CA-Gov: Rep. Ted Lieu (D) Brilliantly Trolls Uninformed Idiot On Twitter With A Politics 101 Lesson
Fail:
REALITY BITES: That didn’t take long. Reality TV star and political neophyte Caitlyn Jenner was about 24 hours into the rollout of her California gubernatorial campaign this weekend when she posted her first major campaign gaffe on social media.
Jenner, expressing outrage about a San Francisco Chronicle story involving SF DA Chesa Boudin’s record on domestic violence cases (more below), tweeted: “This is horrible and also avoidable. Gavin’s District Attorneys across California are releasing dangerous criminals back on to our streets. Enough is enough. #RecallGavin.’’
The Twitterverse quickly responses, schooling the candidate about what appeared to be her ignorance of the election process involving California district attorneys. In one of the kinder pushbacks, CA GOP operative @RobertJMolnar tweeted: “District Attorneys do not work for Gavin. Politics 101. Lesson is over for today. Good luck!”
Dem strategist @GarrySouth was acid-tongued: “@Caitlyn_Jenner is an uninformed idiot. Watch her expose more of her embarrassing ignorance as the campaign moves on.”
But Rep. Ted Lieu (D. CA-33) won the internet today:
Retweeting Jenner, California Democratic Congressman Ted Lieu quickly pointed out that D.A.s in the state are elected by the people, not appointed by the governor. He went on to question Jenner’s knowledge of basic civics saying, “Also, do you know how a bill becomes a law?” before tweeting a link to the famous “I’m just a bill” Schoolhouse Rock video.
— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) April 25, 2021
Jenner then fired back saying she knows D.A.s are elected, but “as the CEO of the state, the buck stops with Newsom.” She also condemned Lieu’s “condescending tone”
Lieu, who represents many of L.A.’s affluent Westside communities, responded saying that he didn’t believe Jenner’s claim she knew about D.A.s and elections. Lieu then said that her comment was condescending to those local officials.
It is interesting to note that Jenner hastagged the “RecallNewsom” mantra. While Gavin Newsom is indeed headed for a recall election, San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin is also facing a recall effort. Curious that Jenner did not raise the visibility of that local effort among her 3.5 million Twitter followers.
FYI:
— Carla Marinucci (@cmarinucci) April 25, 2021
Unfortunately, us Californians actually have to go through this bull shit:
Fueled by partisan fury and a backlash against pandemic shutdowns, a Republican-led campaign to oust Gov. Gavin Newsom of California has officially qualified for the ballot, officials said on Monday, setting the stage for the second recall election in the state’s history.
In a widely expected filing, the California secretary of state’s office found that recall organizers had collected 1,626,042 signatures on their petition, more than the roughly 1.5 million required to ask voters to remove Mr. Newsom from office.
The announcement sets in motion a series of procedural steps that should culminate in a special election. No date has been scheduled, but it is expected to be sometime in November. Between now and then, the state will review the cost associated with sending the proposed recall to voters, and those who signed the petition will have 30 business days to ask to have their names removed if they so choose.
State officials say, however, that those hurdles are unlikely to prevent a vote, even though only a year or so will remain before Mr. Newsom, who was elected in 2018, comes up for re-election.
Several Republican candidates have already announced challenges to Mr. Newsom, including Caitlyn Jenner, a transgender activist; Kevin Faulconer, a former mayor of San Diego; and John Cox, a businessman who lost to Mr. Newsom in 2018.
But hey, Jenner is already looking like an asset for Newsom:
Reality television star Caitlyn Jenner is running to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom in a recall election likely to be scheduled for the fall, and her campaign launch last week appeared to serve as a gift to the governor.
Newsom's team shared with Politico that in the 36 hours following Jenner's announcement, Newsom's anti-recall campaign raised a whopping $300,000 in online donations, likely buoyed by liberals who revile Jenner for her support of then-President Donald Trump in 2016.
The Newsom team has rarely shared campaign finance figures with media outlets, and campaign spokesperson Nathan Click even went on the record to Politico, stating, “our grassroots army is fired up!”
Since declaring her candidacy last week, Jenner has not released any specific policy proposals for the state. She also has not done any interviews with California publications, and may or may not believe that the governor appoints city district attorneys (district attorneys are elected at the local level).
Also, kudos to Trans wrestler, Jetta Rae Robertson, for summing this up:
The conditions are perfect for the grift. The Republican Party, reeling from a national electoral defeat and its identity as the “party of Lincoln” overshadowed by, among its other acts, its anti-mask, anti-trans, anti-science antics — and a little light treason — has an outside chance of winning the governor's mansion of the liberal mothership.
Plus, backing a celebrity conservative against an embarrassed Democrat in a recall election has worked once before for the Republicans.
And here Caitlyn comes: wealthy, white, famous and loves “the queers” but is still iffy on same-sex marriage.
Caitlyn Jenner is two things in one trans package: She's both the conservative ideal of a transgender woman (if they have to allow for us to exist at all) in that she has no interest in challenging the gender binary or, really, any status quo; and she's also the epitome of the critique of trans women supposedly upholding conservative ideas of gender roles through the pursuit of womanly aesthetics made by anti-trans campaigners who claim to be extreme left-wing feminists.
And while I hate to grant that those people are right about anything, getting a bunch of rich old bigots to pay for TV time so you can wring your hands about poor people and foreigners stealing all our benefits is pretty much the gold standard of upholding traditional white womanhood.
The real problem now is that, whatever happens, Caitlyn Jenner wins — and the rest of us, trans people and Californians, lose. She’ll get to do her act, and have it beamed directly into millions of homes across California, on the Republicans' dime.
Let’s get ready to defeat the GOP’s idiotic recall efforts. Click here to donate and get involved with Newsom’s campaign.
