The Democrats Will Also Shit Themselves.

[Thad]

Yeah, the problem is that candidates who are willing to run against Newsom in a recall election kind of self-select for people who are worse than Newsom.

[Upthorn]

There were a couple Dems who are criticizing him from the left. Our best chance is to hope the recall fails, but we should try to coordinate our support towards one of the least worst backup options.

Which, best I can tell, are
https://www.jackie4gov.org
https://www.meetkevin.com
https://www.joelventresca.com/platform.html

[mharr]

I wish Dave Cameron had been smart enough to put eight different 'yes' options on his little referendum gambit.

[Thad]

I wish Dave Cameron had been smart enough to put eight different 'yes' options on his little referendum gambit.

The trouble is it's first-past-the-post. An election with 8 choices where all it takes to win is 1/8+1 of the vote ain't great.

[Yoji]

Still doing my homework, but maybe thinking out loud will help.

Dennis Richter says some things that aren't absolutely crazy, but he sounds kinda centrist. I'm not really in the mood for centrists.

Brandon Ross acknowledges Newsom won fair and square, has made mistakes, but hasn't done anything warranting a recall. Urges vaccination, but won't mandate it.

While I'm moving down the list, I just wanted to pull aside and remind Caitlyn Jenner to go fuck herself.

Michael Loebs starts with the San Diego Tribune saying his party neither supports or opposes the recall. Please forgive me for not getting psyched about the diplomats from the Neutral Planet.

Denis Lucey is a little hard to find info on. Voter's Edge lists two of his top three issues as related to child custody: "50% Child Custody Rights to all Competent Parents" and "Stop Parental Alienation and Childhood Divorce Trauma." For some reason, that gives me the creeps.

Jeremiah Marciniak has no stated party, but Voter's Edge lists some alright priorities, I guess.


I dunno, guys. I've got a bad feeling about this.

[Upthorn]

Because it's just whoever's in first place, with no requirement of a majority, I'm recommending Kevin Paffrath, as he's (A) currently polling in second place, and (B) significantly less bad than Elder.
If this were a primary where the top two candidates went on to face each other, I would be doing research on the third party/no party affiliation candidates, and recommending Jacquelin McGowan if you want to vote for a Dem.

[Friday]

12:39 PM <Friday> Brentai, can you find what Joel Ventresca's problem is?
12:39 PM <Brentai> Who?
12:39 PM <Brentai> Oh, I haven't been looking.
12:39 PM <Friday> https://www.joelventresca.com/platform.html
12:39 PM <Friday> dem candidate
12:39 PM <Friday> he's the only one who isn't "I identify as a centrist, vaccines optional, freedom freedom freedom" that i can find
12:40 PM <+Mazian> Has your lieutenant governor filed the paperwork to count as a write-in candidate? She seemed like the sensible person to fill in, if only from the argument of "stepping in is what the lieutenant governor is FOR"
12:41 PM <Brentai> Love how the ballot is 24 Republicans and 9 Republicans.
12:41 PM <Friday> Mazian: I just checked the list, don't see her name.
12:41 PM <Brentai> 24 MAGA and 9 GOP.
12:41 PM <Friday> https://elections.cdn.sos.ca.gov/statew ... d-list.pdf
12:42 PM <Friday> Eleni Kounalakis is who you mean, right?
12:42 PM <+Mazian> Yes
12:43 PM <+Mazian> Couldn't remember her name off-hand, but then, I'd also have to double check who my own lt.gov. is
12:47 PM <Friday> "Despite being the second highest-ranking office in California, the lieutenant governor has no real responsibility or power to represent the governor on issues such as trade negotiations or a legislative agenda (i.e. in contrast to its powerful counterpart in Texas), so the job has been jokingly defined by political insiders as "get up, read the paper, see if the governor is dead, if not, go back to sleep.""
12:48 PM <Brentai> As far as I can tell for giving a fuck for all of ten minutes Paffrath is the only Dem in a position to be first past the post, and also the only candidate anybody's ever going to recall Newsom in favor of.
12:48 PM <Brentai> Like literally the only reason the recall is likely to go through is if Dems decide to try and replace Newsom with this guy.
12:48 PM <Brentai> So that's an argument in favor and NOT in favor of supporting him, hurka durka.
12:50 PM <Friday> Yeah Paffrath is leading the polls (for Dems)
12:50 PM <Friday> but he's such a joke
12:50 PM <Brentai> Not a single one of these guys even attempts to be clear on their stance on anything.
12:50 PM <Friday> I don't know, it really does feel like my vote (aside from NO on recall) doesn't fucking matter
12:50 PM <Friday> like there's no cohesion in the dems
12:50 PM <Brentai> Every single one of them is a California Politician and that's the thing that people are trying to pull Newsom down for.
12:50 PM <Brentai> But like, if you accept that as a valid criticism, then all you get is a revolving door.
12:50 PM <Friday> the dem party is telling the dems to not even vote for a candidate
12:50 PM <Mr_Saturn> newsom should just resign like
12:51 PM <Mr_Saturn> now
12:51 PM <Mr_Saturn> and fuck the election
12:51 PM <Friday> Saturn why
12:51 PM <Friday> what would that do
12:51 PM <Mr_Saturn> Friday: it makes the recall die
12:51 PM <Brentai> Yeah but Newsom's not the kind of guy to give a fuck about that.
12:51 PM <Mr_Saturn> from my understanding
12:51 PM <Brentai> None of these candidates are.
12:51 PM <Friday> so we'd just do a normal election then?
12:51 PM <Friday> if he resigned, I mean
12:52 PM <Mr_Saturn> Friday: no the lt governor would become the governor
12:52 PM <Friday> oh right
12:52 PM <Friday> okay
12:52 PM <Mr_Saturn> former lt then finishes newsoms term and a regular election would be held
12:52 PM <Brentai> It always throws me off when the rest of the country paints this state's population as radical bleeding hearts. This is the most narcissistic place in the world.
12:53 PM <Brentai> Maybe second after Paris idk.
12:53 PM <Friday> Somewhere, a man in a beret spits out his coffee.
12:54 PM <Friday> How many Californians total do we have here
12:54 PM <Friday> 5? 6?
12:54 PM <Mr_Saturn> like the whole goddamn reason theres a homeless "problem" is because of stupid fucking NIMBYs and land developer scumbags
12:54 PM <Brentai> A lot fewer now.
12:54 PM <Friday> me brent yoji upthorn
12:55 PM <Mr_Saturn> "NO DONT GIVE THEM HOUSING OR A CLEAN PLACE TO SHIT"
12:55 PM <Friday> is it really just down to us 4 now?
12:55 PM <Mr_Saturn> later "WHY IS THERE SHIT ON THE SIDEWALK"
12:55 PM <Brentai> Mmhm.
12:55 PM <Friday> i must be forgetting someone
12:55 PM <Brentai> I mean sei if you still count him as a #finalfighter.
12:55 PM <Brentai> Vance.
12:55 PM <Friday> he hasn't posted or been here since Kazz
12:55 PM <Friday> oh, Vance.
12:55 PM <+Mazian> Esperath, but he's also apparently gone.
12:56 PM <Brentai> I feel like I belong as part of the mass migration to Seattle but I really... don't want to.
12:56 PM <Brentai> I also just don't LIKE that everyone is huddling in one last little corner of the country.
12:56 PM <+Mazian> Well, don't do it _now_. The Season of Gloom is starting to roll in.
12:56 PM <Friday> Esper contacted me when I PMed him, he said he'd be back but needed a break
12:57 PM <Friday> the joke is
12:57 PM <Friday> I almost assuredly WOULD have moved to Bellingham
12:57 PM <Friday> if not for COVID
12:57 PM <Friday> my mom wanted to be close to her mom
12:57 PM <Friday> but then COVID happened and she decided not to move
12:58 PM <Friday> now it's actually looking like she might move to hawaii when this is "over"
12:58 PM <Friday> whenever the fuck that is
12:58 PM <+Mazian> I ended up in this corner of the country just by happenstance; I'd barely visited it at all before moving here.
12:58 PM <Yoji> I think Vance is a stone's throw away from me
12:58 PM <+Mazian> There was an antivax protest in Bellingham the other week, but it did look like the usual "seven angry cranks getting disproportionate attention" scenario
12:58 PM <+Mazian> Not like the Tri-Cities, where they can muster a lot more
12:58 PM <Friday> Mazian: I've been there several times, it's nice
12:59 PM <+Mazian> Yeah, I like Bellingham, at least what of it I've seen. Haven't been up in a while since I'm usually just stopping there on the way to/from Vancouver.
12:59 PM <+Mazian> And THAT hasn't been an option lately.
12:59 PM <Friday> :(
1:00 PM <Friday> anyway, Ventresca seems like the "best" option to me if you don't care about polling numbers
1:00 PM <Friday> but i mean vote for paffrath if you do care about polling numbers
1:00 PM <Friday> or just do what the dems say and don't vote at all
1:01 PM <Friday> I don't even know, this recall is super fucked
1:01 PM <Friday> Paffrath pisses me off though
1:01 PM <Friday> I don't think I can bring myself to vote him
1:02 PM <Yoji> Real estate bozo with loud, uninformed opinions?
1:02 PM <+Mazian> Is there another kind?
1:02 PM <Yoji> WHERE HAVE I HEoh right, I yelled that already
1:05 PM <Yoji> Are the democrats really not going to endorse a Plan B candidate?
1:06 PM <Brentai> I guess they're worried about convincing anybody that one of the other dem options might be better.
1:07 PM <Brentai> Don't know why.
1:07 PM <chibisede> <Bernie> Me neither.
1:11 PM <Yoji> Then maybe we collectively deserve Larry "I didn't wave a gun at my girlfriend, just menacingly checked if it was loaded" Elder
1:13 PM <chibisede> the scientific method of gun safety

so, yeah. My opinion to the five of us reading this who can vote is vote Ventresca, or Paffrath if you want your vote to "matter" since he's in the lead. Obviously and more importantly, vote NO on the recall.

I won't be voting Paffrath though. Unless someone comes along and shows me why Ventresca is actually garbage who is just name dropping Bernie to sucker in progs like me, I'm voting for him.

[Upthorn]

If it weren't for polling numbers I'd be between Ventresca and Jacqueline McGowan.
Incidentally, what issues did you have with McGowan? I felt like she had a better stance on Covid than Ventresca, and was mostly similar otherwise.

Edit: Looked closer at McGowan and realized she didn't mention taxes or protests at all, okay. Ventresca is definitely a better choice.

[Cait]

Wait, how is Paffrath remotely viable as a consideration? He's a centrist with Republican talking points that says masks and vaccinations should be up to the individual.

[Brantly B.]

12:41 PM <Brentai> 24 MAGA and 9 GOP.

[Upthorn]

Wait, how is Paffrath remotely viable as a consideration? He's a centrist with Republican talking points that says masks and vaccinations should be up to the individual.

The comparison is to Elder, who is polling in first. Paffrath says masks and vaccinations should be up to the city/county, which is bad, but not nearly as bad as Elder who wants to ban localities from issuing mandates at all.

[Thad]

House Democrats' new voting rights bill limits the Supreme Court’s power to greenlight voter suppression

Voting rights is an uphill battle but at least it's not dead yet. We need to keep the pressure on.

There's a March On for Voting Rights this Saturday, the anniversary of the March on Washington.

[Upthorn]

Because it's just whoever's in first place, with no requirement of a majority, I'm recommending Kevin Paffrath, as he's (A) currently polling in second place

Poll numbers have changed and Paffrath is no longer looking any more viable than any of the other D candidates. So I'm changing my recommendation from Paffrath to Ventresca, if you haven't voted yet.

[Friday]

Yeah I just mailed it in today, NO/Ventresca is confirmed.

The joke is, from what I've seen of Ventresca's platform, I actually would prefer him as governor quite a bit over Newsom. But that's a pipe dream, so I'm just hoping NO on the recall wins.

[Büge]

[Yoji]

Well, it's Election's Eve in California and... well, looking at 538, it's really gonna be Newsom or Bust, huh? Elder leads at 27%, and Paffrath is a distant second of 6.6% (down from 7% a few days ago).

I was ready to vote for Ventresca, but I don't even see him on the polls. And I'm pretty sure I made my feelings on Paffrath clear. Still, I've gotta mark down some Plan B candidate here.

[Grath]

Apparently tomorrow's election has already happened, and Larry Elder's already found and proven fraud?

[Mongrel]

Dewey Defrauds Truman

[Friday]

This shit is going to literally destroy America.

[Mongrel]

This shit is going to literally destroy America.

To be fair, the list of shit that's going to destroy already in the process of destroying America is pretty damn long at this point.