Gray Davis recall effort gains steam (different from earlier article w same title)

Website sees over 10,000 sign-ups in 1st 4 days Californians fed up with Democratic Gov. Gray Davis are taking to the Internet to express their disgust, as the website dedicated to an effort to recall the governor collects thousands of supporters' names.

"In the first 96 hours since the Recall Gray Davis effort was launched, over 10,000 Californians have signed up to join the recall campaign at the official recall website, http://www.RecallGrayDavis.com , " former Assemblyman Howard Kaloogian, statewide chair of the Recall Gray Davis Committee, announced yesterday.

In a statement, the recall organization said those signing up on the website agreed to circulate petitions and volunteer their time to help qualify the recall for a special election. Although Davis was elected to a second term just last November, beating Republican candidate Bill Simon, the recall organizers are confident that enough Californians are dissatisfied with Davis to vote him out of office.

If the required 897,000 signatures of registered voters are collected within 160 days, a recall election could be scheduled by late summer. Along with asking voters if Davis should be removed from office, the ballot would include names of potential replacements should the recall succeed.

"Californians are clearly fed up with the corrupt and incompetent policies of Gray Davis. The people feel betrayed by the lies and deception Davis used to hide the seriousness of the state's budget crisis, only to reveal the truth after he was re-elected. But Californians are taking action with this recall effort to save their schools, their public safety services and their take-home pay!" said Kaloogian in the statement.

The website includes a new "Questions and Answers" forum to address questions about the recall process. Also online are what organizers call the "Top Five Reasons to Recall Gray Davis."

The recall campaign is not only looking to Republicans to support the effort, but also Democrats and Independents.

We are in discussions with leaders from all political parties to ensure that this is a broad-based effort that unites the people of this state out of their shared disdain for Gov. Davis' deceptive methods and destructive policies," Kaloogian said.

According to the Orange County Register, recalls against California state officials have been tried 118 times in 90 years. Those efforts have succeeded only four times. Former governors, including Govs. Pat Brown, Ronald Reagan, Jerry Brown and Pete Wilson, have faced recall attempts 32 times.

I suspect that this article has compared apples and oranges in its paragraph on statistical possibilities. It says that "Recalls have been attempted 118 times over 90 years, but has succeeded only four times."
They are comparing the number of times that recall efforts were LAUNCHED to the number of times the official was voted out of office. The critical question is, how many times has a petition effort SUCCEEDED in placing the question on the ballot, to the number of times that the voters chose to remove the official from office.
The history of citizen action in California shows that most such efforts (usually on issues, not recalls) fail in the signature-gathering process. They don't get enough valid signatures to earn the right to be voted on. Four successes out of 118 tries looks like impossible odds. But if that is 4 successes in, say, eight recall elections, it looks quite different.
Recall is a two-stage process. If Davis is as generally disliked in California, as Perot was (initially) liked in the nation in 1992, the result of the first stage can be predicted. People turned out in droves to work for Perot and sign his petitions. All his petition drives succeeded overwhelmingly, filing more than twice the needed signatures in less than the required time.
If Davis has a corresponding level of unpopularity, the petition drive will succeed quickly and the only issue will be the likelihood of the voters deciding to dump Davis.

Congressman Billybob

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Interesting point Billybob - the way the recall prospects are considered is based on statistics that may not accurately put the chances of success into an accurate light.

What I think is intersting is to see articles like today's Sacramento Bee where DEMOCRATS in California say they are not only dismissing the recall effort, but they are THINKING OF JOINING IT!

That to me speaks volumes as to the potential danger the Democrats see Davis in and how they are watching to see how much steam the recall movement generates!

My guess is that political observers of all parties in the state will continue to keep a close eye on the progress of the recall effort and so far there seems to be a gruding admittance that this effort might have more prospects for succeeding compared to any other previous recall effort!

Stay tuned! And in the interim keep signing up, request petitions and send in contributions! This effort will be expensive and Davis is a master of raising money so it will take vast sums to compete with him in the dollars race.

One final word! Petitions are NOT available yet - the Secretary of State could try to delay approval of the process by as much as a couple weeks. The earliest the petitions could be ready would be about February 20th.

So this gives us time to organize and prepare.

Go to the website, sign up, and get people you know who are also disgusted with Davis to sign up!

www.RecallGrayDavis.com

For freedom and our future!

The California Republican Central Committee is not in a position to benefit from Davis' recall at this time. California conservatives are better served to attack key Democratic legislators, but even this effort is an uphill battle until they can develop a functional, cohesive, statewide party.

At the very best Davis' recall will result in a executive branch that obstructs the intentions of the legislature, further deepening California's economic woes and at worst his recall could result in a cooperative executive that capitulates to the legislature driving California's vision further to the left.

Although a bitter pill to swallow, conservatives need to stop dwelling on past outrages and recognize that the enemy presently at the gate is the Democratic legislature.

Leave Davis in office. Let Davis lead the charge to highlight the problems with the Wesson/Burton leadership. Step out of the way while the Democratics destroy their image over the next 8 months.

Logically, can a recall be beneficial to conservatives if it is supported by liberals. Think about it.

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