Monday, September 13, 2021

Three Comments on the Recall Election

1. Larry Elder's decision to prominently announce his plan to replace Senator Feinstein, when and if she leaves office during her term, with a Republican, was tactically stupid. Elder is going to win the second half of the election, so what matters is the first half. Raising the possibility that recalling him will cost the Democrats their senate majority will surely increase the number of Democrats willing to vote to retain; Republicans were already going to vote to recall. That single decision may decide the election.

2. Raising a scandalous accusation against Newsom's wife only a few days before the election — Rose McGowan's claim that Jennifer Newsom tried to persuade her not to accuse Harvey Weinstein of rape — is pretty good evidence that the accusation, if true, cannot be supported with evidence.

3. But I still plan to vote for recall and for Larry Elder, since he is the nearest thing to a libertarian to have any significant chance of becoming governor of California. I doubt he can do much good even if he wins, given the legislature, but he can at least do less damage than Newsom would.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I guess if you also endorse the likely neofeudalist mess we'll end up with if a critical mass of the populace rejects democracy that's a good call.

Even if so, I'm not sure why you want to add your voice to his preemptive voter-fraud nonsense.

David Friedman said...

I said nothing about voter fraud. I expect any candidate to take positions some of which I disagree with.

Was the legislature rejecting democracy when they set up the recall rules? It's a crazy system, but given that it is current law I can't see what is objectionable about voting one's preferences in it.

I gather "feudalist" for you is just a pejorative term, doesn't have any actual content. Feudalism isn't the only political system other than majority vote that has existed.

Anonymous said...

Well California is notorious for voter fraud. In fact we are already seeing signs of it in the recall election.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/california-republicans-shocked-discover-theyre-already-voted-recall-election

Gordon said...

Voter fraud is like rat sh*t in a 20-bag of rice.