Daviscerations

"My vision is to make the most diverse state on earth," said potentially outgoing California governor Gray Davis this Thursday, "and we have people from every planet on the earth in this state. We have the sons and daughters of every, of people from every planet, and of every country on earth." Wow. It's controversial enough that he wants to give driver's licenses to illegal aliens, but apparently he even thinks they're real aliens! I at least hope they're bipeds who can reach the pedals.

All teasing aside, I don't think the recent curiously comical Davis statement is particularly troubling, any more than I'm worried about Bush's occasional polysyllabic slip-ups -- Quayle graduated with high honors from a prestigious law school, after all, and look how amusingly tongue-tied he got on, well, nearly every filmed occasion. Doesn't mean he was an idiot. Just, well, not a good public speaker. Which, I suppose isn't exactly reassuring when we're talking about leaders of the free world, but I'd still rather have an intelligent bad speaker than one who blends eloquence with idiocy.

No, I'm much more concerned with the bizarre public statements of prominent Democrats rallying to Davis' defense, especially those of former President Bill Clinton: "It's California I worry about. I don't want you to become a laughingstock or the beginning of a circus in America where we throw people out for making tough decisions."

What an odd concept. I mean, I'm not saying that Davis didn't, in fact, make tough decisions. But hardly anyone is arguing that Davis made the right tough decisions. The state's economy is in shambles, the 70s-style tax increases have scared most business and enterprise away, and by refusing to build any new power plants in decades for environmental reasons, the state has to deal with rolling power grid blackouts (despite having the most expensive and highest taxed electricity in the nation). Not to mention the extremely well documented cases of corruption and fraud with regards to Davis' fundraising activities. (Hell, even the aformentioned Clinton speech was likely illegal.) Davis' ratings in public opinion polls are also the lowest on record. So, who cares if Davis' decisions were "tough"? They were the wrong decisions, over and over and over again. He got away with it by taking the largely Democratic state voters for granted, and now he's being called on it. As well he should. (As an aside, I also find it very interesting that the official Democratic line is that, of course, Davis had nothing to do with California's economic difficulties, that it's all circumstantial, that it's a global recession, etc. Oh wait, but Bush? Oh, Bush is responsible for all the federal deficit problems. They were all within his control, and he personally, gleefully laid off as many people as possible. Right. No inconsistency there.)

Keeping with the script, Davis himself naturally claims that this is all a "conspiracy" attempt by Republicans to redo elections they can't fairly win. Fox News' Alan Colmes has even gone so far as to accuse Republicans of just not really liking the democratic process, using this recall and the 2000 Florida debacle as "evidence." But there's a reason recalls are so rare. A huge, huge number of people have to get very, very upset about things, as has happened here. Over a million voters signed the petitions required to oust him, and polls consistently show more than half the state supporting his ouster, including significant percentages of Democrats and independents. To say this recall effort is the result of some calculated right wing coup is pretty insulting to half of the state's electorate, isn't it? How on earth does Davis expect to stay in office with that attitude?

Oh, I mean, how on earth, or any of the other surrounding California populace-suppying planets, of course.

My point here is that Davis, and his defenders in his party, just don't get it. If a politician does a horrible job, and it's within the state's constitution to remove him under those circumstances, then the people have both a right and a duty to act. Fighting the recall effort, trying every possible legal tactic to delay the effort, and insulting over half of the electorate who support the effort, is not only a bad political move, but is a pretty damning example of Davis' contempt for the average Californian, which, of course, is the whole reason the recall is happening! It is only because Davis' last real opponent (Simon) was the most incompetent gubenatorial candidate in thirty years that Davis got to squeak by into another term, anyway, and to make that sound like a voter mandate which is now in danger of being "overturned" is an exercise in wishful thinking. Does Davis really surround himself with people that insist the state loves and supports him, despite no evidence of any kind to support this? Hey, Bush might have won on the slightest of technicalities but at least he wasn't out there claiming he had some overwhelming mandate to govern -- hell, he even added Democrats to his cabinet as way of gap-bridging. Davis needs to realize that, outside of his inner circle, his support among the people he's supposedly representing truly is thin, that it's not some wacky Republican conspiracy, and that if he wants to regain the trust of the average Californian, he needs to admit that some of his more egregious "tough decisions" may very well have been bad ones.

Yes, it's easier to blame others for your problems. But that doesn't mean it's wrong for those paying attention to blame you.