Los Angeles, Sept 14 (AFP/APP):Excessive taxes, an over-reaching state, individual liberties at risk and an out-of-touch elite. Conservative candidates in California’s gubernatorial recall election have a list of well-trodden grievances about life in a Democratic stronghold.
“The biggest challenge in California in general is the intrusiveness of government,” says Larry Elder, a conservative talk radio host, who is leading the field of those hoping to unseat Gavin Newsom in Tuesday’s vote.
“I believe that a government that governs less governs best.”
The 69-year-old African American is a lawyer-turned-professional-provocateur who has emerged as the face of the Republican challenge to Newsom, a Democrat who won office in the true-blue state in 2018 with a thumping majority.
Born in an underprivileged neighborhood of Los Angeles, the man who calls himself “the Sage of South Central” has been a radio host for more than 20 years, famous in conservative circles for his populist stances, and more recently for his support of Donald Trump.
His manifesto is everything mainstream California politics is not: he believes the minimum wage should not exist, detests the idea of welfare, dislikes the notion of a public health system and rails against affirmative action — despite acknowledging that he personally benefited from a program to help ethnic minorities into college.
In a state where registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans by two to one, it’s the kind of stump that is unlikely to succeed in a regular election. (California has not had a Republican governor since Arnold Schwarzenegger left office in 2011).
But a recall vote offers a chance for candidates espousing minority opinions.
The two-part ballot asks Californians first if they should kick Newsom out. A simple majority carries the vote.
If he is removed, whichever of the 46 candidates gets the most votes — no matter how few — wins. That means Newsom could get two or three times the support, and still lose to a Republican.
Good, say Republicans who struggle to have their voices heard when Democrats have a stranglehold on the governor’s mansion and the state legislature.
“I know Larry’s positions from so many years listening to him. He’s well reasoned, consistent and not a politician, therefore his views on the issues are real,” Lynn Frank, 67, tells AFP.
“He understands the folly of big government and the loss of freedoms that go with it…. He has no interest whatsoever in being part of a dynasty or elite group of politicians who hand down orders from on high without regard for the realities in people’s lives.”
It’s a view shared by Amy Olsen, 43, a small business owner in Fresno, central California.
“I think he has real solutions to problems like poor education, high cost of living, lack of water, destructive forest fires, rising crime, growing homelessness, and out-of-control mask and vaccine mandates,” she says.
“I blame Newsom for the most stringent lockdown mandates in the United States. These lockdowns closed small businesses forever.”
It is a familiar list of complaints, one that the other Republicans on the ballot also recite.
Former San Diego mayor Kevin Falconer is promising a big tax cut; Kardashian-clan member and TV star Caitlyn Jenner bemoans the tarnished “glimmer of the Golden State.”
And Ted Gaines laments the impossibility of another mid-19th century gold rush in modern-day California.
“Government would choke it off immediately, regulate and tax it out of existence,” he said.
The problem, says Republican strategist Mike Madrid, is that it’s a reactionary position that doesn’t chime with modern-day Californians.
“Rather than adapting to the new reality, Republicans are regressing to some kind of mythical California of a past that never really existed,” he wrote in the Los Angeles Times.
“They see themselves as the last fighters at the Alamo
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