Newsom’s lousy, but I don’t know what to do
There is a case for recalling Gov. Gavin Newsom that is remarkably strong, but it’s certainly not the one voters were presented with in the official voter guide.
In fact, the voter guide version is so bad that I went from a solid “Yes” on recall to “undecided.” It is that bad; I’ll explain why shortly.
First, I worked for the California Republican Party against Newsom’s campaign for governor. I’m an easy sell on the recall. Partisanship aside, I believe any of the other top Democrats who ran against him in 2018 would have produced better results.
For me, the case for a new governor is easy and centers on a simple question: Is there a problem he has solved or at least made better?
Perhaps you like him compared to the alternatives, or maybe you like the issues he talks about, both of which are reasonable reasons to oppose the recall. But I still think you’d struggle to name something he’s improved
With all his grandiose talk of “reimagining” and “audacity” and “boldness,” his results have been remarkably pathetic. He promised to build around an average of half a million new housing units a year to end the housing crisis; instead, the number is just
a mere fraction. He blames COVID, but was not meeting (his own) expectations prior to that.
Newsom says his current plan to address homelessness will end family homelessness in five years, which sounds even more ridiculous when you consider that he gave a ten-year timeline as mayor of San Francisco, only to have homelessness in the city be as bad as ever.
Under his watch, California is near the top in unemployment as the state’s economy struggles to recover from his COVID management. Newsom would surely rebut that California has the fifth largest economy in the world, but what does that matter to the average Californian?
For those who are unemployed, the Newsom Administration’s management of EDD has been an abject failure. We’ve had strike teams and emergency efforts and any number of buzzword responses only to have fraud run rampant, people unable to get adequate service and the backlog of cases to remain as long as ever.
The northstate is burning and Californians fear we’re running out of water, but Newsom has ignored forest management and done little to address water supply. In fact, he grossly exaggerated his forest management efforts, which suggests he knows forest management is important, but shortchanged it anyway.
We could debate his results on COVID, but his insecure style of leadership has been on full display.
We watched him react erratically to headlines, like when news leaked he planned to close all beaches, then under fire singled out Orange County beaches (even though at the time we knew the risk of outdoor transmission of COVID was extremely low), and then on a whim he changed course again days later; or when he banned gas-powered cars right after Jane Fonda wrote in Newsweek that he wasn’t progressive enough on the environment.
Children have gone more than a year without adequate education. He said it was unsafe for your kids to go to public school in person, but sent his kids to in-person private school; he imposed strict COVID protocols on the state, but had no problem foregoing social distancing, unmasked, at a fancy restaurant to dine with lobbyists.
We could increase the list, but you get the point. I asked his staff if Newsom had any regrets over his time as governor and the staffer directed me to an article from March, which, if nothing else, suggests Newsom has zero regrets since March (I could tell you what the article said, but I’m not going to work harder at telling his story than he is). But ask yourself: Can any person go five months without regretting something? Only Newsom.
As I said, not long ago I was sure I’d vote for the recall. And then I received my voter guide.
The Statement of Reasons for the recall in the voter guide bears little resemblance to the argument I just laid out. Instead, it focuses on illegal immigration.
“Governor Newsom has implemented laws which are detrimental to the citizens of this state and our way of life,” the recall proponents begin. “Laws he endorsed favor foreign nationals, in our country illegally, over that of our citizens.”
They give slight nods to high taxes and quality of life and COVID is not mentioned, though, to be fair, the Statement of Reasons was filed on February 21, 2020, predating most of COVID.
They complain of Newsom “rationing our water use,” which was not much of an issue at the time the recall petition began circulating (and hopefully any governor’s response to a drought involves water conservation) and they mention something about “restricting parental rights,” which could mean anything but I assume is code for non-COVID vaccines.
But just to ensure they get their point across, illegal immigration pops up again, this time incorrectly blaming Newsom for California’s sanctuary state policy, which of course became law under Newsom’s predecessor.
In all, the Statement of Reasons is not terribly different from the Facebook rantings of your friend from high school who you want to defriend but are addicted to hate-reading his or her posts.
I understand that in most people’s minds, the recall is about COVID. That’s certainly why I signed the recall petition last summer. But as an originalist, I find the original intent of the recall tough to ignore.
I’m sure someone would defend the Statement of Reasons by saying it’s about illegal immigration, not legal immigration. But here comes GOP gubernatorial candidate John Cox.
Cox, a career also-ran, has tried tapping into this racist sentiment by continuing to say “Build the Wall” (one of the many reasons he lost so spectacularly in 2018) and attacking another Republican gubernatorial candidate as “Mexico-embracing.”
Last time I checked, Mexico was our ally, so I don’t really know what Cox means by “Mexico-embracing.” But clearly Cox, who has spent millions of dollars of his own money on his own failing campaigns, is convinced anti-Latino positions are political winners in California (again, see: 2018 results). And in attacking Mexico, he’s showing that it’s not just about illegal immigration.
The rule of law is fundamental, but if what’s keeping you up at night is the thought that a caravan is currently hiking hundreds of miles through the desert risking life and security just to find the American Dream, then you truly lead a charmed life.
Elections are about choices, so I understand why someone might say: “I want a new direction for California; I don’t care what the Statement of Reasons says.” That’s fair and will probably be where I land. I honestly don’t know yet.
But here’s what I am sure of: Newsom is not producing the results California needs, the Statement of Reasons is abhorrent, and nationalist, anti-immigrant sentiment is ruining the Republican Party.