| California's Dreaming |
14 July 2003
|
Californians Try to Undo Their Vote
California Governor Gray Davis, a Democrat, is facing a possible recall election if the state Republicans can get enough signatures on petitions by September 2. The
betting
is that they will make it, and there's a fair chance that he will
lose
the vote. However, it is a certainty that his removal will have absolutely no effect on the condition of the state.
The recall is a populist trick of Bonapartist heritage that tries to allow the people to weasel out of their election day commitments. Having voted the bum in, they are allowed to vote the bum out early. Yet unlike a parliamentary vote of no confidence, the bum in question may not have lost any support in the legislature but may have lost it in the media. Representative democracy, for all its faults, is better than rule by the media, what one might term media-cracy.
Turn-out for such an election will be low, and it will be the angry who turn up, not the content. Indeed, Mr. David could be turned out of office on the whim of a vocal minority after having been elected by a far larger group. Yet if he goes, the state will still be broke. The schools still may not have enough money to open. State employees may be laid off. Roads may go unrepaired.
Perhaps Mr. Davis has done a bad job, and perhaps others are in the wings ready to take up the office. However, there is something rotten in the state of California, and it is the political system. Uncompetitive constituencies aggravated by extremist views on both sides of the spectrum invite, even guarantee, gridlock. Until that is resolved, the recall ballot is a side-show.