Tag Archive for: Recall Gavin Newsom

Newsom Recall Still Needs Donors and Signatures

While the chances that Gavin Newsom will face a recall election are greater than ever, those chances are diminished whenever anyone says the signature gathering campaign has been successfully concluded. It is not done yet, and without ongoing financial and volunteer support in these final three weeks it could still fall short.

Even supporters of the recall have succumbed to premature optimism. On February 12, Assemblyman Kevin Kiley tweeted to his nearly 40,000 followers “It’s official. 1.5 million signatures.” Kiley knows better, as his subsequent tweets indicate. Nothing is “official” until 1.5 million valid signatures are certified by the California Secretary of State. To ensure that 1.5 million signed petitions are checked and confirmed as valid, proponents need to collect up to 2.0 million signed petitions.

As of February 17, the recall committees announced that 1,689,000 signatures had been collected. That’s encouraging to recall supporters, since it suggests they collected 189,000 signatures in five days. But they still could be as many as 300,000 signed petitions short of the safe zone, which means they’ll have to maintain this pace over the next few weeks in order to be certain the recall qualifies.

Lead proponent Orrin Heatlie put the latest petition numbers into context, stating “we believe 1.8 [million] gets us there, 1.9 puts us in the comfort zone, and 2.0 would remove all doubt.”

Heatlie’s committee, RecallGavin2020, which started the recall effort, has organized over 5,000 volunteers to gather signatures. To-date they have collected about 1.1 million of the signatures gathered so far. This is the biggest volunteer driven signature gathering effort for a ballot initiative in American history. But they’re not done.

Anne Dunsmore, whose committee, Rescue California, has raised nearly $3.0 million to fund a direct mail and professional signature gathering effort, was cautiously optimistic, saying “We have pulled the trigger on what it takes to cross the finish line but we still need the signatures and the money to get there. If you don’t cross the finish line you don’t win the race.”

If the leaders of the committees working to recall Gavin Newsom are not certain of success, it isn’t stopping candidates from already launching their campaigns. Former mayor of San Diego and GOP establishment donor darling Kevin Faulconer has already launched an exploratory committee which allows him to fundraise, and has begun campaigning up and down the state. Businessman John Cox, who successfully rose to the top of the heap in the 2018 jungle primary, and challenged Newsom for governor in the 2018 general election, is actively campaigning – attacking Newsom and Faulconer – with statewide television ads.

Faulconer and Cox both know that if the recall fails, they can still use its momentum to build visibility for their 2022 campaigns for governor. But while these two men, and their donors, lavish money on their early campaigns, the recall effort still urgently requires funding to finish the job.

Another strong potential candidate for governor to replace Newsom is Richard Grenell, whose most recent political experience was to serve in President Trump’s cabinet as acting Director of National Intelligence, and before that, as Ambassador to Germany during the Trump administration. Grenell also worked for the George W Bush administration.

When reached for comment, Grenell, who has not declared his candidacy for governor, was unequivocal. “It’s annoying that the opportunists want to jump in before the hard work is done of gathering signatures,” he said, “and it is shameful that the national media that ignored the recall for so long are suddenly telling everyone it is over and Newsom will be recalled. They are creating a moral hazard of people thinking the recall is done.”

Grenell expressed admiration for the recall movement, saying “this organic movement of activists have worked hard and gotten small dollar donations from people who believe in the cause and have done this without any of the so called experts and elites.” He also expressed additional caution regarding the ultimate count, noting that “we’re up against a one party system in California that is going to control the counting and verification of ballots.”

While the recall committees face what is certain to be a rigorous, if not overwrought process of petition validation by California’s election bureaucrats, it presents an opportunity as well. It exposes a monstrous double standard. Why is it that California’s election officials carefully scrutinize ballot initiative petitions, checking the signature, checking that the signer is a currently registered voter, that the address is correct, that there are no duplicates, and so on, yet they display far less concern over the validity of votes cast in general elections?

When asked about this double-standard, Heatlie said “if they applied the same standards they use for signed initiative petitions to ballots cast in general elections we would see a fundamental cleanup of the voter rolls.”

In the context of the recall Newsom signature gathering campaign, is interesting to wonder who will run for governor, and it is interesting to speculate as to how California may finally be compelled to clean up their voter rolls and restore confidence in election integrity. But such speculation is premature. The deadline for signature gathering is March 17, and as Heatlie put it, “we will be gathering and processing signatures right up until the last day.”

This article originally appeared in the California Globe.

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What Gavin Newsom’s Inevitable Political Doom Means for Democrats

Just in time for the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, California Governor Gavin Newsom has ordered 38 California counties moved to the “purple tier” of coronavirus prevention mandates. This means Californians are now subject to a curfew, wherein “non-essential work, movement, and gatherings must stop between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m.”

Including all the major population centers in the state, this curfew comes on top of a reestablishment of a ban on eating indoors in restaurants, as well as a requirement that people wear masks whenever they leave their homes, and “limit mixing, practice physical distancing and wash their hands.” It also comes on the heels of Newsom’s recently updated “Mandatory Requirements for All Gatherings,” which specifies in preposterous detail exactly how families and friends may gather during the holidays.

The irony in all of these mandates coming from Newsom is that despite enraging millions of Californians who are not convinced they are at all necessary, the pandemic and Newsom’s aggressive response to it are providing political cover for Newsom among those other millions of Californians, more numerous, who believe lockdowns and curfews are necessary. Once this political cover goes away, that equation, favoring Newsom, is going to change. And the speed and ferocity of that change, when it happens, is going to surprise a lot of people.

Nowhere to Hide

When the pandemic is over, Newsom will have nowhere to hide. Newsom, along with the Democratic Party he represents, will preside over an economy battered beyond anything Californians have ever seen. Apart from the tech billionaires who have shamelessly profited as an entire population was driven into the virtual world, California’s economy will be a smoking ruin. The COVID-19 shutdown will expose the fragile foundations of California’s alleged prosperity, and blast it to smithereens.

Before COVID-19 came along, California had the highest rate of poverty and nearly the highest income inequality in America. It had the highest cost-of-living and some of the highest taxes. It had crumbling infrastructurefailing schoolsdevastating wildfires caused by negligence, avoidable shortages of water and electricity, a housing industrydestroyed by overregulation, and an explosion of the homeless—people who could be helped if it weren’t for the toxic progressive combination of misguided compassion and rampant corruption.

All of these problems will be worse when people are allowed back on the streets. The homeless encampments, unregulated and not subject to the pandemic mandates affecting everyone else, will have become permanent. Small business owners everywhere will survey the financial wreckage, and move elsewhere. Tech companies, their bubble valuations topped out, will not be sufficient sources of tax revenue to make up for the imploding tallies from everyone else. The only thing standing between state and local government agencies and financial catastrophe will be a federal bailout.

Newsom is more than just an incompetent, hypocritical, corrupt governor. He exemplifies the entire fraud that constitutes the Democratic Party in California.

California’s voters are at a tipping point. Newsom’s polling numbers, still high back in September and October, were mostly just a reflection of an anti-Trump electorate being supportive of anything that seemed to defy Trump. When mismanaged and neglected forests burned down half the state, and Trump said Californians needed to revive the timber industry, Newsom instead signed an executive order requiring electric cars, and California’s anti-Trump voters cheered. When COVID-19 struck, and Trump said we must be careful not to let the cure become worse than the disease, Newsom instead imposed a statewide lockdown, and California’s anti-Trump voters cheered again.

The problem with all this anti-Trump enthusiasm in California is that it only buys time for Newsom. In the recent election, with votes still being counted, Californians edged out Texas to cast the most ballots of any state in America—5.9 million so far—for President Trump. And in this high-turnout election, Trump even improved his percentage performance, rising from 31.6 percent in 2016 to 34.2 percent in 2020.

It’s a safe bet that every one of those Californians are ready to throw out Newsom and every other Democratic lawmaker. In fact, the ongoing populist movement to recall Newsom, fresh on the heels of a 120-day extension up to March 17 to gather signatures on a recall petition, has a very good chance of making him fight for his political life in a special recall election in the spring of 2021. And while Trump voters provide ample prospects to sign these recall petitions, the ranks of Californians who’ve had enough of Newsom are growing.

The Hypocrisy of the Party of the Rich

The apparent perpetual nature and increasing severity of what amounts to martial law are driving voters away from Newsom, a process exacerbated by Newsom himself, when he failed to comply with his own mandates. In a faux pasthat will go down in history, on November 10 Newsom and his wife joined at least 10 other people, sans masks, for a dinner paid for by lobbyists at the French Laundry in Napa County, one of the most expensive restaurants in the United States.

Newsom is going to have a hard time talking his way out of this. The hypocrisy of a man who built his image on his aggressive mandates to cope with the pandemic; the brazen display of privilege, lobbyist patronage, and stupefying wealth at this elite restaurant while small business owners, including restaurateurs, have no privilege, have no customer patronage, and must helplessly watch a lifetime of hard-earned wealth slip away rightly enrages many Californians.

Newsom’s initial response? “I should have modeled better behavior.”

Californians, whether they’re Left, Right or centrists, like most people everywhere, dislike hypocrisy. The Democratic litany, which claims Republicans are the party of the wealthy, is about to be broken, and Newsom’s hypocrisy is helping that along. While the vast majority of Californian parents are watching their children try to learn while being locked out of their public schools for nearly a year, Newsom’s children go to a private school, where attending classes was never seriously disrupted.

This reality, that the wealthy are exempt from the consequences of curfews and lockdowns, and these same wealthy are providing the backing and the agenda for the Democratic Party, is a ticking time bomb. Republicans already understand this. Republicans understand that their party is now the party of the worker. And every time a Democratic politician slips up—like Newsom with his dinner, or Pelosi with her two freezers filled with $12-a-pint ice cream—more voters realize that identity politics and environmentalist panic is a smoke screen, a con job, a way to get them to keep voting for the party of the rich.

Ultimately, when Californians emerge from their “dark winter” and try to resume their lives, they are going to have less tolerance than ever for the rhetoric of the Left. For example, compassion for the homeless is going to wear thin when your business is ruined and your bank is foreclosing on your mortgage, and meanwhile, thousands of homeless people took over the streets where you live and trashed them. They’re stoned out of their minds and shitting on the sidewalks.

And what is the answer? Round them up, put them in tent shelters in inexpensive parts of town? Get them off drugs? Dry them out? Help them? No. Of course not. Democrats will propose to spend additional billions to give them free housing on the beach at a cost of between $500,000 and $1 million per unit, and not even require them to stop using methamphetamine.

Of course they’re homeless and high all the time. Democrats reward them for it.

Similarly, next summer, when another 4 million acres of forest burn in California, and burned out homeowners can’t get fire insurance unless they move into a city where, thanks to overregulation, it costs $1 million to buy a bungalow with a backyard so small you can’t even set up a swing for your kids, Democrats will claim that the timber industry is the problem instead of recognizing it as the solution, and that absurdity will finally be heard for what it is: elitist, quasi-communist, clueless, baseless, misanthropic, opportunistic bullshit.

In every area of public policy, the progressive fraud that constitutes the Democratic Party, led by Gavin Newsom, will be exposed as threadbare posturing, designed to make the rich even richer, while everyone else gets broken financially and herded into subsidized hovels to save the earth and foster “equity.”

But perhaps the most egregious crime of the Democrats, inviting the biggest backlash, will be the performance of California’s public schools.

Returning to the classroom after being almost completely abandoned by teachers who never missed a month of pay despite not having to do much teaching, parents will demand a return to education fundamentals. They will demand a return to classroom discipline and teacher accountability. Who knows, maybe they will even demand school vouchers, to break the Democratic union monopoly that’s turned public education in California into a cruel joke.

One may go on and on. How many of California’s Latinos, who voted for Trump in record numbers, are going to stay loyal to Democrats, led by the likes of Newsom—white as snow and filthy rich—who have decided, without asking, that their ethnic group is no longer known as “Latinos,” but is now “Latinx,” pronounced “Latin-Ex.” Exactly who among the Democrats thought this act of cultural imperialism would be welcomed by Latinos? They’re in for a rude shock, and it’s about time.

There is a seismic wave building in California. It’s still far away, but it’s coming in with the tide. And when it reaches the shore, it is going to sweep away everything in its path. Most definitely including Gavin Newsom, and his rotten, corrupt, wealthy, dirty, grasping, lying, worthless party.

This article originally appeared on the website American Greatness.

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Recall Campaign Gets Powerful New Ally

The Recall Gavin 2020 campaign, which took on new life when a judge granted them a 120 day extension, till March 17, 2021, has just acquired the support of a new committee, Rescue California. Headed up by former California GOP Chairman Tom Del Beccaro, this new PAC brings a powerful group of experienced politicians, political professionals, and donors to the front lines of the Recall Gavin movement, bringing help to what is already one of the most impressive grassroots efforts in California history.

Reached for comment on this new development was Rescue California Co-Chair Tony Krvaric, long-time chairman of the San Diego County Republican Party and one of the most formidable political strategists in the state. He said “This new PAC is built with the right people to recall Governor Gavin Newsom, holding him accountable for his erratic leadership and stunning hypocrisy in this crisis. Californians deserve better and we invite everyone to join in this effort.”

The coalition that has now formed is a unique opportunity, long overdue, for establishment Republicans in California to merge their talents and resources with what has become a massive, bipartisan collection of volunteers. Having this new player involved does not change anything with the petition. There is still only one official recall petition, which can be downloaded by anyone with an internet connection and a printer. To ensure there is no wasted effort, both organizations are working with the same firm to collect signed petitions and verify their validity.

In a telephone conversation with Paul Olson on November 18, whose company, GoCo Consulting, is doing the petition verification for the recall, he confirmed that his firm has already processed 494,000 signed petitions which have either just been turned in or are now being delivered to the county clerks around the state. Olson also confirmed that his firm is currently processing another 230,000 signatures.

When combined with the 55,000 that were turned in earlier in the year, and the ones already signed but still being delivered, conservatively estimated at 60,000, this campaign has already collected over 800,000 signed recall petitions.

“From the beginning I have been impressed with the efforts of the original petitioners,” said veteran fundraiser Ann Dunsmore, who assisted the all-volunteer recall campaign through the summer. Dunsmore is now working with the new committee, explaining that “I was pleased to be asked to continue supporting the cause by Republican elected officials and Republican party leaders throughout the state. I hope we will be able to support the recall in a fashion that respects the passion and the efforts of the volunteers which has gotten us this far.”

When reached for comment on this new development, the lead proponent of the recall, Orrin Heatlie, was enthusiastic. “This is happening at exactly the right time,” he said, “we have just gotten the 120 day extension. This new committee, supported by dozens of prominent elected officials and seasoned professionals, is a perfect complement to our volunteers. We are the army, and they are the cavalry. I could not be more pleased.”

It remains to be seen how much energy the California State Republican Party will put into the recall effort. The post-election counting, at least in California, is winding down. The California GOP is riding on the heels of some important victories including picking up two seats in the US Congress. They’re also dealing with a few heartbreaking defeats such as Senator Moorlach, who lost his bid for reelection after being targeted by the prison guards’ union. Right now, with the election over, is a perfect time for California’s GOP, which continues to regularly blast emails sharply critical of “King Newsom,” to get directly involved in this increasingly credible attempt to kick the King off his throne.

Getting the requisite 1,495,709 signatures to force a recall, with over half of them already collected, ought to be easy if a determined and adequately funded coalition steps up. Prospects to sign the recall petition are not in short supply. In 2016, candidate Trump got 4,483,810 votes in California, 31.6 percent. In 2018, with more ballots left to count, Trump has already received 5,884,058 votes in California, 34.2 percent. He not only earned the support of nearly 1.5 million more voters than he’d attracted in 2016, he improved his percentages in what was an election with record turnout. Finding a Trump voter in this state who would be unwilling to sign a recall petition would be a tough job. But that’s only part of this opportunity, because getting rid of this governor is a wholly bipartisan cause, backed not only by Republicans, but by Democrats, Libertarians, and independents.

The strategic value of making Governor Newsom fight to stay in office cannot be overstated. Newsom is more than just an incompetent, hypocritical, corrupt governor. He exemplifies the entire fraud that constitutes the Democratic Party in California. Governor Newsom, and his party, have ran California for decades, and the legacy of their rule is the highest income inequality and the highest cost-of-living in the United States, crumbling infrastructure, failing schools, devastating wildfires caused by negligence, avoidable shortages of water and energy, a housing industry destroyed by overregulation, and an invasion of homeless that could be helped if it weren’t for the toxic progressive combination of misguided compassion and rampant corruption.

A special election that forces Newsom to defend his office would be an opportunity for California’s GOP to redefine itself not just by being anti-Democrat, but by offering real solutions: education vouchers to guarantee universal school choice, reform of crippling environmentalist overreach such as the California Environmental Quality Act, great new infrastructure projects to build new roads, repair the aqueducts, and invest in more water storage, keeping Diablo Canyon open, and reviving the timber industry which could thin California’s overgrown forests.

Several organizations working cooperatively to ensure this recall effort qualifies for the ballot is not easy. But it is not unusual for initiatives and recalls to be promoted by more than one campaign. The Davis recall in 2003 had several independent committees working to gather petitions, and that result is history. Will history repeat itself?

This article originally appeared on the website California Globe.

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The Citizen Army That Will Recall Gavin Newsom

Even in deep blue California, it is possible to achieve the impossible. The technology to facilitate mass uprisings is mature and ubiquitous, and will function with or without the complicity of the social media and search monopolies. The political realignment we are witnessing in California is not partisan, it is not conservative or liberal, right or left, or Republican or Democrat. It is comprised of old and young, rich and poor, black and white and everyone else. This is a mass uprising. California’s pandemic shutdown isn’t just pushing the economy to the brink, it’s taken away whatever remained of the trust that Californians had in their elected officials.

This mistrust is finding expression in a growing movement to recall California Governor Gavin Newsom. Already, tens of thousands of California voters have signed up as volunteers to sign and circulate recall petitions. That number is growing every week. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Agenda are aligning. Alliances are forming. Gavin Newsom’s actions have created a unity that transcends political ideology and defies conventional labels. This is exemplified in the Open California movement.

The Open California movement isn’t found on just one website or Facebook group, and its members are as diverse as California’s electorate. What appears to be the largest group on Facebook is “Reopen California, established on April 11 and already attracting over 170,000 members. And along with large membership, there is high intensity, as exemplified in the Freedom Rally that took place on the steps of Los Angeles City Hall on May 24. Along with Reopen California, which appears to be the biggest Facebook group, there is “Reopen California…NOW!” (7,168 members), “FULLY REOPEN CA NOW MOVEMENT,” (6,350 members), “Re-Open California #EndTheLockdown” (5,124 members), and dozens more groups, many with thousands of members, even more with hundreds of members.

This just scratches the surface of the resistance that’s formed. There’s “Californians Against Excessive Quarantine” (13,460 members), “Leaving California” (10,500 members), and partisan groups such as “Flip it Red California” (31,484 members) and “Make California RED Again!” (21,895 members). There are thousands of smaller groups. All of these have seen their membership surge in the past few weeks. This is evidence that hundreds of thousands of Californians, if not millions, have been mobilized in resistance to the lockdown, and nearly all of them want to recall Gavin Newsom.

How many of these activists will sign a recall petition, or circulate one? And then there is the recall movement itself, including two groups, already working together, “Recall Gavin Newsom” (42,673 members), and “Recall Gavin 2020,” which has “only” 7,567 members, but is linked to 58 satellite Facebook groups, one for each California county, comprising over 25,000 total members.

And where else can be found natural allies of a grassroots recall movement in California?

California’s Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association has over 200,000 members. Every one of them knows that Gavin Newsom is the leader of a government that has imposed the highest taxes in America onto Californians. Every one of them knows that if Gavin Newsom has his way, taxes are going to keep going up. How many of them will vote for a recall?

Then there are California’s dozens of local tax fighting organizations from San Diego to Eureka, there are California’s Tea Party chapters, 2nd Amendment supporters, people who resist over-vaccinating their children, preppers, three-percenters, constitutional oath keepers, and State of Jefferson rebels. These groups add additional tens of thousands of members who want to recall Governor Newsom.

But we’re just getting started.

The resistance in California is a mass movement, with broad populist appeal. Gavin Newsom hasn’t done anything to control the takeover of our public education system by fanatics. They have made it almost impossible to discipline students who are disruptive or even violent, turning many California schools into war zones where learning is impossible. These same fanatics have turned basic sex education into extremist “gender” indoctrination. Millions of parents are enraged by this, and now they can send a message by recalling Gavin Newsom.

When you add it all up, it’s more than a movement, it’s an army, and recruits are everywhere.

What about California’s 2.0 million independent contractors whose jobs were threatened the day Gavin Newsom signed AB 5? How many hundreds of thousands of them lost their jobs, or now have to worry about their jobs?

What about the nearly 3.7 million Californians who have already filed for unemployment benefits in just the last two months, because Gavin Newsom chose to quarantine the healthy, instead of just protecting the vulnerable? What about California’s now 4.6 million unemployed, more than 25 percent of the workforce?

What about the Christian evangelical communities in California, with millions of voters, who are all appalled at what Newsom has done? And of course, what about the 4.5 million Californians who voted for Trump in 2016, who are politically disenfranchised and determined to do something?

Gavin Newsom’s problems have just begun. California’s state and local governments faced unprecedented financial hardship before the pandemic shutdown. Only a light breeze was necessary to disrupt their finances, and what’s happening today is a hurricane. And even after the economic weather stabilizes, the state government’s financial house of cards will remain scattered. Newsom squandered his time in office, fixing nothing, only making problems worse. And his attitude, which consistently favored cronies and non-citizens over normal hard working Californians, is his undoing.

Despite rhetoric to the contrary, Gavin Newsom never cared about normal Californians who want affordable housing. Instead of deregulating so developers can build affordable housing again, he’s spending billions on “affordable housing” that costs taxpayers over a half-million per unit.

Gavin Newsom also doesn’t care about people who want safe streets. Instead of helping the homeless by getting them off the street and into treatment centers in places where they are affordable, he’s building shelters on some of the most expensive real estate on earth, and actually providing them drugs and alcohol.

And Gavin Newsom has locked Californians in their homes at the same time as he’s eliminated bail and released thousands of prisoners. Along with millions of civilians, expect plenty of members of law enforcement to support a recall of this governor.

Realignment is coming to California. Gavin Newsom has provided the spark that lit the fire, illuminating decades of mismanagement and abuse by the one party state.

This article originally appeared on the website American Greatness.

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