Friday, August 22, 2003

Kleiman Responds

To some extent I guess he thinks it's simply a practical issue - that, say, the Bustamante campaign should be 100% focus on getting Bustamante elected, rather than the "no on recall, yes on Bustamante." It isn't clear to me that this would improve Bustamante's chances of winning the second ballot, though maybe it would and if so Mark has a point here.

But on the point that the recall doesn't have the same standard as impeachment - that's true and I've never questioned the *right* of the Republicans to do this, or argued that they weren't following the letter or spirit of the law her. The point is that it's obviously a *bad law.* The recall process is deeply flawed. I'm not against any recall process, but one in which the sitting governor could be ousted by "losing" 49% to 5% is a bad process. And, if Davis loses and Bustamanate wins, we can look forward to Recall Part 2 by the same cast of characters.