Tom Oliphant has an op-ed today outlining what’s at stake in the California recall. On one hand, it’s a battle over legitimacy that mirror’s what David Brooks has called “the presidency wars.”
To put the mess in more crassly political terms, continued Democratic rule (Davis or Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante) would follow a campaign in which most Republicans would be convinced that victory over Schwarzenegger came only with the aid of dirt.
Conversely, Schwarzenegger would only become governor after a process most Democrats consider a flagrant abuse of a constitutional protection for partisan purposes.
On the other hand, it’s a stalemate on a budget in crisis, with Republicans using holding up brooms (haven’t we seen that one before?) and using the line about California having a spending problem not a revenue problem - all in order to avoid raising taxes. And as Oliphant points out, a Republican gubernatorial victory would not likely encourage Democratic power-holders to agree to slash state spending (and we’re not talking minor cuts for efficiency’s sake here).
Despite the view of the East Coast media that the California race is simply a farce, it may turn out to portend a governance meltdown on the national level. The main difference is that Congress has a credit card from the Dept. of Treasury to go on a spending and tax-cutting spree for a while.
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