Around the blogs on Governor-elect Schwarzengroper

Summary: Davis had it coming, it's the media's fault, recall Arnold, don't recall Arnold.

Atrios:

What a Night

I hope I didn't do anything stupid.

Anyway, I had optimistically predicted that Davis would survive. I based that on one major premise - that after about a month or so, the media would stop with the Access Hollywood coverage of Arnold and actually point out his ties to Pete Wilson, Enron, etc...

Of course, I was wrong. They're a lazy bunch of SOBs, and if they can point a camera at a Nurembourg rally and call it news, they're going to do it. I knew Arnold would have untold hours of free media on AM radio, etc... but I actually made the mistake of thinking the respectable news media would eventually realize they had a responsibility.

Prediction: Arnold proposes crazy things which do nothing to deal with California's budget problems (MORE spending! LESS taxes!), while blaming the Democratic legislature for anything that goes wrong. He'll probably get away with it...

Mark Kleiman:

There's lots of blame to go around: Schwarzenegger for running such an intellectually dishonest campaign, the press for not calling him on it, the California Broadcaster's Association for setting up the one debate format he could survive, the press again for being so slow and lax in unearthing the skeletons in his closet, the bloggers and talk-radio hosts who falsely portrayed Bustamente as some sort of ethnic separatist, Susan Estrich for deciding that the weekend before the election was a good time to give aid and comfort to the enemy, the "family values" Republicans for cynically embracing the permissiveness they pretend to hate as long as it involves a Democrat, Cruz Bustamante for taking Richie Ross's horrible campaign advice and Ross for offering it, Gray Davis for refusing to endorse Bustamante in Round II and thus making a truly united front for the Democrats impossible, &c, &c, &c.

But the people I'm maddest at right now are the national and state Democratic leaders, including Bill Clinton and Dianne Feinstein, who decided that the voters of California would not be allowed a decent alternative to their current coin-operated governor. The calculation couldn't have been more cynical: "Californians hate Davis, but if we confront them only with choices that are even worse they will, once again, grit their teeth and vote for him again."

Well, it didn't deserve to work, and it didn't work. The Darrell Issa/Wilson/Quackenbush/ developer/Rove/Schwarzenegger coup didn't deserve to work either, and the people of California don't deserve being stuck with him, but there's some satisfaction, however grim, in not having allowed ourselves to be rolled once again.

In a state with 35 million inhabitants, half of them Democrats, it should have been possible to come up with at least one candidate for governor who didn't make you want to vomit. The party sachems who couldn't, or wouldn't, get that person on the ballot had a pouding coming to them, and today they got it.

And for God's sake let's not hear any nonsense about another recall drive. Even if the signatures could be gathered, the voters would laugh at it, and at the people who have spent the last six months arguing that recalls are undemocratic but now decide that only recalls against Democrats are undemocratic. Let Schwarzenegger deal with the budget mess, and concentrate on having a decent candidate -- not, for example, Bustamante or Lockyer -- to run against him in 2006.

Daily Kos:

Recall Arnold
The law stipulates 90 days before any recall petitions can be filed. That's okay. We don't want to file any recall petition until we're within 80 days of the early March primary.

It looks like we'll need about 1 million signatures to get the recall on the ballot -- not a difficult task. The recall provisions of the California constitution are ridiculously easy to meet.

If timed to coincide with the March primaries, the new recall effort will cost the state little. The reason this recall cost so much is because the state had to create an entire election from scratch. In March, we're already having an election -- the presidential primaries (both Democratic and Republican).

And given the fact we'll have a contested Democratic Party (as opposed to the sleeper on the GOP side), turnout will clearly favor the recall Arnold forces.

At the time, Arnold will have had six months to prove himself. If he survives sexual harrassment lawsuits and a hostile California legislature, and then garners 50 percent of the vote, then great.

But he should have to prove himself the same way the GOoPers forced Davis to prove himself -- 50 percent plus one.

And once the Republicans have been bitten by a recall, then maybe both parties can sit down and amend the constitution to make recalls a much fairer process and difficult proposition.

The GOoPers will cry "get over it" and "SoreLoserman". Let them. Davis was reelected a mere 11 months ago, and they couldn't "get over it".

It'll now be our turn.

Kevin Drum:

ARNOLD WINS....So it looks like the recall has passed and Arnold is the new governor. Kos comments:

In the end, it doesn't look like it was close. Arnold is the new governor of California.

For six months.

With all due respect, can I beg everyone to please not go there? Trying to mount a recall against Arnold would be bad for California, bad for the Democratic party, and only distracts attention from the bigger task at hand: electing a Democrat to the White House in 2004. It's time for the circus to stop.

This is one time that we should accept defeat graciously and turn our attention to more important things. Remember, anger is only useful if it's focused and channeled on something worthwhile, and recalling Arnold isn't it. Let's not blow it.

UPDATE: Well, so far the comments are running pretty strongly in favor of all-out war. I don't actually have a big problem with that, but I'd prefer that the war be fought on a national stage, not here in California. Trying to recall Arnold would be doomed to failure anyway, and I'd rather see all this rage focused on the guy who really deserves it: George W. Bush.

Eyes on the prize, folks, eyes on the prize. I don't actually care all that much who the governor of California is ó and I live here! ó but nothing in this world would give me more pleasure than to see George Bush sent packing back to Crawford next November, never to be heard from again. That's the goal to keep front and center.

UPDATE 2: Plus, to be honest, I really don't want California to be a continual war zone. We really do have some problems to solve here, and running two recall campaigns a year isn't going to help us do it.

Lilith C. Devlin at Open Source Politics:

This was a race of national importance - California has the largest number of Electoral College votes in presidential elections, 55, and is the world's fifth-largest economy. But the national media treated Schwarzenegger with the same pair of kid gloves they used on George W. Bush.

Oh, sure, they dutifully reported each salacious new allegation of sexual assault and sexual harassment. Gotta sell those papers and grab those ratings, after all.

But when it came to public policy, the media seemed to have taken a collective oath to conform to the pitifully low expectations set for them by Arnie's advisers. After all, the people don't care how he'll improve the economy, or education, or health care, or the state's energy problems. They just want someone to promise to fix it. Right?

The campaign Schwarzenegger, his advisers, and the GOP ran was insulting, from start to finish, to every citizen of California.

Open Source Politics roundup:

(Note to Progressive Californians: Recall Arnold? What is gained by being vindictive, mean-spirited, petty and destructive? If ya act like that, ya just might be a Republican.)