Your “No” vote is really important, so please cast it in this stupid and expensive ($276 Million Dollar) election.
A hundred years ago California added a recall provision for elected office holders so that crooks could be thrown out if they were discovered to be unfit office holders. Unfortunately, the provision was poorly crafted and the result is that our elected state governor could easily be removed and replaced by a candidate with a much smaller share of the votes. If governor Newsom gets less than 50 percent of the cast votes, he must vacate his office. Then whichever of the 46 gets the most votes will be our Governor — regardless of their qualifications or whatever actions they’d promote.
I can easily understand how many people have their own reasons not to love our governor, but that alone is no reason to vote “Yes, throw the bum out.” Even if you are a strongly partisan Republican who looks upon this as the only foreseeable chance for California to have a Republican governor, you should not risk the future of our state by placing an unqualified person in the driver’s seat of the very complex vehicle California has become. In Texas and Florida, we have already seen culture wars produce nutty government opposition to sensible Covid mitigation.
Voting “Yes” to replace Newsom without being entirely certain a fully qualified leader from the pack of 46 will replace him is the equivalent of cutting off your nose to spite your face. Even if one of the 46 could indeed do a better job (something I doubt with a high degree of certainty), how can you think your candidate will prevail over the 45 others? Even if you’ve carefully researched and picked the best of the 46 or if you’ve listened carefully to the radio and are convinced that your guy will “Own the Libs” better than anyone else, the Las Vegas odds are that someone else could well get the nod with their greater share of the votes.
The deck is somewhat stacked against Newsom because without non-partisan sensible voters voting “No” in this election, an election that looks mighty stupid, Newsom could be ejected. If not enough sensible people vote by September 14 with their ballots marked “No”, there will be no telling what sort of untested person will be elected to exercise the great power our Governor has to do whatever damage he chooses to do.
Voting “Yes” is you saying, “It is more important to have a Republican in the Governor’s mansion — no matter who they are — than to have an experienced politician running the show.” If enough sensible folks don’t bother to vote, chances are that we’ll have a Governor far worse than Newsom could possibly be.
Tim Tunks, Ocean Park
