This Recall is worse than a defeat for Democrats

[SaveElmer]

It is another serious blow to our form of government, and if you ask me, the very fact this recall is taking place at all is an indictment of our educational system.

Our country was not founded on absolute majority rule, but rather on majority rule with very careful protections for minority rights. Our government, and system of selecting our leaders, was set up by our founding fathers, to insulate politicians as much as possible, from they daily ebb and flow of public opinion so that they could make the tough decisions that would inevitably be required. Recalls, and other such nonsense were specifically not included in the constitution for these very reasons. They knew elected leaders would be paralyzed every time they have to make a tough decision if they knew they could be removed from office for it.

This is all changing now

What we have seen from our Republican friends over the last 3 or 4 years is a complete disregard for those principles. Instead of respecting what the founding fathers accomplshed, they have decided that they will throw out these long held beliefs for a win-at-all-costs strategy by using methods outside of our political traditions, to get what they could not using our established methods and poltical structures. The impeachment, Florida, redistricting, and now recalls are all a part of this effort. And the fact that so many people will vote for this, and think this is how democracy should work, is to me, a sad commentary on our educational system, and our ability to instill in people, a respect for our institutions and political traditions.

It won't stop here, the Republicans have been very successful with this strategy so far, the media doesn't call them on it, and the voters don't really seem to care. There will be more attempts at this by the Republicans, and eventually, the Democrats will be forced to follow suit.

Unless there is a radical return of respect in our basic form of government, and a respect for what the founding fathers saw as the danger of purely democratic government, we could find ourselves in serious trouble.

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

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[paulsbc]

2. so you support

removing the recall capability in California and other states?

I agree 100% if that is your position. I think recall as it exists in California law is horrible...

[SaveElmer]

3. Absolutely

The only basis for removing a public official should be for very serious criminal activity, or extreme negligence in performance of their duties.

[Guaranteed]

12. Not yet....

....we gotta get that fucker Arnold out now.

[Guaranteed]

14. Not yet....

....we gotta get that fucker Arnold out now.

[izzie]

4. Yes but not for a bannana republic which we seem to be moving towards.

I swear the country is going mad.

[wbc]

10. I swear the country is going mad.

Oh, great! We're right but the country is nuts!

[tom_paine]

18. Driven mad. By Goebbels v2.0

By psychomanipulative advertising.

By MTV & the music industry, which unwittingly has adopted psychomanipulative advertising techniques as subconscious delivery system in it's videos.

(what are they delivering to our naked subconsciouses? they have no idea but it's cool!)

And as a fish out of water flops more madly and gyrates wildly, so does our society.

[Democat]

5. The Democratic party are fucking wimps!

If the Republicans had any fear of Democrats fighting back then maybe they wouldn't pull this bullshit.

The reality is that our side never learns.

Where is the retaliation? When are the offensive attacks on Republicans to scare them into not pulling this bullshit going to start?

We let them destroy our side by electing pathetic wimpy leaders who care more about being "nice" than winning.

Davis could have won this election if the Democratic Party would have let him be Gray Davis.

People complain about him, but he always wins, except when his hands are tied by "nice" idiots in our party.

I am disgusted with the party tonight like I was on the eve of the 2002 election.

We've learned nothing. We are still failling victim to being nice instead of being winners.

The media sucks, but that means we need to be twice as mean and fight twice as hard!

[coldwatercyn]

6. There must be a Democratic actor who was willing to run!

If we were smart we would have run an actor to oppose Arnold. We blew it.

[wtmusic]

7. Give me a break

"Davis could have won this election if the Democratic Party would have let him be Gray Davis."

What, does he need permission? You're awful big on excuses for Gray Davis. If Davis had an ounce of leadership we wouldn't be in this mess.

[SaveElmer]

8. Maybe not in California - But there is a larger point

This is a larger issue than just who wins where. It is about our system of government. The forces who are willing to gain power by any means possible will look for opportunity anywhere they can find it. Californias financial problems, and their ridiculous recall laws made it easy for it to happen in California. If it didn't hapen there it was going to happen elsewhere. And it will happen again. The root of the problem is a fundamental lack of respect for our political traditions by those on the right.

[NaMeaHou]

9. I somewhat agree

but it is not necessarily an indictment on the educational system.

This is simply put, another show of power by fascists.

It doesn't matter how educated people are. Manipulation and propaganda have effects on all if they are not CURRENTLY knowledgeable. What happened in this country after WWII until the year 2000 has no basis in discussion of what is happening now.

For those not yet brainwashed, hypnotized or living in fear..........

This too, shall pass.

We will regain the principles of our government of the past 200 years by the strength of those we know in the political process now, and those that will yet come.

It may be that we, along with the rest of the world will have to experience another painful period, but the evil propagators will not prevail.

I sometimes feel like giving up, but will not.

I don't like pain and torture and dealing with ignorant people, but here we are.

We go from here.

[wbc]

11. Fascists????

I'm making a lot of boring, repetitive posts, but hell, how does anybody win elections when they explain an electoral defeat on the basis that a majority of the voters are fascists, or idiots, or brainwashed, or whatever.

Is this way of thinking productive??

[SaveElmer]

16. Where did these "Fascists" come from

They didn't just land here from some distant shore (except Arnold of course), they were produced here. Somehow these people grew up into the type of people who would completely lose any respect for our political traditions. That, in my opinion, is a failure of education. Ask also, why so many people voted for the recall. They did so not only because they didn't like Gray Davis, but because they don't realize the consequences of direct governance by public ballot. That too is a failure of our educational system.

[LTR]

13. The silver lining on the black cloud

So Arnold is the winner of this recall sham.

Hope the GOP knows what it's getting itself into.

Schwarzenegger inherits an absolute mess, and a bunch of witty sound bytes will not clean this mess up.

Arnold will make a total ass out of himself, irritating Californians even more, and tilting the staate Democrat even more.

Now THAT'S the prize!

Besides, Arnold is a RINO. Much farther left than your typical neocon. Never understood what they saw in him, aside from name recognition and free publicity.

I'm not whining about this. Not accusing the GOP of playing dirty. But I am laughing my way to next year's elections :LOL:

[SteveG]

15. so you really thought Davis would survive?

Get over it.... we have to work our butt's off over the next year to remove the real stain on our honor... We have to remove the Shrub. The *, the Jerk.... ok I'll give it a name... BUSH ... he has to go, we have to work our asses off to make sure this happens... we do this by supporting whoever comes out on top in the Democratic nomination race ( I can be happy with with anyone but Kucinich or Lieberman - too far left or right for me...) but I will vote for any Democrate who has the balls to run against *. California is still ours... Arnie will have a short honeymoon... and then become a non issue... he will have to deal with reality...and he will lose as long as * is in office. You really can't imagine how grateful I am that my son is has served his time in the 82nd Airbourne, and is no longer libel for military service......

[SaveElmer]

17. Dude, you are missing my point

I knew Davis was out the moment Arnold announced. The problem is that the recall is happening at all. I would be against it if it were a Republican in office. There is no valid reason, short of extreme criminal or negligent behavior to warrant the removel of a duly elected official. It is not good enough to say you don't like him. This is an invitation to chaos, and there are those in this country on the right, who don't care, and will keep pushing this strategy.

[Davis_X_Machina]

19. Welcome to the One-Party State.

In The New America^TM, either the correct candidate, or the candidate receiving a plurality of the votes cast, wins the election.

In cases where the correct candidate and the candidate receiving a plurality of the votes cast are not the same, the correct candidate wins the election.

The ballot is a terrific responsibility, and it is susceptable to being used the wrong way.

People cannot be relied upon to exercise the franchise responsibly, so there must be mechanisms in place when situations arise where the wrong candidate is inadvertently elected.

Welcome to the one-party state.

[Jack Rabbit]

20. Recall Terry McAuliffe

I am tired of the Democrats snatching defeat from the jaws of victory on this guy's watch. There was the 2002 election and now this.

A blind man could see this coming once Issa sunk his money into it. At no time did the Democratic Party, at a state or national level, have any unified plan to defeat the recall. Throughout the campaign, there was never an effort to put together the unified message that the Republicans failed to make the case to recall a sitting governor and that the best qualified replacement candidate was a Democrat. They waited until the last week of the campaign to hit Schwarzenegger. They should have spun his showing in the debate for what it was: a disaster. Every other candidate on the stage -- even one with whom I agree with less than Schwarzenegger -- demonstrated a better grasp of the issues than this flippant neophyte. Instead, they stood by when the next day news coverage went to all Arnold all the time and gave the illusion that here was a real credible candidate.

Terry McAuliffe is there because he can raise money. Fine and well. Let him continue to raise money. Let's replace him with somebody who knows what to do with it. He clearly does not.

[Snellius]

21. It won't seem so bad in the morning. The big shakeup is here!

Arnold is only a temporary diversion for the Republicans. Californians are too apolitical, apathetic, and isolated to see that their problems are rooted in a general collapse of corporate conservatism, in the battle between wealth and democracy, which the Republicans are desperately trying to stave off for as long as they can.

Look at it another way: Finally even the DLC will have to wake up and get rid of McAuliffe and From. This looks good for Dean. The logic of these exploding deficits are ticking away like a time bomb.