State Races

With our state on the brink of financial collapse, we find a couple of the most compelling political contests in memory. As usual, to sort out the issues involved in these races, we’re presented a distorted mush of non-information.

One might expect that with the gravity of the issues we face statewide, as well as nationally, these candidates might offer up something for real consideration…but so far, nothing.

Nationally, the Republican Party is breaking away from the network of old, white guys. Aside from Sarah Palin, on a national level, the party proudly touts the arrival on the scene of young, attractive, successful women, such as Michele Bachmann (Minnesota), Michelle Malkin (highly-touted political blogger), Nikki Haley (Georgia), along with author-columnist, and FoxNews perennials Ann Coulter and Laura Ingraham. So in California, they’re showcasing two of the new breed.

Both women are well-spoken, independent businesswomen…both from the world of technology. Carly Fiorina, former head of Hewlett Packard, opposes the incumbent Barbara Boxer for Senate, while Meg Whitman is running for governor. Both, of course, tout their business experience and credentials as evidence of political acumen. We are not sure that this translates; but aside from that, both come with curious baggage.

Fiorina, know as “Chainsaw Carly” (for “outsourcing” thousands of jobs), after turning H/P into the largest computer manufacturer in the world, was forced out in 2005 by H/P board of directors, amid controversy that she stood “more for Carly than for HP.” It will be interesting to see how far she can get on the “jobs” issue in the face of her own record.

Whitman, on the other hand, is not only a political unknown, but she presents a record of disinterest in politics, not bothering to vote for some twenty-eight years. Her most note-worthy characteristic is a titanic temper. Beyond well-documented tantrums of screaming and throwing things, in 2007 she “woman-handled” a subordinate to the tune of a $200,000 “confidential” settlement. That’s some “push!”

It would be interesting to see how Ms. Whitman’s patience might hold up confronting the muddle of the California Constitution, as well as a disinterested electorate and do-nothing legislature. Politics is, after all, the art of making the impossible come to life. We have just seen what a truly dynamic “outsider” might accomplish in seven years with Governor Schwarzenegger.

The contrast between these two women and their Democratic opponents is striking. Barbara Boxer is probably known as thoroughly as anyone in the senate. Long a lightening rod for the right wing, she is a steadfast voice for the left. An outspoken critic of our current war posture, Boxer is not afraid to step forward behind her convictions. Right-wingers and Republicans relish in loathing her; but with California’s strong “blue” tilt it would appear unlikely that Fiorina could mount a serious challenge. Still, with her sizable fortune committed to the effort, and an even more surprising victory by Scott Brown in Massachusetts, anything could happen.

Also running for governor, Jerry Brown, is just about as far from Whitman as we might imagine. Brown comes from a family long-connect to California politics. His father, "Pat", was a 2-term governor, while sister, Kathleen, is a former state treasurer and former strong candidate for governor. Brown is clearly a committed, public servant, having held a string of prominent public positions, including governor, Secretary of State, mayor (Oakland) and Attorney General. As well as anyone, he knows the ins and outs of state politics, and is "grandfathered" out of the two-term restriction. In a 40-year career under the scrutiny of public life, he has no significant scandals or flaps to exploit. Aside from being called “Governor Moonbeam”, in all of those years and positions, the only raps that emerge against him appear to be (ironically) that while governor he sat on a $5 Billion dollar budget surplus, (okay), and that he was instrumental in passage of a measure to seal gubernatorial records for 50 years… well this is a troubling position.

At any rate, with Whitman’s sizable war chest and her commitment to “bare-knuckles” campaigning, here also, anything is possible.

Still, the campaign features no substantive messages from any of these camps. Instead, all we’ve gotten so far is mud-slinging. It’s likely that this will persist to the end. The sad truth is that it’s almost certain that if a candidate proposed a program that would solve our state’s (or country’s) problems, the voters would reject it. We are accustomed to being told we can have all that we want without paying for it. Even in the face of a mountain of evidence to the contrary, prominent Republicans continue to insist that government can increase revenue by cutting taxes. We don’t imagine that they actually believe this canard; but we acknowledge that they believe it has a decent chance to get them elected. At times that seems to be all that Republican candidates and politicians care about.

A substantive breakthrough in these contests would be refreshing, but let's not be too quick to condemn---we get the kind of government that we demand.