With just 24 percent of California’s voters registered as Republicans, one would assume that Governor Gavin Newsom will easily survive the recall election set for September 14.
Maybe not.
Nearly eight out of 10 of those Republicans are galvanized into action, while Democrats are remaining complacent. After all, California is the bluest of blue states. Why worry?
Katie Merrill, a Berkeley-based Democrat strategist, is worried: “I think, right now, if the election were held today, we’d probably have [just] a 30 percent turnout. That’s problematic.” She added, “Every poll has shown that the voters that are most engaged in the race right now are the ones who want to recall Gavin Newsom.”
Newsom’s shutdown of the state, bankrupting millions of small businesses, is just one reason why it’s likely that it will only take a third of those voting in the recall election to determine his future. It’s a case of organization versus complacency.
Said pollster Adam Probolsky, “It may sound silly to some people, but there is probably a large portion of the electorate that is quite uninterested in this election. They’ve heard something about a recall, something about Republicans being angry. But they’re not really engaged at all.”
It’s also a case of organization. Those angry voters — Republican, Democrat and Independent — have for months focused on a single theme: Remove Newsom from office. That is why more than 1.7 million of them were able to put Newsom’s future on the ballot — far more than the number needed.
Panic has set in, and the attacks on Newsom’s leading Republican opponent, talk-show host Larry Elder, have ramped up.
The incumbent governor has warned:
[Elder is] to the right of Donald Trump. To the right of Donald Trump. That’s what’s at stake in this election and don’t think for a second you can’t do damage in that role.
Think about the judges he could appoint. Who would he have appointed to replace Kamala Harris in the Senate? How would that impact the trajectory of this country?
What would that mean for the future of the Democratic Party in our efforts to keep the House of Representatives?
Newsom’s message is simple: “Just vote no. You don’t even have to touch the other part [of the ballot]. Don’t even touch it. Simple no. This is about the easiest ballot you ever had to fill out. Just vote no. No on the recall.”
So far his message isn’t getting through. A recent poll from SurveyUSA showed that 51 percent of likely voters would instead vote “yes” to remove him, while just 40 percent would keep him in office.
So, the establishment media has entered the fray. Los Angeles Times columnist Erika Smith wrote an article headlined, “Larry Elder is the Black face of white supremacy. You’ve been warned!”
In it she decries Elder’s facility for “cherry-picking” the facts he’s using to make the case for recall. One of those inconvenient facts was a rhetorical question asked by Elder:
Do we still have the phenomenon where a young Black man is eight times more likely to be killed by another Black man than a young white man?
Smith enlisted the help of BLM leader Melina Abdullah, who said that Elder “is a danger — a clear and present danger,” adding,
Anytime you put a Black face on white supremacy, which is what Larry Elder is, there are people who will utilize that as an opportunity to deny white supremacy….
But everything he’s pushing, everything that he stands for, he is advancing white supremacy.
Black Lives Matter (BLM) is the Marxist group of street thugs working in conjunction with the mainstream media to change America’s culture from individual responsibility under law to rampant mobocracy. From there it’s a short step to a dictatorship to be installed when the violence exceeds local efforts to quell it.
The Sacramento Bee has joined the chorus of Elder naysayers. Quoting from his writings dating back 20 years, ago the Bee claims they “make him wholly unfit to be California’s governor. Elder must drop out of the race immediately.”
Those attacks aren’t getting traction, according to Dan Walters. Writing for Cal Matters, he said they “are making an Elder governorship more likely.… If Newsom, the media and [other liberals] are ganging up on Elder, perhaps he’s just the man to lead the revolt against the political status quo.”
What’s causing Democrat panic is this: In a state with nearly 40 million people, fewer than two million of them have forced Newsom to face recall. They are small in number, but highly organized. A small, well-informed, and highly organized group of people can have an influence far beyond their numbers. That fact is being borne out in California.
In the same vein, this is the principle upon which The John Birch Society has operated since 1958, and explains why the influence of the JBS has never been greater as more and more concerned citizens are seeking ways to restore the Republic to its original intent as dreamed of by the Founders.
For more information, go to JBS.org.
