Peter Camejo gets it right about the recall
Peter Camejo, Green Party candidate for Governor in the recall, spoke on Democracy Now about the recall.
He made these comments in response to the iconic Delores Huerta, co-founder with Cesar Chavez of the United Farm Workers, who had just made a long, I thought vacuous, statement in support of Gray Davis, saying well if we’d just had more time people would have seen how much good he’s done.
Camejo responded saying the Democrats were in serious denial about the electoral landslide that just crushed them, then added:
People should recognize the incredible landslide that the Republicans had. If you add McClintock’s vote to Arnold’s vote, that’s 61%. Then you figure that they must have lost 4%, 5% because of the attack regarding these women accusations. The Republicans were getting, like, 65%.
This is the utter and complete failure of the Democrats and the rejection — the thing most people aren’t aware of was this was the youth, working people. Union members were more for the recall than nonunion members.
Even though the entire union leadership, controlled by the Democrats, were opposed to the recall. The poorest people of California, the ones most for the recall. In fact, in general, progressives and liberals misunderstood and took this entire development as some sort of big Republican conspiracy behind it, when, in fact, it was people who were just completely fed up with Governor Davis.
In California, the rich have the lowest tax rate, because that’s what the Democrats have done. The Democrats voted unequivocal support for George Bush on the war. They have demoralized, destroyed, and weakened the progressive currents in California. And people are so fed up with them, that in desperation, they were fooled by Arnold Schwarzenegger.
And it’s not just because the media did it. It’s because what the Democrats have done. The Democrats have sided against the people, have betrayed the people.
There is an utter crisis in California politically, and it’s a crisis of the Democratic Party misrepresenting the working people, misrepresenting the majority.
The OC Weekly sums it up this way
Blame the Democrats They need to stop acting like drunks at court-ordered AA meetings and sober up
Arnold didn’t so much win. In a state with a million more registered Democrats, Davis and his party killed themselves.
True to the hapless attitude they adopted during the 76-day recall campaign, Democrats and the Left are in post-election denial. They woke up Wednesday in a puddle of their own puke and blamed the bar, the bartender, the two-for-one special, their dates, the last shot of Johnny Walker Red Label. Like good alcoholics, they blamed everybody but themselves for the embarrassing failure.
Only Peter Camejo got it right. On KPFK-FM in Los Angeles after the election, the Green Party candidate—who received about 2 percent of the vote—said how Democratic leaders had “betrayed” populist causes. “The Democratic Party is in disarray,” said Camejo, whose comment drew an immediate on-air rebuke from Huerta. She bitterly told him to “focus your anger at the Republicans.”
A plea to California Democrats: stop blaming the Republicans. Take responsibility. If there was any message in the staggering Schwarzenegger victory, it’s that your rudderless, unprincipled party is in dire need of self-examination and reform before Bush steals the state.