California Schemin'

Well, it happened. California governor Gray Davis has to face a recall election in October, and due to the fact that the state Democratic party is united behind him (the first time party unity could hurt Democrats), and due also to the fact that the governor himself is about as popular with Californians as a French bistro would be in Jessica Lynch's hometown, the once-Golden State will almost assuredly have a Republican governor before long.

The drive to force Governor Davis to undergo a recall election is being spearheaded by conservative Republicans, most of whom are white males, in a state where non-Hispanic whites are a minority and the populace is increasingly liberal. In short, this is the only way they can win statewide office anymore, especially given that they blew their best chance to defeat Davis's bid for a second term last year by nominating the somewhat rabidly conservative Bill Simon instead of the moderate, avuncular Richard Riordan, the former mayor of Los Angeles. Many of the potential candidates expected to run are conservative Republicans, and electing an Orange County-type right winger will be relatively easy - see, should Davis lose his bid to complete his term, the winning replacement candidate needs only a plurality (i.e., the most votes), not a majority, of all votes cast, as many as a dozen people could run, and turnout might be low if Davis's supporters consider it a lost cause to try to retain him.

Did I happen to mention that effective governors can deliver their states to their parties in presidential election? If Davis is fired and replaced by a Republican, this will put the GOP in the statehouses of all but one of the five most populous states (the exception being Pennsylvania, where former Philadelphia mayor Ed Rendell was elected governor last year), which would certainly help Bush. (The idea of governors delivering their states for their party's presidential candidate isn't foolproof, though; Davis's predecessor, Pete Wilson, couldn't help George Bush Sr. or Bob Dole carry the state in 1992 or 1996, respectively, and California hasn't voted Republican in a presidential election since 1988.)

Davis is saddling the blame for the state's woes, including rolling blackouts (never mind Enron's role in this) and the collapse of the Internet site industry (forget that the high-tech dot-com bubble was based on good ol' fashioned overspeculation). Granted, Davis hasn't been very effective, but he's dealing with issues beyond his control, and he's expected to make these problems magically go away (well, this is California). One thing he could do is raise taxes on the wealthy, but the Republicans have blocked such an idea in the state legislature.

I won't go into the history of the right to recall governors in California or the use of propositions to let voters overrule the state legislature (there are plenty of far more reliable sources of information for that), but it's pretty clear that the California GOP, increasingly limited to a somewhat puny voter base in Orange County and the mostly rural areas of the San Joaquin Valley, is usurping the democratic process to hijack the workings of state government. Refusing to accept the fact that there was a gubernatorial election in the state just last year and that they lost, Republicans are scheming to use every method possible to overturn the people's voice and replace Davis with a governor most people do not want.

So will Davis hang on? Who will replace him if he doesn't? Arnold Schwarzenegger? The LA model/professional celebrity/Gladys Glover manque Angelyne? A Green Party member? Mickey Mouse? Stay tuned.