A threat to recall a politician from office is a serious one. When Colorado Democrat Party Chairman Rick Palacio called for Secretary of State Scott Gessler to be recalled it was a risky move, one that could succeed in removing a political enemy of Democrats, or could blow up in Palacio's face as an empty threat.
Nearly two weeks after Palacio called for Gessler's head there seems to be little to no movement on the recall effort, effectively exposing Palacio's idle threat and calling into question his credibility.
If there had been a groundswell of support to chuck Gessler, Democrats would be damn sure to highlight that fact.
So far…nothing.
Let's take a look at some basic indicators of support for this boneheaded Democrat initiative:
- There is a Facebook page called "Remove Gessler." It's been around since October 2011 and still has only 51 "likes," despite the fact that ProgressNow web editor Alan Franklin has pushed it on his Facebook page. No groundswell there.
- No group has formed to spearhead the Gessler recall. A recall takes lots of money and time. Without a group dedicated to the cause, nothing will happen.
- There has been no press release from Palacio or any liberal organization announcing the time consuming and expensive petition effort to get the recall effort underway. As Colorado law requires the gathering of signatures for 25% of the votes cast in the elected official's election, that would mean Democrats would have to collect 457,425 valid signatures, as 1,829,711 votes were cast in 2010. To be safe they'll need to collect close to twice that many signatures.
Does anyone really think that in the heat of a competitive Presidential election Democrats are going to be able to collect nearly 1 million signatures to recall the Secretary of State, a position most voters know little to nothing about?
If they want to try, we'd be glad to see them focusing on something other than defending Obama's ruinous first term.
But we don't think they will mount much of an effort. The only impact of Palacio's threat is to, in the words of The Denver Post editorial board "erode [Democrats'] credibility."
Palacio is quickly becoming the Chairman who cried recall.
The poor dead horse continues to be flogged.
Ummm…the Denver Post has written two paper edition stories about Palacio’s threat. Wouldn’t call that a nonstory. But nice try.
Then I’m sure you can tell me how many paper edition stories there were of the Bradford scandal before Peak deigned to comment on it. Or how many diaries Peak has dedicated to this story. (Hint: Both answers are greater than two.)
Not sure I buy that CPP needed to cover Bradford story until the more “inside baseball” (i.e. potential party-switch) stuff came out. It was covered pretty thoroughly in the Post, Channel 4, 9, et al. Most blogs tend to feature posts that are of more interest to politically engaged people, not front-page news.
The Gessler story is of more interest to people who follow politics pretty closely. That being said I don’t think the number of followers on facebook is the best indicator of anything in CO politics (i.e. 51 Recall Gessler followers). CO tends not to be overly political. Can we recall Jim Tracy by the way?
Although that’s a relevant tangent – a blog needs page views, which unique diaries and the comments they generate provide.
It’s about what the webmasters of Peak reveal about themselves by what they do – and don’t – publish on this site. Their timing is also relevant. Interesting that the diaries published on Monday have to do with alleged bad news for Dems on the local front, on the same day that their would-be whipping boy Sal Pace announces record-breaking fundraising numbers while Tipton is currently AWOL. That’s a classic attempt to boost morale, all the more transparent because a) the party chair is always a minor figure to the electorate, so whatever he or she says to the press is of no importance, and b) there is no serious reason to believe Coors will unseat Perlmutter.
We still have almost seven months and anything can happen – Scott McInnis’ plagiarism scandal broke in late July, for instance. But this is an attempt to make something out of nothing.