Recall revolution: the recall of Governor Gray Davis gives California residents a historic opportunity to vote for genuine reform, but voters must look beyond the media favorites for real change.

Californians go to the voting booths on October 7th * to decide a very simple question. The bilingual ballot asks, in Spanish and English: "Shall Gray Davis be recalled (removed) from the office of Governor?"

If 51 percent or more of the votes cast are "No," Mr. Davis retains the governorship. However, if 51 percent are "Yes," the second part of the ballot comes into play, in which voters choose a replacement for Governor Davis from a long list of candidates. Whoever gets the most votes wins.

Procedurally, this is all very simple. But the matrix in which this civic exercise will take place is anything but simple. The outcome of this special election defies prediction. Nothing like this has been done before, and rarely has an election been so loaded with imponderables and cross-cutting dynamics.

The July 23rd announcement by California's secretary of state certifying the recall election set off a mad scramble of candidates. By the August 9th filing deadline, 135 gubernatorial hopefuls had gotten their names on the ballot. Thirty-four entrants are running as Democrats, including paralytic pornographer Larry Flynt, whose official statement describes himself as "a smut peddler who cares." Vying with Flynt for the voyeur vote are a trio of blonde buxom bimbos: Reva "the Deva" Renz, a bar owner: Mary Carey, a lap dance porn queen; and Angelyne, the "Pink Party" bombshell.

Candidate Joel Britton, a member of the Socialist Workers Party, a Trotskyite terrorist organization, claims: "I'm for a workers" and farmers" government, which will abolish capitalism in the U.S. and join in the worldwide struggle for socialism." Green Party candidate Peter Miguel Camejo calls for much the same thing, but in more genteel language. Pundit and gadfly Arianna Huffington, completing her transformation from neoconservative to so-called progressive, is campaigning as an environmentalist/populist.

Sumo wrestler Kurt "Tachikaze" Rightmyer, an Independent, pledges to "attack the 800-lb gorilla of big government from every angle." Republican Kevin Richter's only campaign statement is, "I breathe." Gallagher, the "Sledge-O-Matic" comedian, proposes that California secede from the union and then apply to the U.S. for foreign aid.

The recall ballot also includes some unknowns taking advantage of their well-known names: Edward Kennedy (not the ethically challenged Democratic senator); Robert Dole (not the former senator, presidential candidate and current Viagra pitch man); and Richard Simmons (not the exercise fairy).

The only serious contender among the Democrats is Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante, who was proclaimed the frontrunner from the get-go. With the GOP vote divided among several contestants, Bustamante was well-positioned to pick up the governorship, should Davis be unseated. The Republican aspirants crowded out of the starting gate in August with muscleman Arnold Schwarzenegger leading the pack. By the second week of September, however, the list had thinned, as former baseball commissioner/Olympics organizer Peter Ueberroth and businessman Bill Simon dropped out. That left Schwarzenegger and State Senator Tom McClintock still standing. Republican Insiders began turning up the heat on McClintock to get out of the race. He must, they claim, line up behind Arnold for the Party's sake, or risk losing the governor's chair to Bustamante.

To his credit, Senator McClintock has refused to cave in, and his polling numbers have been gaining as Arnold's have been crumbling. McClintock has accumulated a solid voting record during two decades in the legislature and has led numerous campaigns against tax and spending increases. He is unabashedly pro-life, pro-family, pro-gun, pro-property, pro-Constitution, and pro-free enterprise. He is endorsed by virtually all of the statewide activist organizations representing those constituencies.

His 2002 run for state controller proved he is an electable statewide candidate. Though vastly outspent, he lost that bid by less than one half of one percent. It was the most successful statewide Republican race last year. McClintock and his supporters have rightly pointed out that Arnold Schwarzenegger is pro-abortion, pro-homosexual marriage, and pro-gun control--and that even his professed commitment to fiscal conservatism and lower taxes is untested and dubious.

The Wilson Clone

In fact, Schwarzenegger's pledges to fight the tax/spend/regulate policies strangling the Golden State are worse than dubious. The Schwarzenegger campaign is completely run by former U.S. Senator and California Governor Pete Wilson. A top GOP Insider, Wilson was a disaster on both social and economic policies. An original "Big Tent" Republican, Wilson helped to bring feminists, abortion activists, homosexuals, and environmentalists into the GOP mainstream. As governor, he pushed through the state's largest-ever tax increase.

Tom McClintock, then a member of the California Assembly, helped lead the unsuccessful effort within his own party to block the Wilson tax bill. "Wilson's $8 billion tax hike will cost the average family of four $1,000," McClintock explained in a December 1991 interview with THE NEW AMERICAN. "The results were predictable," McClintock continued. "Retail sales have dropped faster than any time in the last 30 years and the state's tax revenue is diving. In order to balance this budget, California needs an impossible 26-percent growth in production during the 4th quarter. The reality is we're declining .6 percent.... Uncontrolled spending, confiscatory taxation, and strangling regulatory controls are propelling an unprecedented exodus from California."

That was McClintock versus Wilson, 1991. Governor Wilson helped cement in place many of the atrocious policies of his Democratic predecessor, Jerry Brown, and helped pave the way for many of the excesses of his Democratic successor, Gray Davis. Now Wilson is co-chairing Schwarzenegger's campaign, and he has filled in the ranks with his longtime apparatchiks. They include his former chief of staff, Bob White, who is one of Arnold's advisers, and former Wilson aides Scan Walsh, Don Sipple, Marty Wilson, Patricia Cleary, and Joe Shumate. Arnold's top campaign manager and strategist is George Gorton, a veteran Wilsonite.

Gorton and Wilson's strategy is simple: Run on image; keep Arnold talking about generalities; avoid discussing specifics; refuse to debate. "This is not a position election," Gorton explained, in response to reporters' requests for details of policies that could be expected under Governor Schwarzenegger. "This is a character election. People are looking at character here, they're looking at somebody who will go in and clean house," Gorton told reporters.

Character? Schwarzenegger is a monosyllabic, steroid-stuffed, celluloid action figure who reaps multi-million dollar checks for flexing his hypertrophic biceps and wreaking mindless havoc on movie sets! He is a major Hollywood purveyor of the immorality destroying America's character. How does anyone know whether Arnold can even clean his own toenails or his Humvee's glove compartment, let alone the filth and corruption in Sacramento? Following the Wilson-Gorton game plan, Schwarzenegger has restricted his campaign to carefully scripted platitudes, photo-ops, and sound bites. He has refused to debate the issues or provide even a bare outline of concrete actions he would take as governor to lead California out of its worst-ever economic crisis. In essence, the Gorton-designed message is: "I'm Arnold Schwarzenegger, the rich and famous movie star. I care about you and want to lead California. Trust me."

Seasoned Image Makers

Gorton and his teammates are pros at this kind of game. They not only pulled off electoral coups several times for Wilson, but also successfully ran similar spin service for Boris Yeltsin in Russia and Ion Iliescu in Romania. The Gorton crew transformed Yeltsin and Iliescu, both lifelong Communist thugs, into instant celebrity "reformers." (A Showtime film about the Yeltsin campaign entitled, "Spinning Boris," with Jeff Goldblum as Gorton, is due out later this year.)

Pete Wilson has used his political heft to secure an impressive lineup to endorse Arnold. Attorney Allan Zaremberg, for instance, was Governor Wilson's chief legislative adviser. Now president of the California Chamber of Commerce, Zaremberg succeeded in getting the chamber's endorsement for Schwarzenegger, breaking the group's 112-year tradition of refusing to endorse political candidates. Similarly, the Wilson machine has garnered endorsements from the California Farm Bureau, the Western Growers Association, and many of the Republican members of the state legislature and the California congressional delegation.

Billionaire investor Warren Buffet serves as Arnold's economic adviser. Buffet, a liberal Democrat, has been a major campaign donor to liberal Democratic politicians such as Hillary Clinton, Bob Kerrey, and Bill Bradley. According to Buffet, Californians are not paying enough taxes. The super-wealthy stock picker specifically took aim at Proposition 13, which California voters passed overwhelmingly in 1978 in a revolt against confiscatory property taxes. Buffet's attack on Prop 13 riled California homeowners, causing Arnold to backpedal furiously. On August 20th, Schwarzenegger said that as governor he would find ways to cut spending and pledged that he would not raise taxes. However, the following day he flip-flopped and issued a press release stating that he "would consider boosting taxes to mend the state's battered finances and lift its rock-bottom credit rating." He has refused to take the "No New Taxes!" pledge that Tom McClintock has taken.

Former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, a liberal Republican, co-chaired Arnold's September 10th "Education Summit" in San Jose and serves as Schwarzenegger's top education adviser. Another summiteer and education adviser is Arnold's mother-in-law, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, younger sister of John F. Kennedy.

There are many other liberal-left Kennedy influences in the Schwarzenegger campaign. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., one of the country's leading environmental activist attorneys, is advising Arnold on green issues. In 2001, young RFK was jailed in Puerto Rico, along with other Castroite greenies trying to shut down the U.S. Navy base at Vieques. Arnold invited Bobby and his radical cohorts to draw up an environmental plan for California. "Schwarzenegger's environmental position paper is the most detailed policy statement to come out of his campaign so far," reported the Los Angeles Times. Actually, it is about the only detailed policy statement, and it has not circulated widely. "It was fashioned," the Times continued, "with the help of advisors brought in by Robert Kennedy." Those Kennedy advisers include enviro-activists Terry Tamminen, Robert Grady, Buzz Thompson, and Dan Emmett.

Suddenly Arnold started talking about global warming, retrofitting his Hummer to run on enviro-friendly hydrogen, even more stringent air and water pollution controls, and further restrictions on the already-devastated California timber industry.

"You are seeing the influence from other parts of Arnold's world," California Target Report editor Tony Quinn noted, referring to the position paper. "Those views would more likely be associated with the Kennedys." But those Kennedy Democrat views are completely compatible with the views of the Wilson Republicans. Los Angeles Times writers Kenneth R. Weiss and Miguel Bustillo commented on September 7th:

   The environment hasn't
   figured prominently in the
   platform of a Republican
   gubernatorial candidate
   in more than a decade, not
   since former Gov. Pete
   Wilson emphasized it
   during his first campaign
   in 1990. With a campaign
   team made of Wilson and several of
   his former aides, Schwarzenegger is
   adopting a similar strategy....

The Timesmen noted that "Schwarzenegger's views are closer to those of liberal rivals than of his two Republican competitors." Indeed, Arnold's views are much further to the left than most people realize. Certainly one of the most important liberal-left influences on Arnold comes from his spouse, Maria (Kennedy) Shriver, the NBC-TV reporter/commentator who adores Fidel Castro and Hillary Clinton. She let the cat out of the bag about her husband's politics during an interview at the 2000 Academy Awards. "He's not as conservative as you think," Shriver told ABC's Meredith Vieira.

But Team Arnold and the Wilson machine are trying to convince Republican voters otherwise, even as they craft conflicting messages to appeal to voters on both sides of every critical issue. Rep. David Dreier has been tapped to sell Arnold's phony conservatism to California's conservative Republican loyalists.

"Arnold's absolutely a conservative--he's a conservative on the issues that led to the recall," said Dreier in an interview with National Review's John J. Miller. Dreier continued:

   If being pro-choice on abortion means
   you're not conservative, then he's
   not conservative. But he's not running
   on these issues. He's running [on] fiscal
   management, the size and scope
   of government, and the need for
   leadership.

"He won't raise taxes," Dreier assured Miller. "He is unalterably opposed to raising taxes." But as we've already seen, Arnold has back-flipped on that issue and has refused to take the McClintock pledge. Moreover, he has recently sided with Democratic opponent Cruz Bustamante in opposing Proposition 54, the Racial Privacy Initiative spearheaded by conservative black businessman and University of California Regent Ward Connerly. The measure, which will be on the recall ballot, prohibits the state or local governments from classifying by race, ethnicity, color, or national origin. Polls show that a majority of Californians--both Democrat and Republican--support this measure. But not Schwarzenegger. "I'm against it," Arnold has declared. "And if the right-wing crazies have a problem with that, so be it." So now the majority of California voters who take a sensible stand against racial profiling are "right-wing crazies"?

But David Dreier insists that Arnold is a true-blue conservative. And National Review assures its readers that Rep. Dreier is a reliable judge of true-blue conservatism. Says Miller:

   There's no question about Dreier's
   conservatism.... When he stumps for
   Schwarzenegger--as he has done
   tirelessly in recent weeks--a lot of
   Golden State conservatives are probably
   telling themselves that if Arnold
   is good enough for Dreier, then he's
   good enough for me.

That is precisely what the Gorton-Wilson spinmeisters intend. But there most certainly are questions about Dreier's conservatism. This writer used to attend the Conservative Supper Club and other conservative functions with Mr. Dreier in southern California two decades ago. I walked precincts for him ,and organized a youth campaign effort that he publicly acknowledged as having given him the edge in his 1986 upset of Rep. Jim Lloyd, an entrenched liberal Democrat. For a few years Mr. Dreier did indeed post a solid voting record, regularly scoring in the 90s on this magazine's "Conservative Index." But then he began to "mature" and "grow." That's how the liberal mediameisters describe conservatives who abandon their principles. Over the past few years Rep. Dreier's "Conservative Index" scores have tanked in the 50s.

In exchange for his infidelity, Mr. Dreier was tapped for membership in the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and named to co-chair a CFR-sponsored bipartisan task force on the United Nations. And he has been elevated to the ranks of the GOP elite who redefine conservatism to meaningless twaddle. His main assignment now is to sabotage McClintock.

"I like Taft, but ..."

We are witnessing the replay of an age-old tactic used repeatedly to sabotage conservative candidates and deliver elections to politicians who are Republican in name only. The classic example of this treachery in action was the battle for the 1952 Republican presidential nomination. Senator Robert Taft was far and away the most conservative, most popular, and most electable Republican candidate. The CFR Democrat-Republican elite knew that they couldn't beat Taft by attacking him head-on. So they devised a slogan that would psycho logically undermine his support among the party faithful: "I like Taft, but he can't win." By constant repetition of this theme, they caused enough defections from the Taft camp to nominate Dwight Eisenhower, a liberal Democrat relabeled a Republican. As president, Ike implemented the left-wing agenda proposed by Adlai Stevenson, his Democrat opponent.

"I think Tom McClintock is a great guy, but this is a two-man race," Dreier told National Review's Miller. What Dreier means, said Miller, is that "only Bustamante and Schwarzenegger have a real chance of winning. In reality, of course, there's a two-man race within the two-man race, with Republicans splitting their support between Schwarzenegger and McClintock. Will the failure of one of these candidates to get out of the other's way cede the election to Bustamante?" Guess which candidate must "get out." Not the liberal-left Mr. Schwarzenegger, of course. No, the CFR Democrat-Republican elite turned up the pressure on Mr. McClintock to bow out.

"My hope is that we can be united behind Schwarzenegger," Dreier said. "I am convinced that in the end Republicans will be united."

If Republican conservatives fall for this ploy again, they will have thrown away a historic opportunity for genuine reform and a return toward sanity. It is not likely that they will get another chance like this. A Schwarzenegger-Wilson victory would guarantee a continuation of the suicidal course leading the Golden State toward total ruin.

* See the sidebar on page 19

RELATED ARTICLE: Court jeopardizes election.

by William E Jasper

As we go to press, a ruling by America's most radical court may have postponed California's historic recall election of Governor Gray Davis scheduled for October 7th. A decision handed down by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court on September 15th ruled in favor of three organizations that claimed the election would violate the fights of ethnic minority voters. Lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union--representing the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project (SVREP), the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and the Southern Christian Leadership Council (SCLC)--charged that the "use of obsolete, unreliable, and discredited pre-scored punch card voting equipment" would adversely affect "a grossly disproportionate number of African-American, Latino, and Asian-American voters" These organizations are closely allied with liberal Democrats Davis and Lt. Governor Cruz Bustamante. The intent is to have the election postponed until the March 2004 Democratic primary, when more Democrats are expected to go to the polls.

U.S. District Judge Stephen Wilson had rejected the ACLU's arguments in an August 20th decision, ruling that the recall "is an unprecedented event, which directly reflects the will of the people of California." "Delaying the election for half a year beyond the date set pursuant to the California constitution," said Judge Wilson, "undoubtedly works against the public interest implicit in a recall election." Undeterred, the ACLU promptly appealed the decision to the Ninth Circuit, an infamous bastion of left-wing judicial activists, many of whom are ACLU members or supporters. The Ninth Circuit has issued radical decisions championing the rights of felons and convicts, supporting marijuana users, overturning the death penalty, and blocking California's voter-approved Prop 187. The court is best known for its 2002 ruling that the use of "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance is unconstitutional. Its ruling on the recall election is being appealed to the Supreme Court, in the hope that the election will be put back on track for the original October 7th date.