I believe it was last Thursday that someone publicly predicted
that there could be as many as
“50 to 90” candidates for governor. On Saturday the estimated
figure had climbed to 120; by Sunday morning it stood at 133.
I believe it was last Thursday that someone publicly predicted that there could be as many as “50 to 90” candidates for governor. On Saturday the estimated figure had climbed to 120; by Sunday morning it stood at 133.
Monday morning saw the number 200 being bruited about – apparently filings in some of our less cosmopolitan counties were a little slow in getting reported, and who knows how many others are even now wending their way through fen and thicket to Sacramento to be counted? It’s beginning to sound like the opening lines of the Nativity story: “And the word went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should become candidates for governor. And so it came to pass that …”
I have heard that the candidates list, which will require more time to read than the current DMV driving manual, includes at least three cartoon characters and two inanimate objects.
This actually is the result of a winnowing-down: initially all seven Dwarves threw their cute little hats in the ring, but after much soul-searching six dropped out in order to avoid splitting the ticket. The remaining Dwarf, Sneezy, has vowed to make air quality the number one plank in his platform. He will be joined by Pebbles Flintstone and Dilbert in the “we’re as real as most of the other candidates” contingent; according to my sources the inanimate objects are a fully restored 1953 Corvette the owner of which thinks is at least as cool as Arnold Schwarzenegger and is approximately the same size, and a very popular Mister Coffee machine located in conference room B of Industrial Light & Magic’s studios in Marin.
There is a 100-year-old woman running (she promises to think carefully before committing to run for a second term); there will be both a porn magnate and a porn star on the ballot; we will have environmentalists and religious fanatics and people with startlingly creative solutions to California’s problems most of which will involve aromatherapy (“If elected I will assign a fleet of helicopters to fly over the state spraying all-natural organic hypo-allergenic essence of echinacea on the population, resulting in the public becoming way mellow and like, actualizing their potential”).
But what we will have mostly is liberation from the stranglehold of the major parties on the process of fielding candidates in general elections. For a generation now the right wing of the Republican party has controlled gubernatorial candidates, who could not hope to receive adequate funding and support from the bigwigs unless the candidate catered to their agenda.
And time after time Republican candidates have gone down in flames loyally trumpeting the Birch end of the party’s agenda. If a Republican should win the governorship this time, be it Arnold or Uberroth or another, he will be a moderate, a centrist, beholden not in the slightest to the party bosses, with no dues to pay to the right wing. In fact, even if Davis staves off the recall or if a Democrat is elected, the Republicans now campaigning will become the pool from which future candidates will likely be chosen, and all the big ones are from the left side of their party.
No matter how ludicrous the recall is in so many ways, no matter what form of low entertainment California is about to provide the country as they watch us endure a campaign that will no doubt closely resemble the yapping of a large pack of small dogs followed by wading through a ballot the size of a telephone directory, if the upshot is to allow reasonable Republicans to wrest control of their party from the zealots and True Believers the exercise will be worth the cost. So thank you, Darrell Issa, for bankrolling the latest edition of Survivor Goes to Hollywood. Thank you also for not running in it.
Robert Mitchell is a Morgan Hill attorney.
