Recall: The Dems are arguably stealing the election from the Greens

[redeye]

Let's look at the situation at hand as it was two weeks ago. Ah-nold was only considering running, Arianna hadn't announced yet, and the DNC was firm not to run anybody. Essentially, the only serious left candidate in the race was Camejo, who had a pretty good chance to win considering that the GOP's vote was split between several extremist candidates. At worst, Riordan would win and frankly I prefer him to Davis.

Now, by deciding to run Bustamante in the replacement, the Dems have taken from the Greens their only chance, maybe ever, to win a serious office. We're not talking about Nader's 3% in 2000, but about Camejo who could've gotten 30% if the Arianna supporters and liberal Dems had supported him.

Thus, to the same extent that Nader stole the 2000 election from Gore, the DNC and Bustamante have now stolen the replacement election from Camejo (even though admittedly they're running to win, not to make a statement). Perhaps the only chance the Greens had to hold an office higher than school board president or mayor of a city that nobody's heard of is now all but gone.

[Booberdawg]

1. That's not stealing ...

that's just good old honest to God politics

[ping_PONG]

3. You're right that it's not stealing

The only person that has a legitimate gripe about the election being stolen, it's Gray Davis. He was just elected less than a year ago, and this happens because a measly 850,000 signatures could be gathered?

[the_sam]

14. Except when practiced by the Greens...

That's the standard that's typically applied in these forums, anyway.

[pruner]

2. neither the Greens nor the Republicans...

rightfully deserve this chance to capture the Governorship in the first place.

[Terwilliger]

4. nor the Democrats

why are they in the race?

[pruner]

6. agreed

two wrong's don't make a right, but in this case I'd rather see the Democrats run someone as a "safety", instead of just hoping the electorate keeps Davis in office on principle.

[Democat]

5. The Democrats won in a legal election

This 100 year old law allows a small percentage of voters to nullify the votes of everyone who voted in California.

The person who is being screwed here is Davis and the party that is being screwed is the Democrats.

The Greens have nothing to lose to start with.

However, the greens can help change a Democrat governor into a Republican one if they want to.

[nayt]

24. a small percentage of voters?

a recall doesn't allow a few people to overthrow a governor. if gray davis wasn't so massively unpopular right now, if the voters didn't want him out of office, he would win the recall. it sounds perfectly like democracy to me.

[Democat]

28. You are wrong, look into how the 100 year old rule works

800,000 people, convinced by people being paid $1 per signature, have nullified the votes of over 7 million people who voted less than a year ago.

The recall is only by a simple majority, regardless of how few people vote in the recall compared to the previous election.

A small percentage of extremists have nullified the votes of all of the statewide voters.

If three people come out to vote in the recall election, and two of them vote to get rid of Davis, then he is gone, regardless of the fact that 3.5 million people elected him less than a year ago.

This is the opposite of democracy, it is the undermining of democracy by a rich right wing extremist paying $1 a vote to nullify the results of a legal election.

[nayt]

34.

the recall is only by a simple majority no matter how many people vote!? so is the general election. everyone who voted in the general election has the chance to vote in the recall. every citizen over 18 has a say in whether davis gets recalled.

it doesn't matter how you spin it, if davis had the support of most californians, he wouldn't be in this recall mess. it sounds like democracy to me.

[Jack Rabbit]

36. It is democracy, but not at its best

The Recall, Refernedum and Intiative were reforms written into the California state in 1911 at a time when political corrpution was a critical problem. Southern Pacific RR was charging high shipping rates to cover the cost of bribing politicians.

The point of these reforms was that if the politicians were too crooked to act, the people could take matters into their own hands. As a personal matter, I support this concept.

However, the historical view of the Recall also implies that one should only remove a statewide official for the same reasons for which he could be impeached. Davis, in my judgement, has made mistakes, even some serious ones. Nevertheless, he is guilty of no malfeasance. Therefore, I shall vote to retain.

The Republicans are pushing the recall because he is unpopular at least momentarily. They seek nothing more than to re-do an election held less than a year ago because they might get a more favorable result now. This is an abuse of the recall.

The Republicans are supposed to be the conservative party. A good conservative will put the breaks on when democracy runs rampant and demogogues invite the people to raid the candy store. Yet in this movement the Republicans are the demogogues. This is a good example of what Alexander Hamiliton would call mobacracy.

Let's hope that reason prevails and the people turn away this unwise attempt at another velvet coup.

[w4rma]

7. This recall is "stealing" the election from Gov. Grey Davis, IMHO (n/t)

[JackSwift]

8. Another Green alternate reality thread

How about if Greens actualy start studying politics and political theory?

Why don't they just try running The Hulk? He's Green, big and popular.

There is a reason that Greens do not have a single state level elected official nationwide, and only a couple of city coucil seats nationwide: their level of political sophistication would embarass third grade geeks not part of the cool kids.

One of the chief problems that the Greens have is that it is more important to them to defeat "lite" versions of their policies by their opponents than to get their own people elected. Politics isn't a day at the beach, it's swimming in a sewer of compromise to get anything done.

[Iverson]

10. piffle

Since your post is uncontaminated by facts, let me suggest your own Green-bashing thread. You will get plenty of support for pronouncements about what other people do or do not understand, and there will be no particular injuction for accuracy or civility there either.

[Name removed]

12. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Iverson]

15. defaming character is a bad idea

There's a reason that it called State Representative.

I will ignore your irrelevant secondary criticisms.

[Name removed]

16. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Iverson]

yawn

Provoking people is amply demonstrated in your note #8. Perhaps you were thinking of that.

Clearly you are not open to actual exchange, so I offer the final pointless and agressive insult to you.

[JackSwift]

20. Spawn

Yes, you are rather insulting.

I would love to meet you sometime. Drop me an email if you are ever in the SF Bay Area.

[absolutezero]

17. NJ

has a green in the state senate

[JackSwift]

19. I stand corrected then

but it really doesn't undermine my argument. With upwards of 5,000 national legislators, the Greens have one? After calling themselves the Green party for at least 23 years that I know of? With 3 percent of the electorate voting for them?

What do they do, use negative organizing? Actually, that is my point is that they engage in the opposite of organizing.

Audie Bock was elected to the state assembly a few miles away from where I live, and the Greens managed to convince her to leave the party and reregister as an independent within a few months of being elected.

[redeye]

25. If the US didn't have its winner-take-all system...

...you'd expect the Greens to hold about 150 state assembly seats and 55 state senate seats (there are ~1800 in total), as well as 13 House seats. Anything below that is underrepresentation that is not the fault of the Green party but of the winner-take-all system.

[Iverson]

9. mischievous argument

Much as I want to see further Green successes, the argument as you have presented it is weak. They hysterical acrimony against Greens on the part of Democrats is so well known that it must be presumed. It has been demonstrated that the party apparatus far prefers "bipartisanship" with Republicans to working with Greens.

Further, no one candidate should presume ownership of votes. Thus, a Dem candidate could not "steal" votes from Camejo. This very point I and other Greens try unsuccessfully to make over and over again to unreceptive Dems. Our arguments must be consistent.

The real problem here in terms of electoral strategy is the appearance by the Democrats of dithering. That cannot help; it can only hurt.

[John_H]

13. the party apparatus far prefers 'bipartisanship' with Republicans"

I have no doubt that the Dem leadership would prefer to hang out at the student union Starbucks discussing with Greens the finer points of nationalizing the Fortune 500, but unfortunately they are in DC where Green elected officials are about as rare as Republicans with hearts.

Green ideology may be unsullied by such nasty business as political reality, but 2 percent doesn't merit "working with" or "bipartisanship." Since influence comes from votes and votes come from people agreeing with your agenda, it seems to me that, well, there will have to be some "further Green successes."

[Iverson]

18. setting an example too much to ask?

Perpetuating a caricature that you know to be false is troubling, and if you do not know better, then even worse.

How quickly you excuse standing "shoulder to shoulder" with a fraudulent administration that shreds the Constitution and the Geneva Convention at a stroke. It sort of undermines your condescension about "political reality." Down your road, "political reality" will have the Democrats dissolve right where they stand.

[JackSwift]

21. Wow

acting like a democratic mascot in two sub-threads at the same time. What an achievement.

[redeye]

26. You're right...

...but I was basically saying, what the Dems do to the Greens in the recall is akin to what the Greens did to the Dems in 2000, regardless of what you call it. I personally call it two different parties with diferent platforms; some prfer the term stealing. Bustamante doesn't steal votes from Camejo, but his running indeed denies Camejo/Arianna the governorship. However, since Nader did just that in 2000 (although unlike Bustamante, he ran to get federal funding in 2004, not to win), if Nader stole the election from Gore, emphasis on if, then logically Bustamante is stealing teh election now from Camejo.

[private_ryan]

11. Rule #2: don't get high on your own supply

Gray Davis is a green, right? He's the only one having something stolen.
Personally I hope greens NEVER hold an office like that

[dansolo]

22. Do you mean after the Greens stole it from Davis?

I can guarantee you that the Greens would be voting "YES" on the recall if there was any chance for Camejo. Why should the Dems care about Camejo when he would be perfectly willing to sabotage a rightfully elected governor in this sham of a recall?

[JackSwift]

23. Here is a list of candidates

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2003/08/09/state2235EDT0186.DTL

from the Chronicle compiled by the AP

[redeye]

27. What do you mean, rightfully elected?

Nixon was rightfully elected. If there had been a recall in 1974, a year and a half after he tore McGovern apart, then even McGovern could've won.

Hoover was rightfully elected, and in an landslide. If there had been a federal recall provision, he'd have been out of the job by spring 1930 - would you have blamed the voters then for 86ing someone who wasn't responsible to the Depression but sure didn't do anything to correct it?

[Julien Sorel]

29. This is one of the most absurd pieces of reasoning I've ever

seen. A Democrat decides to run in an election that never should have happened in the first place, and that means the Democrat is 'stealing' the election from the Green candidate? Be realistic, first of all: Camejo had no, zero, nada, zilch, null, nought chance of winning unless his only opponent was a drug-addicted, convicted child molester with a speech impediment and a bad case of acne, and body odor so bad you could smell it through the TV set. The Greens are a fringe party, they act like a fringe party, and from what I've seen of their supporters, they actually like being a fringe party. The voting public will honor their wishes, and treat them as such. Given the choice between Arnold and a Green, whom would the public choose? The Green? Fucking ridiculous.

Second, the premise itself is absurd on its face. The election was Camejo's for the taking, but all it took was one,1 Democrat to declare his candidacy, and suddenly Camejo is relegated back to the fringes? It just underscores what any rational person knows from the start: he never had a chance, was never a serious threat to take the election. Any reasonable Democratic or Republican candidate would beat the shit out of him and leave him bloody and whimpering; your scenario depends on no Democrat at all running, and so Camejo would siphon off DEMOCRATIC voters. Bustamente won't be siphoning off Green voters, as you were hoping would happen with Camejo. It seems rather obvious that the person doing the siphoning is the real thief, doesn't it?

When the Greens have more than a fraction of a percent of the populace in their membership base, when they have some kind of viable electoral organization, and, most importantly, when they have a platform popular enough that most Americans stop thinking of them as an irrational group of puerile tree-huggers, then they can talk about people stealing elections from them. A party that has to rest its hopes on another party not running a candidate is a joke, not something that has to worry about elections being 'stolen' from it.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

30. Hey brainiac...

We in California had a chance to vote for your pet Camejo in the last election. Remember that? That funny little thing that happened just a few months ago? And do you remember that outcome?

HE LOST.

He had a fair shot at winning a legitimate gubernatorial election AND HE LOST.

You are arguing that the only possible way a Green can win a CA State gubernatorial election is by some bullpoop subterfuge like this recall/coup.

Frankly that's pathetic.

I hope the Greens continue to strive fro political relevence in a less low way.

[realFedUp]

31. I guess Greens don't like Audie Bock anymore?

She won her seat in the Assembly as a Green...but did
change to being a registered Dem mid-term...guess that's
calling a Green, a Brown now.

[Jack Rabbit]

32. No, they aren't

Keep in mind, this comes from a registered Green.

The Democrats have every right to run a candidate in the recall election, just as do the Greens and the Republicans. The question, and the wording of the post, imply that the Greens have a right to win the recall and that the Democrats are infringing on that right.

Nonsense.

The Democrats were certainly toying with the idea of letting others decide who should replace Davis in the event he is recalled, but now seem to have come to some better judgment -- in spite of Terry McAuliffe's best efforts to the contrary.

As I have said all along, I will vote No on the recall, because I do not believe that Davis' actions were malfeasant, regardless of what else I may think of them; I will vote for the progressive/liberal/centrist replacement candidate most like to deny a Republican victory. That might be Camejo; that might be Arianna; that might be Bustamante.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

33. Irrelevent conclusion. Everyone is trying to steal it from the Dems

[neuvocat]

35. I'm a Green and I'll tell you you're wrong.

Camejo didn't have a chance in hell as evidenced by the numbers he got in the election last year. It doesn't help that he's so arrogant-he actually thought that if the recall were to go into effect that he would be elected.

So let's all follow the logic here: the pukes bankroll the recall and put in a very flashy and popular candidate, one who appeals to a lot of people.

And somehow the dems have stolen the election from us Greens.

O........K............