I see that the first statewide recall election was authorized for September or October. It looks like it will be a real partisan fight. What do you Californians think about it?

As Don Henley's lyric says "We get the government we deserve." The Golden State is in a tough spot, but you have to wonder if a change in Sacramento is going to really change things.

I'm a democrat but I agree that this guy is a pretty bad governor. He should serve out his term though. We can't have a system that just removes elected officials on a whim when people don't like them. He was voted into office, he deserves to stay until his tenure is done.

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1983 300D (parked for four years)
2012 VW Sportwagen TDI Manual
2001 Miata SE
1962 Chevrolet Corvair Rampside

Narwhal,
hehe, ok, I won't be so quick to declare myself a democrat. Actually, there are a lot of things about conservatism that I like, I just don't like the Republican party (and I am more to the left of center than I am to the right of center). I agree with what you said re: Davis.

Alex

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1983 300D (parked for four years)
2012 VW Sportwagen TDI Manual
2001 Miata SE
1962 Chevrolet Corvair Rampside

California does have this system. It has been a law since about 1903.
If you had an employee working for you doing a bad job, would you keep him? What if your banker kept messing up your account? Or your bookeeper?
It seems to me that Gov. Davis has been misspending California into bankruptcy and all the while blaming the Republicans.

While Governor Davis has done an awful job, and his approval ratings are abysmally low, I feel fairly confident in saying that California is not a state which will be putting a Republican into the governor's seat anytime soon. The Republicans really haven't offered a viable candidate, and as much as that crook Issa would like to buy the governorship, it simply isn't going to happen. If the Republicans aren't careful about this, it could well backfire and possibly result in a new, better, and overall more liked Democrat governor. So far, they've pledged to stay out of the ring in order to support Gov. Davis, but if Barbara Boxer or Dianne Feinstien were to add their names to the ballot there might well be trouble for Davis. Of course, the same can be said if Arnold decides to run.

The weirdest thing about the whole recall is that if it's successful, the new governor is selected by whoever gets the most votes. Thus, if the vote is split amongst many candidates, someone who only recieved 15 percent of the vote could end up the new governor. Since it only costs $3500 to register oneself as a candidate, there are going to literally be a hundred or so on the ballot. The results of this whole affair should prove interesting.

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Zach
1992 300CE

Without giving an opinion on the California part of this discussion, except to say, "Go Arnie!" I think being able to recall an elected official is an absolutely necessary part of the electoral process in any democracy. I think if we had been able to remove our prime minister by a popular petition we'd have done it years ago. It really bugs me how politicians think they have a mandate to do whatever they like for four or five years just becuase they were the least unattractive candidate at one point in time.

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Jason Priest
1999 E430
1995 E420 - retired
1986 420SEL - retired

bmunse: Californians got the power of the recall in 1911, not in 1903 as you said.

This recall became the first successful governor recall in California because it's been bankrolled by two rich Republican guys: CA state Senator Tom McClintock and US representative Darrell Issa.
Without money, it would have gone nowhere. 31 recall attempts against CA governors have failed to reach the ballot.

Gray Davis has never been a friendly public official in his 30-year political career. He's been simply too stoic and tough toward his staff and fellow Democrats. However, we cannot completely blame the current state budget crisis on him. Blame it on countless stupid investors who dumped their money into the tech stocks during the Internet boom and caused a superficially high budget surplus during Davis' first term. He did use that surplus for education, police and many other good things (including increasing teachers' salaries etc...). When the Internet boom and the surplus money were gone, the level of spending must be accordingly lowered to match the level before the Internet boom, and it's when people are starting to complain about how spending cuts affect this and that. Any stupid or smartass Republican governor would get into the same problem as Davis did.

Davis is not a bad governor. He just does not have the charisma of a friendly leader. He spent money on education and many other good things. Democrats care more about people's actual needs while aweful Republicans just care about how to make rich people richer, how to make poor people poorer, how to keep waging wars to solve foreign nations' problems (if you cannot remedy your own country's problems like economy, why on earth you want to spend money to solve other countries' problems?), how to send our young soldiers abroad to get killed over and over again. Whenever a Republican becomes president, our federal budget deficit seems to triple or quadruple (remember Ronald Reagan's era? and now G.W. Bush?), and the deficit has been caused not by spending too much money for education, for health care, for police, for children etc..., but by spending money for wars and many other bad things....

Eric

he he he Kalifornia, here we come!
Go Arnie!!!!!! Ya know, if he actually runs and wins, you can say he did because he married a Kennedy. Of course, it just shows a bad taste in In-Laws, and you simply cannot choose them. You just have to suffer them.

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1985 190D 2.2l Sold-to Brother-in-law
1996 Mustang 3.8l -"thinks it's a sports car"
1988 Grand Wagoneer - Sold (good home)
1995 Grand Cherokee Ltd -"What was I thinking??!!"

Recall Davis!!

Never cared for him as Lt. Governer either ... he has SCREWED us here in California long enough.

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1992 500E (Daily Driver)
2004 Porsche RUF 955 Dakara 550

Davis? Education? He just screwed both public and higher education, since he axed a lot of funds to the CSU and UC systems, he is screwing me of a good education. The state also took control of the Oakland school district, we'll see how well that fares.

Amen to that. My girlfriend's had multile classes cancelled out from under her due to Davis' cutbacks. In addition, I'm starting at a CSU in a month and am quite fearful of what could happen...I'm independent politically, but would love to see Davis out of office. Even if he didn't directly cause this, he still blatantly lied about it until the day after he got re-elected.

Why not? The people elected him, and if they are not happy with the job he is doing, why should he remain? That's a ridiculous statement.

Mike

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1979 300 SD
350,000 miles
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1982 300D-gone---sold to a buddy
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1985 300TD
270,000 miles
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1994 E320
not my favorite, but the wife wanted it

www.myspace.com/mikemover
www.myspace.com/openskystudio
www.myspace.com/speedxband
www.myspace.com/openskyseparators
www.myspace.com/doubledrivemusic

Davis is not a bad governor????!!! He just needs charisma????!!! The "aweful" (spelling?--so much for that Davis-funded state education, eh?) Republicans???!!! That entire paragraph is textbook-quality Democratic class warfare propaganda. What rock are you living under?....Oh, yeah...You are a Democrat living in Kalifornia.

Mike

__________________
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1979 300 SD
350,000 miles
_____
1982 300D-gone---sold to a buddy
_____
1985 300TD
270,000 miles
_____
1994 E320
not my favorite, but the wife wanted it

www.myspace.com/mikemover
www.myspace.com/openskystudio
www.myspace.com/speedxband
www.myspace.com/openskyseparators
www.myspace.com/doubledrivemusic

Zach ... at this stage of the game, ANYONE can do a better job than GRAY GRAY GRAY Davis. His past term as well as this term shows that he is NOT a leader. Is he solely responsible for the State Budget ... I would say not. The entire group of folks up in Sacramento are responsible. We got SCREWED with the Utility Crisis here in San Diego County ... SCREWED. In my eyes, he did not provide the necessary LEADERSHIP to fight off the Boys in Texas.

(Side Bar ... I love Texas ... worked there often and LOVED the folk out there, however, I'm as happy as a pig in mud that ENRON failed. Those SOBs would aggressive send me advertisments to change over to there side ... very aggressive campaign.)

So, if I slap down $3500.00, how many people would vote for ME?



Keep Diane in Washington ... she's doing a Great Job!
Barbara as well as Nancy needs to retire to the Hot Tubs.
I do think that Willy would be very interesting Leading the State.
Arnold too.

My best choice would be Riordon ... as with Diane, he provided LEADERSHIP as mayor of a LARGE, diverse city .... L.A. and S.F. respectively.

I was born and raised in the Bay Area and consider myself a Liberal Conservative ... yes, I am a registered Elephant, but will ride the Pony (I'm being nice here folks!) if it's a great mount!

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1992 500E (Daily Driver)
2004 Porsche RUF 955 Dakara 550