Recall the Governor?

Over at the Pro-Criminal Flash Report. Jon Fleischman is bemoaning yet another non-Republican appointment by Gov. Schwartzenegger. With profound disappointment in this Governor, now entering the first full year of his re-election and the state in the same sort of financial crunch it was under Gray Davis, I have to wonder why Jon and other Republican leaders aren’t raising funds and gathering signatures for a Total Recall of the Governor.

Some back story first….

When Jon is whining, I’m smiling. The headline on his post is misleading because when I read it, I thought the Governor had appointment Gray Davis to the California Air Resources Board and not one of his aides; but the joke didn’t quite work (and that’s OK).

Here’s his commentary:

Well, he may as well have. In what can best be characterized as a stilletto jammed between the ribs of every Republican, conservative or moderate, who walked precincts, donated money, or worked for the re-election of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Capitol Weekly is reporting that the Governor, this afternoon, will appoint Mary Nichols to head up the important California Air Resources Board.

This is the same Mary Nichols who, according to CW, was Assistant Administrator of the EPA under President Bill Clinton and served as a senior official in the administrations of Governors Jerry Brown and, yes, the disgraced and recalled Gray Davis.

At the rate he is going, Schwarzenegger will have more former Gray Davis hacks in his administration than Davis himself had – if that’s possible (it’s not, but Jon is on a roll).

It’s also an alarming statement about a Schwarzenegger administration that is tripping over itself to move way past center and embrace the left wing enviro-acti vist agenda…

The sad truth is that there is plenty of talent for all of these positions from the party of Ronald Reagan. People who will BALANCE environmental concerns with issues of freedom, liberty and economic prosperity — all of these (especially the latter) “hate words” to the Mary Nichols’ of the world. (you mean like the two leaders of CRP who were Australian and Canadian?; And excuse me, but Republicans have a documented awful record on the environment.)

How profoundly disappointing. (For you maybe)

Note to Jon: I sincerely doubt that *any* liberal, progressive or Democrat feels terms like “freedom, liberty and economic prosperity” are hate words, but keep telling yourself that especially when you deny those words to my gay and lesbian friends who might like to get married someday. What about their freedom and liberty?

State Rep. Chuck DeVore was quoted in an LA Times story last week about GOP outrage over the Governor’s left-leaning stewardship of the state and calling for fiscal restraint. He blogged about it on Matt Cunningham’s site and I posed a comment: why not recall the governor? No response from a usually chatty Cathy that Chuck is…

Let’s turn the wayback machine on for a second to this link:

Schwarzenegger’s declaration (to run for Governor) on The Tonight Show may have appeared off-the-cuff and spontaneous, but months of planning and preparation had gone into both the recall petition that made his election possible and the campaign itself. Conventional wisdom suggests that Republican presidential candidates write off left-leaning California’s 54 electoral votes, but such a substantial prize is hard to ignore. An associate of top Bush strategist Karl Rove calls the state “Karl’s Ahab.” Aside from the ambition of winning California in the presidential race, the party stood to benefit in other ways by electing Schwarzenegger, such as an increase in Republican voter registration with the potential to influence future elections. It also forces Democratic presidential candidates to spend more time and money in the state in 2004. “We can distract the opposition long enough to make them vulnerable elsewhere on the national political landscape,” said California Republican strategist Dan Schnur. Longtime Republican strategist Kenneth L. Khachigian, who worked with recall backer and bankroller Congressman Darrell Issa, characterized the recall as “fundamentally a conservative Republican mainstream movement. That’s where all the momentum and energy behind the recall comes from.” Several other California GOP leaders, including former state legislator Howard Kaloogian, political consultant Sal Russo, and strategist David Gilliard, worked hard on the recall drive. Schwarzenegger’s proclaimed liberal views on social issues such as abortion and gay rights were accepted by party activists as pragmatic necessities in California’s cultural environment. As conservative strategist Matt Cunningham explained, “When a man is lost in the desert and dying of thirst, he’s not going to insist on Perrier.”

But once elected, they sure wanted Arnold to make a hard right turn.

From a 2005 article in Human Events by Rep. Chuck DeVore:

The Governor closed his remarks by challenging the audience, saying, “Ask yourself, are you happy with the way things are right now? If yes, then vote no on the reform initiatives.” For everyone else, the Governor urged them to action, asking them to support his efforts using the same grassroots techniques that pushed the recall over the top in 2003. Calling his reform package a “sequel” to the 2003 recall election, Schwarzenegger said, “The recall just changed the governor, but it didn’t change the system that brought us this mess.” It is now time to change the system.

Chuck wrapped the piece with a call to vote in the special election (the one that cost us at least $30 million)

So, my long drawn out point is things are very much where they were when Gov. Davis was recalled. We have a Governor who seems to care little if at all for what Republicans have to say. We still have a spending problem and not a revenue problem. And we have plenty of pissed off Republicans.

So where’s the outrage from the Right?

Where is the recall effort?

Or does that only apply when Democrats are in charge?