Me for Governor!

The United States has long been a loud promoter of the virtues of democracy and all its associated benefits. Then came the debacle that was the 2000 presidential election, ending with a Supreme Court decision in favor of George W. Bush. Now California comes to the front as a showcase of American democracy.

In its beginning, the recall effort looked as more of a forum for airing discontent with how the state was being run. After all, this was the 34th attempt to recall a governor of California, and none had succeeded. The verification of the necessary signatures – a portion of the pitiful voter turnout of the last election – was completed and a referendum was on. The state election authorities struggled with how to actually conduct the poll. Gray Davis was thrust into a campaign to keep his job, and his supporters have done what they could to block, or at least delay, the vote. Supporters of the recall fought back and various lawsuits have come up. The end result of the legal wrangling is that the election will still take place on October 7.

All of this in itself is not such a bad example of how democracy can work – though it does demonstrate how quickly Americans will run to a courthouse when things don’t look so good for them. What has really made this a farcical example of democracy at work is not that a governor can be recalled, but the field of candidates that the voters of California will have to wade through should they decide to recall Davis.

The ballot will be three pages long and contain over 130 names. Anyone meeting the minimum legal requirements was allowed to run. No doubt there will be further lawsuits as the votes are counted, possibly recounted and a team of people try to decide what to do when there are six ‘pregnant chads’, two ‘hanging chads’ and a write in for Ralph Nader on a single ballot.

The ballot also appears to be a free-for-all-I-want-to-revive-my-career publicity blitz. Out of work former child actors, porn stars and comedians jumped on the bandwagon, claiming the whole time to be serious while going on a game show or smashing fruit with an oversized mallet to promote their campaigns. Others with a desire to get their fifteen minutes of fame jumped up, waved their hands and added their names to the list, and in at least one case put on a sumo display in his back yard to show how serous a contender he was. Any semblance of a political platform, ideas about how to run a state, particularly one with a larger deficit than the GDP of a good many countries, or experience was not considered necessary. This is true of some of the leading candidates as well.

None of the top contenders really seems to know what to do with California’s budget. The leading republican is better known for being huge and doing movies in which things explode a lot, and has so far done little to inspire much confidence in his leadership abilities. The leading democrat, trying to position himself as a fall back if the recall succeeds, is part of the administration that oversees the current mess. The Republican Party is salivating at the chance to simply take control, going so far as to tell their politically experienced candidates to get out of the way to help ensure victory, while the democrats are fighting tooth and nail not to relinquish it.

Quite an example indeed.