Tuesday, September 14, 2021

Showbiz For Ugly People: Unscrambling California's Recall Fever

 


<www.sarahepperson.com>


Cheap and tacky bullshit land
Told when to sit don't know where you stand
Too busy recreating the past
To live in the future.

Poor relations to Uncle Sam - 
bears no relation to the country man
Too busy being someone else to be who you really are.
<The Style Council, "Confessions 1-2-3">

<i.>
California's endless recall election is finally winding down today, after weeks of high stakes campaigning. If current polls are accurate, Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom seems on track with survive by a double-digit margin, with roughly 60 percent of voters willing to back him, versus the 38 percent voicing interest in a totally different flavor, Republican Larry Elder.

Those numbers aren't surprising in a state when Democratic voters outnumber Republicans by a 2-to-1 margin. Another reminder comes from the return rate for mail-in ballots that went out weeks ago to California's 22 million registered voters. About 35 percent of them are in, with way more coming from Democrats (4.1 million) than Republicans (1.9 million).

Newsom himself won his first election with a landslide margin of 62 percent, and enjoys approval ratings of 57 percent, give or take -- yet barely a month ago, pundits seemed poised to write his political obituary, as Elder's amped up rhetoric made him the frontrunner among 46 candidates seeking the state's top job. 

Just how did we get here after five failed recall attempts? And what does the anticipated outcome say about Elder's and Newsome's leadership styles, or lack thereof, depending on your perspective? For the answers, let's do a deeper dive, and see where it takes us.



<Gavin Newsom:
Wikimedia Commons>
                                                     
"No time to spare - 'spare me a dime'?
The Great Depression is organised crime
Their confessions are written in your blood.

"Kiss your ass an' dreams goodbye
Come back when you've learnt to cry
To busy tryin' to be strong to see how weak you are."

<The Style Council,
"Confessions 1-2-3">

<ii.>
As every political junkie knows, two words sum up Newsom's current predicament: "French Laundry." That's the name of the opulent restaurant in Yountville, CA, where Newsom and his wife were caught dining with officials of the California Medical Association -- in close quarters, indoors, without masks, as they'd constantly been reminding fellow Californians, even while COVID-19 rates were spiking upward for the holidays.

The resulting "Dinnergate" fiasco inspired plenty of howls from the usual mainstream media suspects (cue the New York Times: "Gavin Newsom, What Were You Thinking?"). But the setting proved as much a liability for him, as the timing. With prices starting at $350 a pop, "you need to be rich or have rich friends who are willing to pay the bill," as the Financial Samurai notes, in its overview of the French Laundry (see link below).

If you've got money to burn, there's plenty of options to set it alight, whether you plump for the historic dining room ($850 per person), New Year's Eve dinner ($800 per person), or a night of white truffles and caviar ($1,200 per person). That's before we get to the Governor's bar tab for the night, variously reported at $12,000 to $15,000.

It's not hard to see how such Marie Antoinette-style antics upset people in a state known for its astronomical costs of living, one that accounts for 20 percent of the nation's homeless (151,278 people), who report varying reasons for their plight. Not surprisingly, high rent is number one (68 percent), followed by lack of income (50 percent), poor housing availability (38 percent), and criminal records that cut off access to housing (20 percent).

Yet Newsom saw nothing wrong with his behavior, until the tidal wave of outrage forced him to do what corporate Democrats have done since time immemorial: backpedal, and scramble to play catchup Even so, Newsome seemed flat-footed and flummoxed, especially when pundits suggested that geeked-up Republicans might actually pull this off. 

And then came Larry Elder.


<Larry Elder, Camp Pendleton, 2013:
Public Domain>


 "Somebody smiled on Gavin Newsom and presented California voters with the opportunity to listen to Larry Elder."
<Danny Sragow, Publisher,
The California Target Book>


<iii.>
If Gavin Newsom is the Hapless Warrior, we might dub Larry Elder the Angry Viking. On paper, the leading contender to replace Newsom hardly seems like a fit for the job he craves so openly. He has no government experience, having spent two decades in the talk radio trenches, doing what people like him do best: fanning the grievances of a (mostly) aging white fanbase longing for a simpler time. It's a well-paying gig, and one you can keep forever, so Elder's platform shouldn't surprise anyone.

Abortion? Get rid of it. Texas's newly-enacted Orwellian law suits him fine. How to fix public schools? Give Mom and Dad vouchers. Mask mandates? We don't need them. Medicaid? Abolish it. Protections for pre-existing conditions, and public welfare programs? Scrap them. Let the SOBs stand on their own two feet. Racism? A figment of your imagination. Just pull yourself up by your bootstraps. State-funded healthcare? We don't need it. Let the market handle it.

It's an agenda that feels elastic and simplistic at the same time, since Elder hasn't exactly specified how he'd ever pull it off in a State Assembly, where Democrats outnumber Republicans 60-19, or the State Senate, where they hold an equally lopsided 30-9 edge. My sense is, he'd spend much of his time scheming how to punish his presumed enemies, like some aging mobster trying to hold his turf at any cost.

What's even more troubling, though, is the brittle defensiveness that Elder often shows, whether in trying to fend off some previous color quote coming back to haunt him ("Women know less about men than political issues, economics, and current events": 2000 column), or brushing off when minority voters question why the self-styled "Sage of South Central" hangs out with white nationalists like Stephen Miller, the infamous architect of Trump's brutal immigration policies.

Guess where Miller got his start? On Elder's radio show, of course, a fact that caused him to sputter to Cal Matters: "Why would you bring up Stephen Miller? I'm just wondering what the agenda here is. What's the point? Am I somehow -- what? A Nazi? A fascist?"

How Cal Matters responded, we don't know, because their article (see below) doesn't say. But it reminds me of the saying that politics is "showbiz for ugly people." By that standard, Larry Elder may be the among ugliest to emerge yet from the proverbial swamp.



<iv.>
So what should we make of all this noisy chaos, if Newsom survives? For Californians, the situation should prompt some serious tweaking of a recall law that's barely changed since they adopted it in 1911. The potential for freakish results looms large in a process that needs just 12 percent of registered voters to launch, allows an unlimited number of replacement candidates to run, and requires only a simple majority to win.

For Gavin Newsom, the recall should serve as a wakeup call. As many voters have made clear, from the stories I've seen, they're sticking with him because they don't view Elder's bomb throwing style as a good fit for the world's fifth largest economy. Nor do they see any point in recalling a governor who's entering the final year of his first term in office.

The pandemic politics that landed Newsom in so much hot water now hold the key to his political survival, an irony that needs no further elaboration. Still, Newsom's Dinnergate gaffe should also remind him that perception paces reality. When the overall vibe comes across as, "Do as I say, not as I do," it's not hard to see why  buyer's remorse sets in. Good leaders ignore this reality at their peril, as Newsom did, when his flagship business, PlumpJackGroup, continued to operate its dozen-odd hotels, restaurants and wineries, while Main Street had to shut down.

For Larry Elder and his cultish fanbase, it's hard to imagine a failed recall inspiring any real introspection. Yet if he wants to continue his political career, Elder will have to take California's electoral math into account. Pitching your message to those who already agree with it doesn't seem like a winning formula in a state where Democrats hold such commanding advantages.

Good leaders "read the room," and make adjustments when whatever they're doing -- or saying -- isn't going over. Elder's apparent inability (or unwillingness) to do so raises serious questions about his skill set. It's a drawback that violates "Healey's first rule of politics," as the late British politico defined it: "When you're in a hole, stop digging."

But such foibles carry their share of ironies, as Elder inadvertently acknowledged to the LA Times last week, in responding to criticisms of his "Sage of South Central" tagline as a misguided attempt to buy himself some "street cred":

"I didn't think very much about it. I probably came up with it within a few seconds of being on the air and it stuck. People call me that, but I can't say there's anything deep behind it." 

In a campaign silly season largely defined by his hectoring, high-decibel persona, that simple observation may well have been the most truthful -- and revealing -- thing that Larry Elder has ever said. --The Reckoner


Links To Go:
California Globe
Gavin Newsom's Dinnergate Apology:
https://californiaglobe.com/articles/gov-gavin-newsoms-dinnergate-apology-grows-from-little-white-lie-to-whopper/

Cal Matters: Who Is Larry Elder,

CNN: "Women Exaggerate The Problem Of Sexism":
Top California Recall Candidate Larry Elder
Has A Long History Of Making 

Financial Samurai
How Rich Do You Have To Be 
To Dine At French Laundry Like Gavin Newsom?
https://www.financialsamurai.com/how-rich-to-dine-at-french-laundry/

Los Angeles Times
Larry Elder And The Danger
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