Rich Pedroncelli/AP Photo
Volunteer Merle Canfield assembles yard signs opposing the recall of Gov. Gavin Newsom, at the Fresno County Democratic Party headquarters in Fresno, California, July 29, 2021.
With all the attention that’s been focused, understandably, on the governor of the second-largest Democratic state, liberals’ concern for the future of the governor of what is by far the largest Democratic state—Gavin Newsom’s California—hasn’t really taken hold yet.
It must. Not out of any concern for Newsom himself, but rather for the state.
One reason why California’s September 14 recall election has been largely treated as back-page news is that on paper, the recall looks all but impossible. Democrats outnumber Republicans in California by nearly a 2-to-1 margin, and independents in the once Golden State tend to vote Democratic, too. Democrats hold three-quarters of the seats in both houses of the legislature (and those legislative districts are carved by nonpartisan commissions). Moreover, the ostensible basis for the recall—Newsom’s imposition of mask mandates at various times—really only outrages Trumpified Republicans. How, then, could a recall possibly succeed?
The answer, as I suggested in a recent column I wrote for the Prospect and (in a different version) for the Los Angeles Times, is that, to again quote Yeats (this time more fully), “the worst are full of passionate intensity.” Recalling Newsom has become a matter of urgency for the state’s Republicans, who also know that the only times they’ve won statewide elections in this century have been through low-turnout recalls. The Democrats, by contrast, don’t “lack all conviction” (that’s how Yeats characterized “the best”), but they’ve certainly lacked the conviction that a recall could possibly succeed.
Recent polls seem finally to be dispelling that dangerously mistaken conviction. Several recent polls of likely voters have shown that supporters and opponents of the recall are evenly matched. Democrats, and Newsom himself, have realized that if Democrats don’t vote at a rate that at least approaches the Republicans’, not only will he be tossed from office, but also that the recall candidate most likely to succeed him is Larry Elder, a far-right talk show host who personifies the GOP’s Trumpian delusions. (No prominent Democrat entered the replacement fray, and Elder is by far the best-known Republican entrant.)
With mail ballots about to be sent out to all registered voters (this will be an all-mail, no-polling-place election), Newsom’s campaign has realized that the way to gin up Democratic and independent turnout is to focus on how immeasurably at odds with Californians’ values Elder truly is. California media are also just now beginning to report and run stories on Elder, like that in today’s Los Angeles Times that documents his decades-long disbelief in climate change (a difficult belief to sell at a time when Northern California is burning down), his opposition to mask (not to mention vaccine) mandates (ditto about the bad timing), and his denial that secondhand tobacco smoke is a health hazard. If ever a candidate could be accurately portrayed as Dr. Doom, Elder’s the one. “Elder Wins; You Die” may be a little overstated as a campaign slogan, but as a statement of statistical probabilities when compared to Newsom’s tenure, it’s completely on the mark.
So, what should liberals do about all this in the month remaining before the ballots must be mailed in? Newsom’s campaign has more money than it can spend in the next 35 days, but every liberal organization and union in California should have its members walking precincts and working phone banks to make sure that sufficient numbers of Democrats and independents understand what will happen if Newsom is recalled. That’s what’s required to ensure his retention.
As the delta variant rages on, a number of unions that were trying to balance the need for vaccine mandates against the hesitancy of some of their members have come down on the side of the mandates, so long as the union can join management in working out the particulars. That’s been the position of AFSCME for some time, and I erred last week when I said it was still on the fence about the mandates. My apologies to AFSCME, the linchpin of every effort for the past 60-plus years to build a more egalitarian and democratic nation.
