October 6, 2003
CAN ANYONE MOVE THE BASE?:
A Vote for Davis is a Vote for Dean (Dotty Lynch, Douglas Kiker, Steve Chaggaris, Clothilde Ewing, Sean Sharifi and Natasha Kuzovich, 10/06/03, CBS News)
Howard Dean e-mailed his “50,000 California” supporters on Sunday urging them to vote no on the recall and make the difference in a race that
“will be decided by a razor-thin margin,” according to a release put out by his campaign. He tells them that having a Republican governor in California will make it much harder for a
Democrat to win the state in 2004. Dean was the first of many Democratic Presidential candidates to campaign for Davis.
This election once again demonstrates the wisdom of BushRove--in this instance by staying the heck out of the recall. If Arnold loses it means rather little for the President, whereas if he'd campaigned directly it would be understood to demonstrate the limits of his appeal in CA.
Meanwhile, every major Democrat, including the supposedly still popular Bill Clinton, went into CA and busted a hump for Gray Davis. If he loses despite this it calls into question the health of the Democratic base in their most important state.
Posted by Orrin Judd at October 6, 2003 2:59 PMI can understand why Bill Clinton couldn't resist staying away, but why would the others even get involved? If Davis is that unpopular, they are only hurting themselves in a state where should already have an edge. Why fight for Davis if they wouldn't have appeared with Clinton in 2000 (as many Dem. candidates refused to do)? It just can't be worth the soundbites about Repubs. 'stealing' elections and it will only hurt them more if Arnold turns out to be a decent governor. This is one situation where feeding the angry left will give the 10 echoes a big case of indigestion.
Posted by: jim hamlen at October 6, 2003 3:26 PMIt has very little to do with Davis and everything to do with the unions. Democrats need union money, lobbying and get out the vote drives to win. The unions want Davis, so the candidates are going to try to give them what they want.
Posted by: David Cohen at October 6, 2003 3:53 PMAnd anyone who doesn't get involved can be accused by the ones who did of abandoning Davis, or something, which wouldn't play as well with the Demo faithful as it would with Californians in general.
Posted by: Timothy at October 6, 2003 5:58 PMAlso the beauty of the Arnold candidate is that
he is not a mainstream Republican politician.
Therefore his pre-election "scandals" aren't
tainting the party and if he loses to Davis it
leaves McClintock open to run in the fall.