Posted on 06/20/2003 8:40:49 AM PDT by John Jorsett
For Sandra West, it was an easy sell.
The Coronado homemaker spotted the Gov. Gray Davis recall table on her way into Home Depot, made a detour, grabbed a pen and signed eagerly.
"It just seems he has his hand in the till all the time and I'd like to slam his fingers in it," she said.
Youseff Ghosn, however, wanted no part of it.
"I never voted for him. I don't like the guy. But I don't like the system the way they're using it," said Ghosn, who owns a dental lab in Point Loma. "This is democracy. You vote someone in, you let it run its course."
The petition drive to force an unprecedented gubernatorial recall election has brought California to the brink of a political earthquake, with San Diego County as its epicenter.
An estimated one-fifth of the 800,000 signatures organizers say they have collected have come from San Diego County. In addition, the bulk of the money fueling the drive has come from Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista, who has spent $800,000 so far.
"We have a very knowledgeable political activist base here," said former Assemblyman Howard Kaloogian, a Carlsbad Republican and one of the recall sponsors. "We've tapped into a popular sentiment that we thought was out there, but didn't know when we began."
In addition, talk-radio hosts, especially San Diego's Roger Hedgecock and Rick Roberts, have relentlessly been beating the drum for the recall.
"I'd change my position on human cloning if we could start with Roger," Kaloogian said.
The drive to remove the Democratic governor is a unique exercise in street-level democracy.
Clipboard-toting signature gatherers have been stationed outside supermarkets and retail stores all over the county.
Some of the circulators are local political party activists. Some are devotees of conservative talk radio. Others are paid by the signature, by one camp or the other.
Some are soliciting signatures for the Davis recall petitions, some for an anti-recall petition sponsored by Davis supporters, and some for both.
"For a state like California that is so TV and radio-oriented, all of a sudden you have this going on, which is the ultimate one-on-one retail politics," said Steve Smith, who is on leave from the Davis administration to direct the anti-recall campaign. "It's very different for this state."
Recall sponsors must collect the signatures of 897,158 registered California voters by Sept. 2 to force a special election, but they are hoping to get 1.2 million in case there are invalid signatures.
They are aiming to turn in the petitions by early next month to force a fall election rather than combining a special election with the Democratic presidential primary next March, which presumably would give Davis an advantage.
If there is a special election, voters would decide two questions on the same ballot: whether to recall Davis and who should replace him, if a majority supports the recall.
A pro-Davis committee called Taxpayers Against the Recall, financed primarily by organized labor, is seeking to impede the recall by circulating a rival petition that condemns the campaign as a waste of taxpayers' money and an abuse of the electoral process.
The anti-recall petition has no legal significance. But by paying $1 per signature, the Davis camp hopes to tie up as many professional petition-circulators as possible and drive up the cost of the recall. On Monday, the recall campaign raised its bounty from 75 cents to $1 per signature.
Davis supporters often station their petitioners at locations used by recall signature gatherers.
"They are trying to get 1.2 million people to sign a petition and we are trying to convince those 1.2 million people that they don't want to sign the petitions," Smith said. "We're trying to put people out where they're gathering signatures to say, 'Hey, here's why you shouldn't sign.' "
Recall advocates contend the counter petition drive is an effort to confuse voters.
"They are employing deceit and deception and they are not explaining that this isn't the recall petition," fumed Kaloogian. "They are getting people who want to recall Gray Davis thinking they are signing the recall."
There's no deceit and deception going on outside Home Depot on Sports Arena Boulevard, where Talen James is gathering signatures. "Circulators don't have much of an ideology, so they'll work when they can make a buck," said Jerry Mailhot, San Diego coordinator for the Issa-financed petition drive.
James is pitching recall petitions to Davis opponents, and anti-recall petitions to Davis supporters. For good measure, he has a financial privacy initiative and a petition to raise tobacco taxes as well.
"Would you like to sign a petition to recall the governor?" barks James. "How about one to keep him in? How about one to make it illegal for banks to sell your personal information? Are you a smoker? No? You can sign this to raise the tobacco tax."
Before letting someone sign, James fires off more questions: "Are you a registered voter in San Diego County? Have you moved since the last time you voted? Are you a convicted felon out on parole?"
James used to be a car salesman – by all indications a good one. He prevailed upon a man who had just signed the Davis recall petition to sign the anti-recall petition as well.
"Basically, all it does is take a buck out of his pocket and put it into my pocket," he said.
James is part of a network of people who supplement their incomes or earn their living collecting signatures for one cause or another. Some travel the state in search of petition drives, some the entire country.
"It's definitely a subculture," Mailhot said. "I have people who've gone to Texas and New York, Oregon, Ohio and Washington."
Davis has become the most unpopular California governor in modern history. The approval rating of the governor, who was narrowly re-elected last November over Republican political novice Bill Simon, has eroded as the state's fiscal troubles have deepened.
A statewide public opinion survey conducted late last month by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California found that only 21 percent of the state's likely voters approved of the job Davis is doing.
Still, it remains unclear whether a recall election would result in Davis' ouster. The poll indicated that 51 percent of likely voters would vote to remove Davis, while 43 percent would vote to retain him.
Voters signing recall petitions expressed all manner of reasons.
Some cited the official rationale of the recall – that Davis covered up the magnitude of the state's fiscal problems to win re-election.
"Davis is very dishonest," said Keith Rodda, a mortgage lender. "I think he had to know what was going on with the budget."
Channing Booth, a music teacher at Miramar College, said he believes community colleges have taken a disproportionate budgetary hit. "Build new jails so we can handle all of this because we've cut funding for the community colleges," he said.
Gas station owner Bob Stivens complained that his workers' compensation premiums have doubled.
Most drew a blank on the second half of the recall equation: who they thought should replace Davis.
There is a growing pact among Democratic office-holders not to run for governor on a recall ballot. But the Republican field figures to grow.
Issa has said he would run. Simon is expected to run. State Sen. Tom McClintock of Thousand Oaks has said he is interested; so has actor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Several voters found Schwarzenegger to be an intriguing prospect even if the name didn't always roll off of their tongues.
Michael Maricich of Point Loma drew a blank as he fumbled to name his choice to replace Davis.
"I'd like to see that actor. You know, strong, uh, muscle-bound," he said. "He can't do any worse."
Gray Davis has ignored San Diego because it's a Republican city. It may seem like a sleepy town to those pols in Sacramento, but those folks can really get going when they care enough about something.
Has anyone talked about bringing back Pete Wilson? I know he is anathema to the pro-life crowd, but he sure knew how to govern the state.
I've heard a few nice things said about him, but haven't heard that he's interested. Personally, I wouldn't want him back since his solution to the last state budget 'crisis' was higher taxes and promised budget cuts that never came to pass. For that kind of "solution", I've already got Davis.
Because the Legislature is gerrymandered into permanent Democratic control, the only hope for California and the nation is to get a Republican governor as fast as possible.
Stupid man. The recall is a failsafe measure, put into the Constitution to use when the person you voted in has lied to gt elected, or has turned into an idiot. It is an important aspect of a democracy -- or democratic republic, to be more accurate.
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Monday, June 23. Expected to report over 400,000 signatures.
Don't do it! If the Davis people find enough signatures that appeared on both the real and the fake petition, they can challenge the recall by saying voters were confused. Regardless of the merits of such a challenge, it could delay the recall and the leftwing media will flood the state with unhelpful news and doubt.
Cool. Thanks.
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