It is a rare pleasure to see liberals and Democrats make a good clear legitimate point these days. They tend to get stupidly shrill in the personal nature of their attacks, many reaching routinely for Nazi metaphors and accusations. The official national party website long featured a video cartoon of Dubya killing an old woman in a wheelchair as a "humorous" criticism of Bush's ideas on Social Security. Many of these attacks on Bush are both mean and illegitimate- which are not necessarily the same thing.
In the midst of this distasteful mix, however, comes a better focus for anti-Bush sentiments. The Bush Recall site at www.bushrecall.org has a good hook: hey, we should recall Bush if we're gonna recall Gray Davis.
"What we hope to do is to remind people that all of the things that are being said about Gray Davis as the reasons for the recall can be applied to George Bush. For example, they say Davis turned big surpluses into deficits in a matter of a couple of years. That's the same thing that happened with George Bush."
THIS was according to Mike Lux, who along with former Clinton spokesman Joe Lockhart is a founder of the Fair and Balanced PAC that is sponsoring the website.
I don't know if I 100% agree with this argument, but unlike many Democrat moves, this one is actually about substantial issues of governance. This is exactly NOT the politics of personal destruction that has been the mainstay of, to pick the obvious current exemplar, Gray Davis.
Now, Dubya might somewhat reasonably plead extenuating circumstances, but he IS responsible for the federal budget, and he DOES have Republican control over both houses of congress. If Davis is fixing to get hung for letting deficits get out of control, then why shouldn't Bush be held similarly accountable? Fair point.
Now obviously there's no way to recall a sitting president midterm, so the petition on the site calls for the president's defeat in next year's election.
This Bush Recall site must be about the best reasonably legitimate partisan attack on the president that I've seen. It's clever in using the recall buzz as a hook for a criticism of the president. Not only is it a good hook, but also at least halfway a reasonable argument. Good work.
Article comments
1 - John Mudd
Well, that's what Rove gets for coming up with the recall strategy in the first place - a porn star popularizing porn and a recall campaign against his own man. Smart move. Geeze...
I can't wait until the Reaganites control the Repupublican Party again. Their strategies are much more sound and typically don't put the foundation of our entire constitutional democratic republic in danger.
2 - Craig Lyndall
Al, I agree with you that this is a much more constructive criticism than I have seen of our president so far.
Most people I talk to end up calling for impeachment of Bush because "Republicans impeached Clinton because of a bl**job." It is then that I must remind them that it wasn't the bl**job, but a crime called perjury, and that Bush has committed no identifiable crime.
Calling for his removal based on the next election is the best way for dems to attack this. Now, if they could just get Kucinich to stop embarrassing their party, despite Willie Nelson and Ani DiFranco.
3 - Phillip Winn
I like this, because it also lead to reasonable questions like "How much did 9/11 and our response affect California's budget woes?" Gray Davis might like it indeed if more people would ask themselves that question, since that's surely the President's best response to the recall.
Unfortunately (?), I don't think that there is a recall provision for the President like there is for California's governor, so in the end this is still just a political stunt, but at least it's a clever one.
I'd like to see a system like Greece's, where anybody could be recalled for an up-down confirmation election at any time. Very cool. Or maybe the Roman system (was it the Roman system?) in which elections were held once a year for everybody, including military leaders. Ack, my history is slipping away - it's been a long week - but the less effective we can make our elected leaders, generally the better I like it. :)
4 - Craig Lyndall
Despite leaning right, I think it is a horrible thing that there is a recall provision in California. And I am also glad that there is none for the presidency. I am not sure that this is good for political stability in our country, even if in an isolated case it turns out well for the party I most often identify with.
5 - Chris
John --
1. There is no evidence that Karl Rove had anything to do with this, or at least in all that I have read.
2. There is no danger to our constitutional basis. This recall provision is in the Cali Constituion. This is a legal procedure, long sanctioned by the State of CA. It has been tried 30 some oddd times before, but this time it actually "took."
Good for CA. They are finally getting an election in which the people might actually have a choice (even a porn star), rather than 2 party choices.
6 - Eric Olsen
The balance between immediate answerability to the populace, and the need to mitigate the sometimes rash demands of the mob (populace) are why we have the House of Representatives (elected every two years) and the Senate (elected every six years), and the presidency in between (time-wise, four years). I think we have seen the pendulum swing too far in the direction of democracy (vs republicanism) in California where propositions and recalls cause much lurching about in a pointless and wasteful manner (see current campaign).
We have near-perpetual campaigning as it is, I don't want to see anyone run MORE often.
7 - John Mudd
Chris, evidence or not, it does appear to be a Rovian tactic, if you are familiar with his work.
Yes, it does give Californians a choice, and if variety is what you're seeking, 135 candidates as opposed to say the regular two to 20 that run for governor, whether on the ballot or as a write-in, is certainly better than the usual (and perhaps so is 132 flavors at Baskin Robbins as opposed to 131, but good leaders simply are not ice cream flavors, however, publicity-craving maniacs are everywhere), however, it isn't a democratic republican form of government, it's a pure democracy.
The recall does certainly dumb down the office of governor, and if anyone at all can be governor, it certainly does take away from the authority invested in that office.
If you research the history of democratic republics and pure democracies (read Will Durant's series on the history of the world, perhaps some Voltaire, too), you will discover why pure democracies have frequently fallen throughout the history of the world, and California often is a trend-setting state, for better or worse, but probably for worse in this case.
The member of Congress who originally pushed for the recall, now disappeared, could have easily been used as a pawn by someone. I wonder who talked him into pushing for it, then talked him into stepping out of the race.
If I were a political newbie, or an uneducated participant in the democratic process, I may back your points, however, behind the scenes deals are made all the time in politics and Greece fell a long time ago.
Yes, a porn star is "running" (which I'm not so sure is a good thing), but her campaign admitted to me it wasn't polling, but is focusing on publicity, which tells me as someone who has managed PR and political campaigns that her campaign is one huge publicity stunt. I do give her credit, though, for that and for putting herself in a position to be scrutinized by the public. I've never seen a more well-managed publicity campaign, and she does have acting talent, but I wouldn't vote for her for governor.
The media really should be grilling her, though, and Arnold, too, on the issues, but they're being lazy and covering the glitz as usual. Maybe that should be the next thing I share with my media friends, instead of the porn star I interviwed.
Personally, I like Eric's take on the whole thing, and I think what you'll discover is that after the circus is over, the people of California will request a recall provision removal.
You know, if Reaganites controlled the Republican Party instead of the Bushies, I'm still convinced that this mess would've never happened.
8 - Chris
Ummm . . . back room deals, whose behind what, etc. are all interesting speculations and not being a political newbie I would love to sit around and speculate about them.
But, the recall is in gear and however it was engineered is better left to the next few generations of political science students who can analyze it to their undergraduate's content.
Now, is someone from the White House kept up to date on what is going on? No doubt. Did someone from the White House organize this? I don't know and haven't seen or read anything that indicates it. (despite feverish imaginings from the far lefty side of the web)
I don't dispute that press should be grilling everyone on everything regarding this recall.
Your assertion that this dumbs down the office of governor is professor talk. The point is: yes, anybody can be governor and that is what makes this country great. Sure, you may get a disaster and there are real consquences but I would rather put up with that than have a professional political class like Europe has now and like we have been on the drift towards.
I vote as reliably Repub (I did vote Dem on a couple of offices in our last state election) as I can. And, while I am sympathetic to the republic v. direct democracy arguments, in this case I think it is a good thing that an election has been thrown as wide as possible.
Whether this is the Cali public throwing a temporary fit or indicative of long term change has yet to be seen. In the meantime, let the thing play out and THEN figure out whether it was good or not.
9 - mike
How about a "Recall Al" campaign? His rhetorical bombast has sucked so much oxygen out of the blogosphere that the rest of us are literally gasping for air.