On the one hand, those of us who believe fervently in democracy should be cheering the process that resulted in Arnold Scharzenegger becoming the next governor of California. After all, there's a law providing for a recall. There have been 60-odd attempts to recall governors since the provision was added to the state's constitution before one that was successful, which suggests that the threat to orderly democracy is rather low. And an unusually large percentage of voters of California went to the polls and democratically determined that Gray was out and Arnold was in. To his credit, Davis didn't fight the inevitable, but called on all sides to start working together again. In short, it was a triumph of peaceful democratic action. Wars have started over lesser things.

So why can't I shake the feeling that there was something terribly wrong about the whole thing?

For one thing, it's the way that the recall feels like it was bought by Darryl Issa, originally for Darryl Issa -- although he was later thwarted by Schwarzenegger's unexpected entry into the race, Issa intended to run for governor himself. There's just something unseemly about a sitting Republican congressman who had aspirations of becoming the governor himself funding a recall of the Democratic governor.

For another, it's the fact that the recall came 11 months after Davis was reelected. Of course, that number -- 11 months -- obscures the fact that the recall was begun within months of the last election. This suggests that it wasn't a populist uprising that brought about the recall petition, since it seems unlikely that popular sentiment would have changed so much in just a few short months. And if it wasn't a populist uprising, then what was it? Call it "faux populism", orchestrated by a core of hard-right wing conservatives who don't like or trust the electorate, and will use whatever mechanisms they can to consolidate power in Republican hands. The "faux" is because this core is always careful to couch its activism behind the mantle of "the people" even if they have to manufacture "the people".

For example, in Florida in 2000, Republican operatives staged an "angry mob" to storm the election offices in Miami-Dade county that consisted not of angry Floridians, but Republican staffers bussed in for the event (and, according to IRS and FEC documents, paid for by the Bush campaign). [link] [link] The canvassing board canceled its recount of votes.

In Texas, Republican congressman Tom DeLay pushed the state government to re-redistrict two years after the last redistricting, and cited not popular outrage at the current district lines, but rather that fundamental fairness required it; because Republicans are supposedly the majority party in the state, he and others claimed that the court-ordered redistricting plan imposed in 2001 was defective because it preserved a Democratic majority in the state's congressional delegation. Never mind that five Democrats in the Texas delegation were elected from districts in which Democrats are the minority party.

There's more on this theme here, in case you're interested.

In the end, I'd like to take solace in the fact that the democratic process worked, but somehow, I just can't seem to. For now, I wish Ah-nold luck, and take small solace in either of two scenarios: Either he'll prove his detractors wrong, fix California, show the national Republican party that there is a place for social moderates in the big tent, and thereby begin reversing the polarizing influence of the DeLays and Issas; or he'll prove to be an even bigger disaster than Gray Davis, and hopefully, demonstrate to Republican party that right-wing zealotry ultimately causes them to lose, not gain, influence.

Lemonade, anyone?