Caracas, California
OP-ED COLUMNIST <a href=www.nytimes.com>NYT, By WILLIAM SAFIRE E-mail: safire@nytimes.com WASHINGTON
Voters of Venezuela and California have this in common: a growing number of disgusted voters are determined to upset, through referendum, the election of their chief executive.
Neither President Hugo Chávez nor Gov. Gray Davis has committed an impeachable crime. But both men's popularity has plummeted as a result of a sloppy or mismanaged economy, many voters' sense of betrayal and in Chávez's case, ever-deepening division among the electorate.
Is "recall" of a leader — elected by a majority for a fixed term but supported only by a minority — a good idea? Or should voters stare decisively at election returns and wait for retribution on a regular schedule?
First consider oil-rich Venezuela, long run by a corrupt oligarchy. Chávez and his populist party rode in on a wave of reform, captured the National Assembly and started packing the courts. His reach for greater power led to strikes, riots, capital flight, an abortive coup and, despite high world oil prices, an economy nose-diving by 10 percent a year.
Chávez is an ardent admirer of Fidel Castro. Like the Cuban dictator, he intimidates those who dare to oppose, encouraging violent attacks on his critics by thuggish supporters.
In a deal to permit re-election, he agreed to a referendum on his rule. But now Chávez is throwing up procedural roadblocks. His party is denying the National Assembly a quorum (an old Texas trick). Chávez is resisting a recall vote because he presumes that if the referendum to oust him succeeds, his currently divided opposition will unite against him in the election to follow.
California's governor, Gray Davis, though not a Castro follower, is in a similar position. Last year, as Republicans were about to choose a strong candidate in a primary to oppose him, he poured millions into TV advertising to tear down Mayor Richard Riordan of Los Angeles; when a weaker Republican candidate won, Democrat Davis easily defeated him. Picking one's opposition, though unprecedented, was considered a nifty trick.
Not so nifty was Davis's failure to disclose a looming huge deficit, necessitating nearly $40 billion in budget cuts or tax increases. Now that his heavy-spending chickens are coming home to roost, a bipartisan he-lied-to-us crowd is out in force and his approval rating is in the low 20's.
Seizing on what has been aptly called "voter remorse," the wealthy Republican Representative Darrell Issa is financing a recall campaign to dump the term-limited Davis. Bettors on the left coast tell me that with enough money, a million signatures could be collected in initiative-happy California to indict a ham sandwich (on whole wheat toast, of course, with alfalfa sprouts). If enough voters are egged on by TV advertising, talk-showboating and Weblog fury, the governor's recall will be on the ballot along with a separate list of potential successors.
Speculation centers on G.O.P. opponents like Issa, Riordan, previous opponent Bill Simon and "Arnold" (whose last name, Schwarzenegger, is too long for headline writers but somehow fits on a movie marquee). Democratic candidates such as Senator Dianne Feinstein are too shy to come forward lest they be considered backstabbers.
Thus, if Davis is afflicted with total recall, a replacement with as little as 15 percent of the total vote could be the next California governor. Is this any way to run a state as large as Iraq, to reverse a favored comparison?
With the world's fifth-largest economy and the world's fifth-largest oil exporter both in such a fix, a pundit should take a consistent stand. Thus:
Venezuelans should be given their right to oust their power-expanding president, because Chávez would then have the right to run in a subsequent race against the choice of the opposition. If that bunch cannot unite, they deserve their Castroite bully.
But Californians should suffer Gray Davis for three more years, voting like grown-ups not as penance for their mistake last year, but to uphold the principle that election results are final for a fixed term and officeholders should not be removed merely when ratings fall.
Wait — is it inconsistent to root for ouster of Chávez while espousing the retention of Davis? Walt Whitman: "Very well then I am inconsistent." Ralph Waldo Emerson: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. . . . With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do."