Posted on: Tuesday, August 12, 2003

EDITORIAL
California paralyzed by its own voters

So bizarre has California's Oct. 7 recall election become that it's making Hawai'i politics look dignified. "More and more like a carnival every day," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein in declining to run.

And that was before actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, as The Los Angeles Times put it, "ended his slow striptease of refusal."

"Is this a joke?" pondered the staid Economist. "Has California, a legendary gathering-ground of America's kooks and crazies, finally gone off the deep end?"

Perhaps it has. The target of this swirl of vitriol, Gov. Gray Davis, has presided — and often dithered — over horrendous energy and budget problems not of his own making. It's unlikely that any other state would seriously contemplate recalling a governor for being a cold fish and a nastily negative campaigner, qualities understood by Californians when they elected him twice.

By the time he'd bid a late-night "I'll be back" to Jay Leno on the day of his announcement, Schwarzenegger was pegged as the front-runner in the race to unseat Davis.

The Internet bloggers were gearing up for an onslaught of scandal material from Schwarzenegger's past, beginning with his unrepudiated link with former Nazi and Austrian leader Kurt Waldheim. Californians, of course, are unconcerned about voting for a reputed lightweight, having famously vaulted Ronald Reagan from "Bedtime for Bonzo" to the White House.

Indeed, Schwarzenegger is a reputedly shrewd and well-informed candidate, a moderate Republican with a link (via wife Maria Shriver) to the Kennedys.

One of the many, many flaws in this unfair procedure is the winner-take-all election that would replace Davis, should he be recalled. At last count, scores of candidates were headed for the ballot, which meant the next governor might be elected by a tiny plurality.

This recall drive, a first in California, was driven by a $1.5 million contribution from a Republican who later tearfully withdrew from the race. He, like many others, was unhappy with Davis for a variety of reasons. But there has been no persuasive evidence that he is guilty of malfeasance or other actions that should require his removal from office.

Neither has any of the many candidates to replace him given the slightest indication to date that he or she has a better idea of how to handle California's fiscal crisis.

"The root of California's problems," wrote The Times, "is not its governor. It is in large part the voters themselves. Voter-approved initiatives over three decades have hamstrung government and assured gridlock."

Theodore Roosevelt warned that ballot initiatives and recalls used "indiscriminately and promiscuously on all kinds of occasions would undoubtedly cause disaster."

California offers proof.