Boviosity!

Which part of the recall effort is crap?

I know that it was not any kind of trivial deal to get all the signatures required to get the recount, but it still feels like a trivial endeavor to me. I almost feel like he should have done something so obviously illegal or evil that I would have heard of it. Yes, the dreaded Argument From Ignorance.

I do fear a lifetime of tit-for-tat, with the party out of power using every jot and tittle of the law to bring themselves power, regardless of the spirit of that law. Was the law written to address a situation like that in California right now? I dunno. I guess it's arguable that the only situation I really need to know about is, "we have enough signatures and so the law says your ass is recalled." I do respect that, but I'm not sure that in the current polarized atmosphere, the Democrats won't be able to get enough signatures to recall the next Republican governor because they don't like the way he combs his hair. And I think that drags everybody down.

I'd like to see 'em come after Arnold's hair, though. And have you given any consideration whatsoever to the sociological implications of a T100 working off a Kennedy curse?

Thanks--I see your point. I applaud the recall people for using any available tool in service of ideology. That said, this particular tool needs to be taken away at the earliest opportunity. Checks and balances, four year terms, impeachment, money, and guns should suffice for correcting various abuses of power. An ad hoc army of fools with clipboards just doesn't seem like a genuine political organization.

And of course I don't applaud the so-called ideology behind this recall. Republicans are now sham conservatives, so this effort really is just a pointless exercise in installing a new figure head on the front of the state, that "bloated conglomerate of political services that gets larger every year -- with no end in sight" (to quote the Libertarian Party website http://www.lp.org/issues/cut-taxes.html)

As for the T100/Kennedy connection, hey, both they daddies was Nazis!

OK, maybe the requirement (absent the recall mechanism) for putting together a pitchfork- and torch-bearing mob is onerous. But to take an equally ridiculous example that supports my arguments: suppose there was an 800# that if enough citizens called it, it would force a recall election in two months' time. There would be chaos 6 times a year and for what?

Besides, from a practical level, it seems like the Repubs could shoot themselves in the foot with this recall. Will community-level Repubs have less resources to put together good campaigns for state senators? Have they given the Dems a cudgel to bash them over the head with? ("The extremists stole the capital; don't let them do the same with the house.") By removing Davis as an issue in 2004 local elections, couldn't they be denying themselves a golden opportunity to really challenge Democrats' stranglehold on the state?

I think you read sarcasm or its little cousin, irony, into my post. I was serious about the other remedies being sufficient, and I really do think the recall statute should go away.

I chopped out (as off-topic) a screed about how I wished California (and then the rest of the country) could have a real clash over ideology instead of over the executive branch. No hope of that, though. People persist in thinking the two major parties really do represent different ideologies. It's fun to speculate about the recall effort's impact on the next election cycle, but it's not all that meaningful to me since I have given up on the Republican party.

Yes, I did. My mistake.

Imagine a T100's effect on a pitchfork-and-torch-bearing mob, though. Coool.