Recall Fits Tradition of Fed-Up Voters

Sacramento

Patience! By Saturday night we’ll know the complete composition of the candidate circus. But a larger question will remain unanswered for a while.

That question:

Is this recall attempt -- while historic -- just a sharp-shoot at Gov. Gray Davis? Or is it a cluster bomb being dropped on the entire political establishment?

A nasty storm or a political earthquake?

State Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer, a savvy, career politician, puts it this way:

“America is about popular sovereignty. We have a long history. Read Thomas Jefferson and Tocqueville.

“While Americans generally are disinterested in the day-to-day workings of government, about once a decade they have reasserted themselves and reminded the politicians that they are in charge. If Davis is standing in front of one of those moods, it will be very hard to change.”

Like when California voters approved term limits in 1990. Passed the property tax-cutting Proposition 13 in 1978. Repealed a state open-housing law in 1964 that banned racial discrimination. (This later was ruled unconstitutional by the courts.)

Each time, the public’s mood was anti-political establishment -- “send ‘em a message.”

Each citizen-created ballot measure shook up California politics.

And note the time intervals: ‘64-’78-’90. Now ’03.

Are Californians in another of those assertive, two-by-four across the chops moods?

“I don’t know,” says Lockyer.

We probably won’t know until the night of Oct. 7, election day.

Recall strategists have been comparing their movement to Proposition 13 in one regard: Political insiders woke up late to what was going on in the hustings. “People in our Beltway didn’t believe it could happen,” says Dave Gilliard, who ran the recall signature-gathering effort bankrolled by multimillionaire Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista).

Davis seemed in denial for months -- as his old boss, Gov. Jerry Brown, had been on Prop. 13. With Davis, there’s a pattern: The governor who initially dallied before confronting the energy and budget messes -- setting himself up for the recall -- was also slow to react to the attempt to yank him from office.

Despite Davis’ spin, this recall effort did not begin as a Republican Party plot, nor even a right-wing conspiracy. It was started by a mischievous Republican campaign consultant, Sal Russo, still smarting from his client Bill Simon’s ugly but close loss to Davis last year -- and by Ted Costa, a longtime anti-tax activist seeking a project and new members for his organization, People’s Advocate.

Still, everybody agrees, the recall never would have qualified for the ballot if Issa -- a politically ambitious conservative gunning for Davis’ job -- had not spent $1.7 million of his own money to buy the signatures.

That said, it was awfully easy to collect those signatures.

And one simple answer is there’s a lot to be anti-Davis about: the incessant fund-raising that smacked of corruption through his first term. His inability -- or unwillingness -- to get out front and lead. His failure to work effectively with legislative leaders. Arrogance and rudeness. Hackneyed photo-ops.

Then there’s what fellow Democrat Lockyer last week called Davis’ “puke politics,” symbolized, he said, by the “trashy campaign on Dick Riordan” in the 2002 Republican primary.

But disliking -- even hating -- a governor wouldn’t ordinarily fuel the first gubernatorial recall election in California history.

“It seems to me there’s more going on here than just another example of somebody buying an initiative or even recalling Davis,” says Mark Baldassare, pollster for the Public Policy Institute of California. “For many people, it’s a chance to stand up and be heard and say how really mad they are.

“The thing about social or political movements, you just don’t know when they’re going or where they’re going next.”

“My fundamental view,” says Republican political analyst Tony Quinn, “is that people are striking out against the political establishment. If they could punish the whole gaggle of them, they would.... It’s a real assault on the political class and could very well apply to President Bush next year.

“Gray Davis is the rabbit with his head out of the ground. And he’s taking the shot.”

Nobody disagrees that Davis stuck his head out himself, thumbed his nose at people and became an inviting target.

A ripe target for citizens not only angered by energy costs, state borrowing, the car tax and service cuts -- they call it mismanagement -- but disillusioned by a cluttered national landscape of tarnished institutions: corporate scandals, eroded savings, pedophile priests. Where are those so-called weapons of mass destruction? Where’s Bin Laden?

Sure, the recall’s about Davis. And the outcome may depend on performances in the candidate circus. But this is feeling a lot like another California temblor.