Recall Snyder effort fizzles out

Photo courtesy AP

It’s officially over. Somewhat. The Committee to Recall Rick Snyder has acknowledged defeat. Kind of.

The following was posted at firericksnyder.org:

It is with a measure of sadness that we announce that the bid to recall Gov. Rick Snyder will come up short in the number of signatures required to file. We do not have a final count yet, but will have one soon and will send out another update when that time comes.

We would first like to take this opportunity to thank all of the over 5000 active volunteers and their families who participated, sacrificed their time and put blood, sweat and tears into this campaign. Without you, we would have never made it as far as we did. There never was, nor will there ever be any doubt that you are the heart and soul of this organization and we cannot possibly begin to pay you the homage that you so rightly deserve. We've said it before; appreciation is an enigmatic concept and virtually impossible to quantify. Whatever that word means to you in its purest and most encapsulating form, know that you and you families have all of ours.

Yet, our bid to remove Snyder from office does not end here. We and our county coordinators agree that the only way we will assuredly lose is if we stop fighting. So this week, amid much and sometimes heated debate we have come to the mutual conclusion that this fight must continue. We will not surrender, we will not give up. As long as there is a breath left in our collective body, this fight will move forward.
 
During the next couple of weeks, please look out for some updates on our plans for restructuring and steps we will take into the future.

Regards,
CRRS

The committee also thanked other bloggers and organizations for supporting the effort, including Daily Kos and Democracy for America. Not surprisingly, “What’s the Diehl?” was not among the blogs mentioned. This is because I thought it was a misguided effort almost from the start, as I wrote here before, and a waste of time, energy and money that would be better spent changing the composition of the state legislature.

I thought it made more sense to turn the legislative rubber stamp into a brake, especially given the insurmountable challenge of collecting a million signatures from a passive, ignorant electorate that doesn’t know or care what kind of crap Snyder and his ilk are pulling in spite of good reporting from a number of outlets.

I signed up to work on the recall effort – I hesitate to use the term “campaign” because to me it implies organization – back in May and promptly heard nothing from anyone officially associated with the endeavor. After debating a few recall proponents in Facebook, I realized they were well-meaning and motivated but naïve, defensive and unwilling or unable to answer questions about what happens if by some miracle enough valid signatures are collected and the recall is successful. Does Lieutenant Governor Brian Calley, who’s on record as being more to the right than his boss, take over? Do lawmakers suddenly come to Jesus and realize that robbing from the poor to give to the rich is bad public policy no matter who the governor is and it’s time to change course? And will cash-strapped municipalities have to shoulder the costs of a special recall election? My questions were met with condescension and rudeness. “Snyder is bad and needs to be recalled,” was the reply I was given.

In spite of my less-than-positive experience in Facebook, I take no comfort in the demise of the effort (although, curiously, the committee’s concession announcement is written in such a way as to leave the door open for a revival at a later date). I agree that Rick Snyder is bad and should be removed from office sooner rather than later. (It’s disappointing to hear friends and former colleagues saying nice things about the guy and even accepting gubernatorial appointments to blue ribbon panels. I wouldn’t cross the street to help him if I saw him stumble on the sidewalk.) But it isn’t going to happen. He’s going to continue to advance his short-sighted pro-business policies at the expense of everybody else unless his minions and cronies in the GOP-dominated legislature hear from their dissatisfied constituents.

If they can be pulled away from The X Factor and Dancing with the Stars, that is.

Photo courtesy Around the Keg