California Governor Gray
Davis may soon join an elite club; the only thing is
he may not want to be a member! Only one other
Governor in history has ever been successfully
recalled and that was North Dakota Governor Lynn
Joseph Frazier in the early 1920’s.
Secretary of State Kevin
Shelley announced a group called Rescue California
qualified enough signatures to recall troubled
Governor Gray Davis. Legally they needed 897,158
valid signatures and the group turned in 1.6 million
signatures with over 1.3 million of them being valid.
Lt. Governor Cruz Bustamante has set Election Day
from Tuesday, October 7, 2004.
SO HOW DOES THIS WORK?
The ballot will list two questions. The first
question is “yes” or “no” to recall Gov. Davis.
Voters will then choose from a list of candidates to
replace him.
Just exactly who is going
to run is the much bigger question. Rep. Darrell Issa
has funded much of the recall effort in hopes of
running for Governor. Republican insiders have
problems with Issa because of his conservative
ideology as well as his past arrest record for car
theft and other violations. Much has been made of
popular actor Arnold Schwarzenegger and his possible
run. The Terminator 3 star has stated he would like
to run for Governor but won’t make an announcement
until after his is done promoting his new movie.
Popular former LA Mayor Richard Riordan has also
expressed interest in running. Riordan and
Schwarzenegger have also agreed not to run against
each other in order to give the Republicans a stronger
chance to be California’s next CEO.
On the other side of the
isle, Major Democrats have denounced the recall effort
and say they don’t support it. Democratic Nation
Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe recently met with
major CA Dem office holders attempting to keep them
from announcing their candidacy in hopes voters will
not like the choices the Republicans offer and will
vote “No” on the recall effort.
Will that happen- no one
knows. There has been much talk about Lt. Governor
Cruz Bustamante, Attorney General Bill Lockyer and
actor/activist Rob Reiner eyeing California’s top
seat. Some were even looking forward to a Reiner/Schwarzenegger
(or Meat Head/Terminator) match-up.
Leading the pack for the
Dems, as well as in the polls, is moderate Senator
Dianne Feinstein. She is the most popular elected
official in the state and has attempted to run for the
seat before. She lost to Davis in the Dem primary
after Davis ran ads comparing Feinstein to hated hotel
vixen Leona Hemsley...so as you can imagine, there is
no love lost between Feinstein and Davis.
Should Feinstein announce
her candidacy Davis’ fate would somewhat lie with
Senator Feinstein. Anyone wondering if Davis is
rethinking that ad now? Additionally, if Feinstein
wins the Governor seat, she would be able to appoint
her Senate successor and lock the seat for Dems for
the rest of her term. Should that happen, essentially
the Republicans would have set up a scenario in which
they replaced the weakest and least popular Democrat
with the strongest and most popular Democrat.
And where is San
Francisco is all of this? There are both a Mayor’s
race and a District Attorney’s race slated for
Election Day on November 4…just a few weeks after the
recall election. Voters in San Francisco can expect
to be bombarded with Vote by Mail campaign literature
and telephone calls for both the recall and the
various local races. Campaign staffers are nervous
about the potential for confusion about voting and are
tinkering with strategy as we read.
The race for SF Mayor has
significantly tightened and according to the latest
poll and it seems Treasurer Susan Leal is moving up
fast. Among the highlights from this poll of 550
likely city voters is that Leal moved from 2% up to
14%. She is in double digits and within striking
distance of the leading candidates. Though
frontrunner Gavin Newsom still leads, he has dropped
sharply to 27%, followed by Supervisor Tom Ammiano at
21% and former Supervisor Angela Alioto at 19%.
The campaigns of mayoral
hopeful Susan Leal and would-be District Attorney
Kamala Harris received a much-needed boost Monday
night with the overwhelming endorsement of the Alice
B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club, The City's largest
partisan political club. Leal captured 69 percent of
the Alice vote and Supervisor Gavin Newsom came in
second with about 25 percent. The Leal endorsement
marks the first time the powerful organization has
backed a gay candidate for mayor, having been solidly
behind Mayor Willie Brown during his 1999 historical
race against write-in candidate Ammiano, who is gay.
It’s still early and with
the Davis recall as well as good ‘ole San Francisco
politics, we have learned that in San Francisco
politics…anything can happen.
San
Francisco Politics 
Governor
Davis Recall #2