...
...Of course, a Republican governor might face the same problem with Republicans...
...The White House was also leery, figuring Bush would have a better chance of winning California in 2004 if an unpopular Democrat was still governor...
...The political impact isn't clear, since Davis may fight the recall in court, and, assuming he loses, the vote may not be held until next March...
...He appears ready for the short-notice election, where only a plurality is needed to win the governorship...
...These arguments aren't working any better now than they did in 1978...
...We will work actively to get out the vote," he told reporters last week...
...So it's not surprising that the recall, as Wein-traub put it, "is driving the ruling class batty...
...Within weeks, the required number of signatures—12 percent of voters in the prior statewide election—was exceeded...
...Meanwhile, Kaloogian, a former Republican state legislator from San Diego, formed his own committee to recall Davis and began circulating petitions...
...The demonization of Issa also included a videotape of a Los Angeles gun show in 1998 that was circulated to journalists...
...Today it continues to spend $1 billion a month more than it takes in," the paper said...
...The recall began with two minor figures, Ted Costa and Howard Kaloogian...
...Now, faced with a referendum to toss Democratic governor Gray Davis out of office, the newspaper is warning against the "deeper fiscal hole and the partisan political chaos" that may result...
...The more they join the effort, the more they will define themselves as the party of reform...
...Davis has failed to fashion a deficit-reduction compromise with Democrats, who loathe spending cuts, and Republicans, who won't raise taxes...
...Cruz Bustamante and Attorney General Bill Locky-er—have joined Feinstein in saying they have no plans to run...
...The recall effort, like Proposition 13, has risen above its origins on the political fringe and become a populist crusade...
...The Greens, by the way, also collected recall signatures...
...Unresponsive government, high taxes, traffic congestion, emigration of hundreds of thousands to nearby states, a poor business environment—these top the list of problems...
...Statewide leaders live in a cocoon where interest group money and political strategists are the only things that really matter...
...Issa, for one, disagrees...
...President Bush lost California to Al Gore in 2000 by a dozen points, though Gore didn't even bother to campaign in the state...
...It concentrated on shopping malls, where people, including many Democrats, lined up to sign recall petitions...
...Just last month, California was cited as "the worst performing state" in an analysis of the finances of all 50 states by USA Today...
...Democrats have a lot to lose...
...For the recall to reach stage three—the fourth stage is victory in the vote—it needs more support from Republican leaders and donors...
...Davis has become the symbol of the state's slide downwards...
...The tape featured Issa, then running for the U.S...
...At least he's not a social conservative, having described himself recently to another Republican as pro-gay, pro-abortion, and anti-gun...
...Republican leaders in Sacramento, however, were cool to the recall, with the exception of state senator Tom McClintock, who said the recall was "the most important issue since Proposition 13...
...A poll by the Los Angeles Times found that 51 percent favor throwing Davis out of office...
...It's reckless, it's outrageous," the Chronicle insists...
...Issa has said he'll pay the $3,500 and get the 65 signatures required to be on the ballot...
...This year, he tripled the car registration tax by gubernatorial decree, adding roughly $150 to the average Californian's tax bill...
...The recall gathered momentum on its own and now presents Republicans with a remarkable opportunity...
...It's against "a political class horribly disconnected from the rest of California," columnist Daniel Weintraub wrote in the Sacramento Bee...
...Davis responded in a way sure to backfire...
...late in February, and by early July far more than the 897,158 signatures needed to put the recall on the ballot had been collected...
Vol. 8 • July 2003 • No. 43
