Elder is the Trumpist who may save Gavin Newsom's job

Daly City CA

Description

Donald Trump hasn’t said much about California’s recall election. But Trumpism may be responsible for killing its chances to succeed. A spate of recent polls show Tuesday’s recall headed to defeat, just weeks after likely voters were split on whether to toss out Gov. Gavin Newsom. The difference: Then, Democratic voters were far less engaged — or even aware of the fact that Newsom was on the endangered governor’s list — and weren’t dialed into an off-election-calendar recall vote. That has changed in part because of what the Newsom supporters are touting as the largest voter outreach plan in the state’s history. When the delta variant spiked, and Elder and most other top Republican candidates rejected mask and vaccine requirements as an impingement on personal freedom, Newsom received another gift. During an appearance in Bakersfield this month, Elder promised that as governor he would repeal mask mandates for state workers “before I have my first cup of tea.” In Elder, they found someone else to dunk on. Someone who not only held positions far outside the California mainstream, but — like Trump — won’t back down from them. Orrin Heatlie, the retired Yolo County Sheriff’s sergeant who initiated the recall drive, compared Elder to a streaker darting across the field naked at a football game. “His friends egged him on to do it (get in the race), the crowd is cheering him on,” Heatlie told me, emphasizing that he was speaking as an individual. “But he has no business being on the field.” Heatlie said Elder has been a dual-edged sword for those who want to boot Newsom. The best news of all for the Newsom camp: Elder’s decades of off-the-cuff Trumpian commentary are preserved in the amber of his radio shows, speeches and writings. Elder, who would be California’s first Black governor, mused in July that if California was going to talk about reparations — the state has a task force that is studying the idea — then slaveholders should be eligible for reparations for their financial losses since slaves were legally considered property at the time. “When people talk about reparations, do they really want to have that conversation? Like it or not, slavery was legal,” Elder said as a guest on conservative commentator Candace Owens’ radio show in July. “Their legal property was taken away from them after the Civil War, so you could make an argument that the people that are owed reparations are not only just Black people but also the people whose ‘property’ was taken away after the end of the Civil War.” ELDER IS FOR THE RICH. AS ARE ALL REPUBLICANS.