To the doom & gloomers & conspiracy nuts

[fizzana]

Here's how this Californian sees it the morning after.

We were playing against a stacked deck. Arnold had been annointed weeks before by a fawning media that took the "California Circus" to its logical conclusion by crowning the ultimate Hollywood creation. Oprah and Leno were two of the prime examples & the pundocracy were no better.

Not only did they have a stacked deck all the aces had been removed from our deck. Davis was an unpopular governor long before the recall was even considered. Even a great campaign might not have withstood the momemtum Arnold got from a compliant media but to make matters worse both Bustamante and Davis ran weak campaigns.

I didn't want to admit it, but I saw the writing on the wall weeks ago. Yesterday only bore that out. Activity at the polls in our area (very strong Democrat) was lacklustre at best but by all accounts polling places in more GOP friendly areas were swamped.

Davis was way too complacent in the early days of the recall initiative as was the entire Democrat Party in California. This has finally shown the Democrats that they can't just dial it in on election day and expect to win. The Party can only get better because of what happened yesterday.

Outsiders are in. With the economy in such bad shape nationally and with 47 states running deficits and having to cut vital services there is enogh blame to go around twice. Those in charge, whether it be Federal or local are catching a lot of the blame irrespective of their party affiliation. Arnold was viewed as an outsider even though he had people like Pete Wilson behind him. This is what makes both Wesley Clark and Howard Dean very attractive candidates for 2004.

This wasn’t a disaster for the Democrats. November 2002 was a far bigger disaster but the tide has started to turn for us in the past few months this is a relatively minor setback.

This wasn’t an election about Democrats and Republicans now matter how the media tries to spin it. It was all about Gray Davis and the Gropinator. I know more than a few Democrats who voted for the Gropinator but who will never vote for Bush. I think that can apply to the majority of the turncoat Democrats from this election.

And lastly to the conspiracy buffs. I am well aware of the BBV issues and believe that past elections (Georgia 2002 among them) were rigged but this one wasn’t.. The two most populous Democrat strongholds, Los Angeles & San Francisco counties both had turnouts far lower than the state average. That’s what killed Davis.

[CarinKaryn]

1. Many who tried to vote could not find polling place

and those who could found the polls were terribly understaffed. This was reported here last night.
They used ALL the dirty tricks they could to lock this election up.

[Clete]

2. On the local LA news, they showed the brightly lit and well-organized

polling place that Arnold voted in in the Pacific Palisades, then in another piece, they showed some polling places in the inner city. Gloomy small rooms that were missing polling booths, that hadn't been delivered. Voters were forced to sit at makeshift tables with the obsolete punch card voting machines they were forced to use. One DU'er in a neighborhood not noted for it's affluence said he had to wait in line for two hours. You figure it out.

[JoeMemphis]

3. A valuable lesson can be learned from this

Demcorats are going to have to highlight issues popular with the public, create a message, and stay on message in order to win. I think there is a parallel between this election and the 2002 midterms in that the Democrats didn't stick to a central message that showed the public that they deserved to be in the Governor's seat. The Dems' message was muddled between conspiracy theories about the recall as a right-wing conspiracy (55% of the CA electorate is not right-wing), Davis's accomplishments (?), and support Davis but if not then support Bustamante as the alternative.

Meanwhile, Arnie stayed on message that he was the best choice to lead California. I don't agree that he was, but the electorate rules in this country and they spoke rather clearly last night.

Democrats need to articulate a positive vision and stay on message if they ever plan to win in 2004. Bashing Bush or worrying about a "right-wing conspiracy" won't win an election. Ideas and vision have to take center stage.

If Dems talk about Bush's poor record on jobs *and* make the solution a central campaign theme, they will win. Bush is vulnerable, but he won't be defeated if Dems offer only criticisms and a muddled message to the electorate.

[Lars39]

7. Arnold WAS in a conspiracy, with the Enron folks.

Conspiracies exist, with laws against them.

[DarienComp]

4. kick

Thanks for that. We should NOT be crying in our beers about this one. This was an election in which we had a wooden candidate going up against a movie star. Republicans want to think that because there is an (R) next to Arnold's name, "California is now Bush country!"... it's not true. It will never be true. California just elected a movie star who took no positions on anything at all. They did NOT elect a right-winger like Bush.

Lets remember the problems that Davis had are exactly the problems that Bush has-- a shitty, shitty economy, and a ballooning deficit. Plus, Bush's foreign policy is coming apart at the seems. Why are we already buying our plane tickets to Canada?

Let's pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and keep our eyes on the prize, please.

[JackRiddler]

5. So you're one too...

And lastly to the conspiracy buffs. I am well aware of the BBV issues and believe that past elections (Georgia 2002 among them) were rigged but this one wasn’t.. The two most populous Democrat strongholds, Los Angeles & San Francisco counties both had turnouts far lower than the state average. That’s what killed Davis.

Well, why call names (conspiracy buffs) when you actually believe yourself that quite recent "past elections" were rigged?

And why not wait until we see the official final results county by county, so that we can make comparisons between counties and types of machinery used, as well as between this and past ballots? (It's on the basis of such comparisons that you are suspicious about Georgia, for example).

[PROGRESSIVE1]

6. Oprah, Leno, and Tweety "media whore" Matthews....

were by far the worst offenders of this charge!!!!

[shance]

8. Fizzana - Im incredibly grateful for the detailed analysis and commentary

regarding your view recall and past elections.

Wow. Who needs volumes of factual findings when we have you? Glad to know that you have the low down on the recall so soon out of the gate.

Your attempt to squelch questioning voices by labeling anyone as "conspiracy nuts" reflects a real insecurity on your part in trying to dampen any healthy, honest exploration of what just occurred in California.

Keep spreading the shame!!

[fizzana]

9. Maybe conspiracy nuts is too harsh a term but there have

been a number of people on DU claiming that the only reason the recall lost is because of a rigged vote.

"No on recall " is over 750,000 votes behind. This wasn't even close and they still haven't counted many of the absentee ballots which tend more to the GOP.

I don't know if you live in California or not but it was pretty damn obvious that Davis was going to lose for many of the factors I listed above.

If Democrats are going to sit and moan about rigged elections instead of figuring out where to go from here there will only be more losses.

Voting machines is a huge issue, I'm not denying that but in this case, all the polls, the voting patterns, the turnout (and I saw a lot of evidence of that during the day yesterday) all point to the fact that Republicans generally voted "No" while enough Democrats voted "Yes" to make the difference.

[charlie]

10. Republicans generally voted no?

Did you mistype? I'd read that the "yes" column got a quarter of the Democratic vote. Without a majority of Republicans, that's not enough to put the recall vote over the top, is it?

[fizzana]

11. That was a mistype

The key to the election is Republicans crossed over in extremely small numbers while far too many Democrats crossed over.

The more I speak to people, the more I hear about people I know or know of who crossed over to vote for Arnold.

[charlie]

12. Okay

Thought so. Thanks. :thumbsup: