Conason: West Coast Farce No Laughing Matter

[kskiska]

California’s current freak show, also known as the recall campaign, has rightly been disparaged as a parody of democracy. Bankrolled by a millionaire car-alarm salesman, the impending "election" now threatens to depose a governor who was duly elected seven months ago. Among the hundreds of publicity hounds who have filed to run, the candidate most likely to win is an actor who refuses to talk about issues or speak with reporters, except to repeat hackneyed one-liners from his old movies. The estimated cost will be no less than $66 million, further depleting a state whose politically overburdened finances supposedly provoked this exercise.

The darkly comedic quality of this situation is illustrated by reports that New York Governor George Pataki—as guilty as his California counterpart, Gray Davis, of misleading voters about his state’s fiscal condition last year—will soon venture out to the coast to campaign for the recall. Mr. Pataki, whose popularity ratings have plunged since his own re-election, is fortunate indeed that voters will have to wait slightly less than four years to dump him.

Bizarre as it surely is, the California recall is just the latest in a series of episodes that demonstrate the Republican Party’s unquenchable urge to seize power by whatever means are available—even when that means vandalizing American political norms and traditions. Amusing as it is to imagine Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor of the nation’s most populous state, the impulses leading toward that conclusion are extraordinarily serious and potentially dangerous.

(snip)

Even if the Bush administration wasn’t behind the original recall movement, its operatives have encouraged every step and are scheming to reap the results. (Mr. Issa’s recall counselor was Ben Ginsberg, the prominent G.O.P. election lawyer who oversaw the Bush team in the Florida courts three years ago.)

The President and his advisers don’t care whether the will of last November’s electorate is overturned, or whether this fiasco sets an awful precedent, or whether Mr. Schwarzenegger is qualified to hold office—or even whether the actor shares their conservative social views. What they do care about is getting and holding power.

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http://www2.observer.com/observer/pages/conason.asp

[Pallas180]

1. I think this is one more step in the destruction of this democracy and

the destruction of the "Union".

[Larkspur]

2. This Recall has fascims all over it

The Dems need to draw a line in the sand against this abuse against democracy and that line needs to be California. If we lose California, the Repukes will do to it what they did to Florida and Texas and our democracy will be crippled for a century at least.

[sonias]

3. Contract hit on America

This is the new party mantra for the Republican party. You are either a Republican and vote with us lock step and barrel or we run over you. Yep the Fascist Nazis are taking control all over the country and the American sheeple are still in a daze and quite don't get the meaning.

Wake up America! The repukes are stealing your country, your vote, your jobs, your pensions, your media (what's left of a free press) and the whole time you sit at home watching TV and getting numb.

Sonia