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Mark Steyn:

the Independent frets that, in jurisdictions like California, fear of a Davis-style recall "militates against the strong but unpopular action that governments have to take from time to time". Really? Isn't the more common problem that, in California as in Europe, an entrenched top-down political culture finds it far too easy to take "strong but unpopular action"? It's strong but popular action that governments seem to find hard to take - cutting taxes, enforcing immigration law, reining in inefficient bureaucratic spending, standing up to entrenched special interests, whether it's Indian tax-free gambling in California or French farmers ...

California's problem was that it was beginning to take on the characteristics of an EU state, not just in its fiscal incoherence but in its assumption that politics was a private dialogue between a lifelong political class and a like-minded media ..