a public service announcement

Normally I stay out of political opinionating in my public posts, but this one is a rebuttal to which I want to give as much airing as I can. It's addressed to California voters who are against the gubernatorial recall; everyone else can skip to the next post.

We know you're going to vote "no" on the recall; the question is, how are you going to vote on the other ballot measure, the one to choose a replacement governor in case the yes votes win on the previous measure? You get a vote on this regardless of your opinion on the recall itself.

There's very little guidance on this. No prominent Democrats have filed; neither major party has endorsed a particular candidate. You can't write in the name of the Lieutenant Governor because they won't count those votes, despite the fact that she's the logical candidate: in any other case if the governor leaves office midterm, the lieutenant governor replaces him; that's what we have a lieutenant governor for.

I've seen at least four courses of action recommended, and three of them strike me as just wrong for an anti-recall voter.

1. Leave the second question blank. This is the course recommended by a lot of official-sounding Democrats. Don't do this. You are not going to stop the recall by boycotting it; all you're doing is abdicating from your chance to make a vote, and you're letting the Republicans decide. The reason the Democrats are pushing this option is because they're afraid that if they back an actual candidate, it'll encourage people to vote "yes" on the recall so that they'll get that candidate. That's silly. If voters are minded to take your advice for a candidate, they could also take your advice to vote "no" on the previous question.

2. Some say, vote for Kevin Paffrath, on the grounds that polls say he's the leading Democrat. Never choose your vote by what the polls say; you'll only make a fool of yourself when you lose to Larry Elder. Paffrath is only prominent because of name recognition, an even more dubious basis to choose a candidate. As a candidate, he's Trump-like in his amateurness, full of naive and dubious plans which will make a horrible crashing sound when they collide with reality.

3. The LA Times recommends voting for Kevin Faulconer, on the grounds that he's the Republican who will do the least damage. That's kind of like "the least bad Stephen R. Donaldson novel" – by Democratic standards it's still very, very bad. Furthermore, by dint of being the least objectionable Republican, Faulconer is the one most likely to win re-election next year. (Remember Arnold and what happened to him?)

4. There's one progressive Democrat with political experience on the ballot. His name is Joel Ventresca. He only got 7% when he ran for mayor of San Francisco, and he's not an ideal candidate, but there are no ideal candidates. At least his education and work experience are in public administration, and he's served as a county environmental commissioner. He was a strong Bernie Sanders supporter. Various progressive outlets, like The San Francisco League of Pissed-off Voters, haven't formally endorsed Ventresca but consider him the best candidate, and individual progressives I respect have said they're voting for him. There are other progressive candidates, but they have far less experience and look considerably more flaky. So I think he's the best we've got, and he has support.