San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Recall movement a sign of polarized times
His approval rating may have dropped, but Gov. Gavin Newsom has little to worry about when he comes up for reelection in 2022. Democrats now enjoy a 22point edge in party registration and no Republican has prevailed for statewide office in a general election since 2006.
Newsom’s immediate challenge is to get past 2021.
The movement to recall the governor, which began as a conservative pipe dream before the pandemic, gained a semblance of plausibility last week when two wellrespected polls showed Newsom’s approval rating just over 50% in one and just under in the other. The recall campaign has until March 17 to collect 1.5 million signatures — thanks to a court ruling that granted a 90day extension due to the pandemic — and about 600,000 have been validated to date.
Could Republicans really succeed in taking out a Democratic governor? The recall petition faults Newsom on issues that have been floated and failed against him in his three statewide races: high taxes, immigration, homelessness and his opposition to the death penalty.
I raised that question with several of the state’s most prominent consultants, Democratic and Republican. None thought it was likely. Yet all thought it was not to be dismissed.
The first step is getting it on the ballot, which is no sure thing. Signature gathering is expensive, and all the more so when Californians are less likely to be out and about and reluctant to be handed a pen as they leave the grocery store. The recall effort would need a major infusion of dollars — and soon — to achieve that threshold for an election this November.
“If you have enough money you could qualify a ban on ice cream or a recall of God,” said Dan Newman, a strategist for the governor. “But if you don’t have enough money, you couldn’t qualify free ice cream for everyone.”
The direct democracy conceived by Gov. Hiram Johnson as a check against specialinterest domination of politicians a century ago has “just sort of become a business,” he added.
If the recall does qualify for the ballot, the situation could get wild in a hurry.
As in the 2003 recall of Gov. Gray Davis, voters would be faced with two questions: an upordown verdict on Newsom and, if he were recalled, a selection of a successor who would need to secure a plurality of votes in what could become a huge field with an absurdly low bar of entry (65 signatures and $3,500). The Davis recall drew 135 contenders, from secondtier politicians to Blist actors.
Of course, one Alist actor dominated the campaign: Arnold Schwarzenegger, who won with 48.6%. It was the first successful recall of a governor in California history.
Is there another Schwarzenegger with the ambition and charisma to upstage Newsom? Not likely.
“Clearly the main problem (in 2003) was Arnold Schwarzenegger. Once he got into the race he became the face of the recall and it became very difficult for us to dismiss this as a scheme by the national Republican Party,” said Garry South, who managed Davis’ gubernatorial campaigns. “He’s a Californian, had his career here in the movie industry ... and had 100% name ID.”
Here’s what’s starting to keep California Democrats up at night: If Newsom were to fall even a single vote below 50% on the recall question — with potentially hundreds of alternatives on the ballot — a replacement candidate would not need to approach Schwarzenegger’s numbers to become the next governor.
“A Republican could win,” Rep. Matt Gaetz, RFla., one of former President Donald Trump’s most devout defenders, recently tweeted in promoting the candidacy of fellow Trumpian Ric Grenell, former director of national intelligence.
The possibility that a Republican Party with 24% of the state’s registered voters could produce a governor would rise significantly if a Democrat were to enter the replacement field. To this day, many Democrats blame the ballot presence of the man they regard as a party disloyalist, Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, as a factor against Davis. It certainly muddied the straightforward message that Davis’ strategists wanted to push: Vote against the recall or a Republican might become governor.
“Cruz wasn’t an allstar candidate, of course,” said Steve Maviglio, who had been Davis’ press secretary, “but he gave Democrats a place to go.”
It’s hard to imagine an elected Democrat of any stature jumping into the replacement field this time. Bustamante’s postrecall fate serves as a cautionary tale: He was defeated in his 2006 bid for insurance commissioner, making him the last California Democrat to lose a statewide office. The more likely threat to Newsom would be from an outsider or two from his left who might sense a rare opportunity to seize the moment with its low cost of entry.
“This is the nature of American politics now,” said Rob Stutzman, a veteran GOP strategist from Sacramento. “Parties are weak and elected leaders don’t hold much ability to hold parties together and invoke discipline. It could get out of control ... very quickly.”
Politics can be volatile. As recently as last spring, Newsom was drawing rave reviews for his management of the pandemic: California’s infection rates were comparatively low and the governor’s briefings were being praised for their steadiness and transparency. Newsom more recently has been mired in a rough patch, with pandemic numbers soaring, stayhome orders shifting on and off to the frustration of families and businesses, other elected officials complaining about lack of communication from his office and a bureaucratic mess in the distribution of unemployment benefits.
And then there are those two words that are certain to arise in any recall campaign: French Laundry. The governor’s repeated apologies for joining an unmasked birthday party for his lobbyist pal at the Yountville restaurant last fall have not made the matter go away.
“The French Laundry episode was a turning point, because it was a perfect personification that allowed people to say: ‘That’s what’s wrong here. Governor saying one thing, doing something else, surrounding himself with friends and lobbyists at probably the most elite restaurant in Wine Country while people are locked in their homes trying to do the right thing,’ ” said Mike Madrid, a prominent Republican consultant. “I think that really catalyzed people’s anger.”
It’s a long way until November, an eternity in modern American politics. Time might be on Newsom’s side. The arrival of vaccines may well tamp down the pandemic, stimulating an economic revival. And Newsom’s ratings, however down, are much better than those of Gray Davis in 2003.
By the time he left office, Schwarzenegger’s numbers had dropped to Davis territory. It’s one thing to win a recall election, it’s quite another to govern a state of nearly 40 million people that is vulnerable to earthquakes, droughts, wildfires, pervasive inequality and a volatile economy.
“Even if you had another Schwarzeneggerlike figure, a Dwayne Johnson or Vin Diesel ... it’s only been 10 years since he left office pretty damn discredited,” South said. “I just don’t know that people are going to buy that again.”