WE'LL ALWAYS HAVE THE UNIONS

California's runaway recall (Robert Novak, June 9, 2003, Townhall.com)

The movement to replace just re-elected Democrat Gray Davis as governor of California is beginning to look like a runaway train with nobody at the controls. The state's voters may go to the polls this fall to decide whether Gov. Davis shall be removed, would then probably vote him out and, on the same ballot, select his successor. Nobody can predict that successor, or even whether the winner would be a Republican or Democrat.

While bipartisan establishment politicians remain in denial, realists now are taking the recall movement seriously. Dave Galliard, a Sacramento-based political consultant seeking signatures for recall petitions, says 520,000 voters have signed. He is aiming for 1.2 million, providing insurance that the required 897,000 valid names are collected. If this is done by July 18, an election must be held in September or October. Gov. Davis, at 21 percent approval in a recent private labor union poll, cannot be expected to survive.

That is not what President Bush's strategists want to hear. They fear the recall could elect a popular Democrat to replace the weakened Davis, making it more difficult for Bush to carry the state that would ensure his re-election. They cannot stop the train at this point, however. The recall movement has characteristics of anti-establishment resentment that in 1978 passed the famous Proposition 13 tax cut.

Seven months after winning a second term against neophyte Republican candidate Bill Simon, Davis has lost support from everybody except organized labor.

If the Bushies are serious about carrying the state in '04, why not send Condi Rice home to run for the governor's seat? Posted by Orrin Judd at June 9, 2003 1:41 PM