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Meyer on Krusty: Why Exactly Did He Want This Job?

Saturday, November 13th, 2010

When Dianne Feinstein called Jerry Brown last winter to confirm what everyone in the world already knew – that she wasn’t going to run for governor, so the Democratic nomination was all his – Krusty responded that he was kind of hoping she would run so he wouldn’t have to.   When we reported the conversation at the time, we said that Brown was half-joking; after Leg Analyst Mac Taylor’s announcement this week that California faces a $25 billion budget deficit, now we’re thinking he wasn’t kidding at all.

As Calbuzzer Tom Meyer, Tim Gunn’s favorite editorial cartoonist,shows this week, the task is made far more difficult by a whole batch of initiatives passed by the state’s self-canceling-minded voters – More services – Less taxes! – not only hardy perennials like Props 13 and 98 but also Props 21, 22 and 26, a new trio of budget straitjackets passed in last week’s election.

Calbuzz is particularly miffed about Prop. 26, which for the first time imposes a two-thirds vote requirement for a whole batch of fees on corporate polluters and the like, because it snuck through with almost no coverage and little notice. As long-time readers know, the measure effectively voids the state Supreme Court’s decision in the Sinclair Paint decision, a business-backed effort that we first blew the whistle on way back when corporate types were trying to weasel it through buried deep inside a “good government” reform package being fronted by California Backward Forward.

As the full implications of Prop. 26 begin to dawn in Sacramento, we confess we’re kicking ourselves now for not screaming to the heavens about it more during the campaign, beyond the excellent Jean Ross piece we ran on its hidden agenda. While we, of course, criticize ourselves severely for the oversight, a full investigation by our Division of Corporate Responsibility and It Didn’t Happen On Our Shift Unaccountability absolves us from responsiblity and concludes that now it’s Krusty’s problem, not ours.

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Mac’s World: Here are Calbuzz Washington Correspondent Mackenzie Weinger’s latest whip counts and doped-out updates on the California House delegation amid the fierce maneuvering that has followed the Republican skunking of the Democrats in the mid-terms:

Despite her stated intention to remain her party’s leader in the 112th Congress, soon-to-be former Speaker Nancy Pelosi faces mounting opposition within the Democratic caucus.

As of November 12, 18 Democrats — including one Californian, Rep. Jim Costa (who declared victory this week, although votes are still being counted in the 20th CD) have said they will oppose Pelosi in her quest to become House Minority Leader. In the contest to become House Minority Whip, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) is leading Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC) with 51 public backers to Clyburn’s 13.

(Update: The New York Times, quoting unnamed Democratic sources, is now reporting that the Hoyer-Clyburn fight has been resolved, and that the South Carolinian will accept a newly created #3 post in the caucus).

Among Clyburn’s backers is Rep. Xavier Becerra of L.A., a rising star in the party. He currently serves as vice chair of the Democratic Caucus and is angling to stay in that position, announcing his intentionto stay in leadership in a November 5 letter to fellow Democrats: “As your Vice Chair in the 111th Congress, I have devoted my energy and resources to pass our Democratic agenda…. In the coming days, I hope you will give me the opportunity to speak to you personally about my candidacy for Vice Chair.”

At the start of the week, there was discussion of possibly moving each leader below minority whip down a spot amid the Hoyer-Clyburn contest,; that would have left Becerra out of luck for his vice chairmanship. But the new Democratic Caucus election schedule for next Wednesday ends with the minority whip race, meaning leadership posts lower down the food chain should  be settled, protecting the currently unopposed Becerra.

The other Californians supporting Clyburn are Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA), co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, as well as Reps. Barbara Lee and Grace Napolitano. Hoyer’s California backing comes from Reps. Joe Baca, Howard Berman, Lois Capps, Dennis Cardoza, Sam Farr, Bob Filner, John Garamendi, Jane Harman, Lucille Roybal-Allard, Linda Sanchez, Adam Schiff, Brad Sherman, Jackie Speier and Henry Waxman.

Across the aisle as members of the new majority party, several California Republicans appear set to become major power brokers in the 112th Congress. Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) is currently unopposed for House Majority Whip.

Among House committees, a batch of state GOPers are in line or vying for important chair positions: Rep. Dan Lungren, House Administration, Rep. Buck McKeon, Armed Services, Rep. Jerry Lewis, Appropriations, Rep. Darrell Issa, Oversight and Government Reform; Rep. David Dreier, Rules and Rep. Ed Royce, Financial Services.

Lewis, who served as the Appropriations chair in the 109th Congress, faces a challenge from Rep. Hal Rogers of Kentucky, another veteran on the panel. And Royce is vying against Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL), the current ranking minority member, for the top spot on the Financial Services committee.

With the GOP’s gains, of course, a number of California Democrats have lost powerful committee chairmanships: Rep. George Miller, Education and Labor; Rep. Henry Waxman,  Energy and Commerce;, Rep. Howard Berman, Foreign Affairs: Rep. Bob Filner, Veterans’ Affairs and Rep. Zoe Lofgren, Standards of Official Conduct.

In other California congressional news, Dreier, McKeon and Rep. John Campbell are now in DC as part of the GOP majority transition team. And, along with Costa, who claimed victory over Republican Andy Vidak, Democrat Jerry McNerney in the 11th district also crowned himself a winner, in his close race against Republican David Harmer. Neither Vidak nor Harmer have conceded.

ABC – Always Believe Calbuzz: There were many doubters among the Calbuzz cognoscenti – some of them on our own staff! – who whispered darkly that in the midst of the worst recession in decades, we were totally nuts to keep yammering on about the importance of Prop. 23, which sought to suspend California’s landmark climate change legislation. This just in: the “No” on Prop. 23 campaign wracked up more votes – 5,416,385 at press time – than any candidate or other initiative, yay or nay, on the statewide ballot.

In other toldja’ news, the record will show that the Calbuzz Sports Desk focused its reporting from spring training on the Giants vs. Rangers, the match-up that made it into the World Series. Sometimes we amaze even ourselves.

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Posted in California Ballot Propositions, California Governor's Race, California Politics, Dianne Feinstein, James Clyburn, Nancy Pelosi, Proposition 23, Proposition 26 | 2 Comments »

Ironic Potheads, Obama Mojo MIA, EJ in the Zone

Friday, November 12th, 2010

Pot post-mortem: Who knew the most interesting, intriguing and ironic question of the entire election would turn out to be: WTF did North Coast potheads vote against Proposition 19?

Calbuzz kudos to Bob Salladay of California Watch for breaking it down in a nice piece that reports how the dope legalization measure lost big in weed-rich Humboldt and Mendocino counties, which mirrored the statewide vote of 53-to-46 against, while Trinity County smoked Prop. 19 in a 60-40 landslide.

Prop. 19 undoubtedly failed because some of the state’s largest counties voted against it, not sparsely populated areas in Northern California. But that’s not stopping supporters of the initiative from lashing out at pot producers in the so-called Golden Triangle. Here’s one comment that has been getting attention:

“Lets grab machetes and head up to Humboldt… Humboldt, your little community just pissed off a ton of people who are sick of paying your inflated crop prices!”

The arguments against Prop. 19 centered in part around the layers of regulatory oversight imposed by the initiative. Some worried about a provision restricting growing to a 25-square-foot plot of land, even though the initiative allowed for larger cultivation amounts approved by local authorities….

Many felt that asking pot growers to vote for Prop. 19 was like asking bootleggers to overturn Prohibition: Why would they give up such enormous, tax-free profits?

Bottom line: the free spirits who’ve built the market in California don’t want the damn government hassling them with taxes and regulations. In other words, they’re Republicans, as Calbuzzer cartoonist Tom Meyer aptly demonstrates today.

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P.S. Also check out John Hoeffel’s look-ahead political analysis which seems to point to the inevitability of legalization, perhaps as soon as 2012.

What ever happened to the guy we elected? As Democrats across the nation, at least those without the good sense to live in California, descend ever-further into a pit of political despair following the Republican wipeout, perhaps the most depressing development has been the total weenie act being performed by a self-pitying Barack Obama.

After a sulky, day-after press conference in which he more resembled a spoiled teenager stuck in detention than what you call your Leader of the Free World, Obama sunk to new depths in a sad sack appearance on “60 minutes.”

As Huffpost blogger and business executive coach Kathleen Reardon excellently reported:

I waited last night for the confident Democratic President of the United States to appear on 60 Minutes but he never quite arrived. In fact, the president who did arrive said when asked by Steve Kroft about his promise to change Washington:

“That’s one of the dangers of assuming power. And you know, when you’re campaigning, you, I think you’re liberated to say things without thinking about, ‘Okay, how am I gonna actually practically implement this.'”

What? Nah! He didn’t say that, did he?

Washpost columnist Gene Robinson took a broader and politically more  trenchant look at the president’s woe-is-me session with Kroft.

Obama was reasonable, analytical, professorial – but also uninspired and uninspiring. I’m just being honest, if not generous; when Kroft asked whatever happened to Obama’s “mojo,” the president gave the impression that he’s been wondering the same thing.

“Do you get discouraged? Are you discouraged now?” Kroft asked.

“I do get discouraged,” Obama replied, according to the transcript of the full interview. “I thought that the economy would have gotten better by now. You know, one of the things I think you understand – as president you’re held responsible for everything. But you don’t always have control of everything, right? And especially an economy this big. There are limited tools to encourage the kind of job growth that we need. But I have fundamental confidence in this country. I am constantly reminded that we have been through worse times than these, and we’ve always come out on top. And I’m positive that the same thing is going to happen this time. You know, there are going to be setbacks, and we may take two steps forward and one step back, but the trajectory of this country is always positive.”

Well, it may be unfair, but presidents aren’t allowed to be discouraged. They aren’t allowed to talk about the limitations of the job, or the fact that they are held accountable for everything from inclement weather to the lack of a championship playoff system in college football. Presidents are not permitted to acknowledge familiarity with the concept of “one step back.” And good things aren’t “going to happen,” in the presidential lexicon. They’re already happening.

We keep wondering when the Democrats will get serious about pointing out that the Republicans who went before them — like George Bush and Arnold Schwarzenegger — have left behind them a path of utter devastation, from the national economy to a $25 billion California deficit. Wonder if Jerry Brown is studying what a weak-ass job President Obama has done making it clear that he’s had to clean up a pile of doggie doo left on his doorstep?

Meanwhile, truly masochistic erstwhile Obama fans won’t want to miss Politico’s take out on the president’s political perils (warning: do not attempt to read this if you are a Democrat taking Cymbalta, Effexor, Lexapro, Paxil, Prozac, Wellbutrin, Zoloft or suffer from suicidal ideation), although Jason Linkins helpfully lightens things a bit with a nice takedown of the piece’s extraordinary Beltway-centric perspective.

E.J to the rescue: Our old friend E.J. Dionne, who long ago set down the theoretical framework for Bill Clinton’s Third Way centrist politics, appears to have been taking an extra helping of progressive pills in recent weeks, as he’s been on a real roll with columns urging Democrats to stop whining and stiffen their spines.

After his world scooplet interview with Never Say Die Nancy Pelosi, his  smackdown of the post-election instant conventional wisdom industry and his lead-the-way analysis of some of the actual factual reasons behind the GOP House takeover, our boy outdid himself on Thursday with a terrific piece in which he picked the docile and doleful Dems up by the scruffs of their necks and tried to shake some sense into them.

Funny that when progressives win, they are told to moderate their hopes, but when conservatives win, progressives are told to retreat.

Worse, Democrats tend to internalize the views of their opponents. Already, some moderate Democrats are claiming that all would have been well if Obama had not tried to reform health care or “overreached” in other ways. Never mind that Obama’s biggest single mistake (beyond the administration’s projection that unemployment would peak around 8 percent) was giving in to Senate moderates and not demanding the much bigger stimulus plan a weak economy plainly needed.

In fact, moderate Democrats would do better calling attention to how extreme and out of touch the conservative program actually is. Moderates should be more offended than anyone that the GOP’s ideological obsessions (health-care repeal, tax cuts for the wealthy, deregulation) have little connection to solving the country’s problems, particularly the economic difficulties in the electorally pivotal Midwest..

Give Republicans credit for this: They don’t chase the center, they try to move it. Democrats can play a loser’s game of scrambling after a center being pushed ever rightward. Or they can stand their ground and show how far their opponents are from moderate, problem-solving governance..

A working class hero is something to be: If, like us, you’ve been too busy with the Odyssey of eMeg to have caught The Onion’s recent series lampooning Joe Biden, NYT biz writer Jeremy Peters is on the spot, explaining the nuances of the counter-intuitive humor behind these very funny pieces, and pointing to the best examples.

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Posted in Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, California Politics, Nancy Pelosi, National Politics, Proposition 19, US Economy | 6 Comments »

California Voters Turn Back the Angry Red Tide

Wednesday, November 3rd, 2010

Republicans seized control of the House of Representatives, pounding Democrats in states throughout the South, Midwest and Northeast, but the raging red wave that swept across the country crashed against the Sierra Nevada and washed back, as California voters rejected Meg Whitman for governor and Carly Fiorina for U.S. Senate.

The crushing victories of Democrats Jerry Brown and Barbara Boxer in the nation’s largest and most diverse state –with an electorate that is increasingly younger, more Latino and more non-partisan — represented a counterpoint to the Beltway notion that America is in the throes of a massive and structural shift to the ideological right.

As of midnight, when Calbuzz first posted this report based on exit polling and partial vote counts, neither Whitman nor Fiorina had yet conceded. But as Brown told his supporters at the Fox Theater in Oakland: “They haven’t got all the votes in yet but hell, it’s good enough for government work. So it looks like I’m going back again.” (Whitman conceded a few minutes after midnight.)

Despite the most expensive race ever run in any state, Whitman, 54, the former CEO of eBay with the platinum resume and gold-plated consultancy was unable to overcome a crusty, former two-term governor who, at 72, will be twice the age he was when first elected in 1974.  At the last accounting, eMeg had spent more than $160 million, including $142 million of her own fortune, while Krusty the General had raised $32 million, supplemented by $25 million spent on his behalf by labor and other Democratic interests.

With his bare-bones staff and his flinty resolve not to start spending money until after Labor Day, Brown accomplished the one political challenge that eluded his father, the late Edmund G. “Pat” Brown — a third term. Pat Brown lost an attempt for a third term to a political newcomer in 1966: Ronald Reagan. (Term limits were adopted after Jerry Brown had already served twice.)

Brown’s “knowledge and know-how to get California working again” proved a compelling argument to voters who saw in the Attorney General and former mayor of Oakland, a candidate with both a hard head and a soft heart. Whitman, who fired her illegal immigrant housekeeper and ran a relentless barrage of negative ads against her opponents, was seen as hard-headed but hard-hearted, too.

Speaking to supporters Tuesday night before Whitman had conceded, Brown talked about the impulses, honed in his long-ago training to be a Jesuit priest and his study of theology, that drives him back to Sacramento.

“I take as my challenge forging a common purpose, but a common purpose based not just on compromise but on a vision of what California can be . . . We’re all God’s children and while I’m really into this politics thing I still carry with me my sense of kind of that missionary zeal to transform the world and that’s always been a part of what I do,” he said. “So I understand the political part but I also understand what it’s all about – the vision. And I’m hoping and I’m praying that this breakdown that’s gone on for so many years in the state capital and we’re watching it in Washington – that the breakdown paves the way for a breakthrough.”

And Fiorina, 56, who clutched as tightly as she could to the same policies and politics that carried conservative Republicans to victory in smaller states, was unable to dislodge 69-year-old Boxer, one of the most durable liberals in the Senate.

“The Giants beat the Texas Rangers and we beat the Texas polluters tonight,” Boxer told her supporters as she claimed victory before the final votes were tallied.

Certainly, the elevation of Tea Party favorites like Senator-elect Rand Paul in Kentucky – who said we are “enslaved by debt” and will have the singular power to plunge the world economy into darkness by filibustering raising of the U.S. debt ceiling limit – is a resounding victory for the conservative wing of the Republican Party.

But the anger propelling the Tea Party is less a positive vote for any Republican agenda than it is a vote to punish President Obama and the Democrats for the perceived failure to bring about the change they promised in 2008. It’s a vote to “just say no.”

Whether the new members of Congress and the Senate — which remains under Democratic control — will be rewarded for obstructionism or not remains uncertain. But as they seek re-election, Obama and the Democrats will now have the recalcitrant Republicans to blame for gridlock in Washington – an argument that Bill Clinton and his party made in 1996 with considerable success after their losses two years earlier.

The biggest loser among California Democrats, of course, is soon-to-be-former Speaker Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco, who oversaw a crushing defeat that cost her the leadership mantle she had historically claimed in another mid-term just four years ago. Along with her, House committee chairs like Representatives Howard Berman and Henry Waxman were reduced to minority status by the Republican sweep that rolled through other states.

On the other hand, Southern California Republican Congressmen Darrell Issa, Buck McKeon and Jerry Lewis are in line to become chairmen of powerful committees in the House under speaker-presumptive John Boehner of Ohio. Issa, the conservative car-alarm magnate who lost the GOP nomination for Senate in 1998 and who has dedicated himself to opposing Obama and his policies, was all over TV Tuesday night promising a new era in Congress.

The weepy Boehner along with Eric Cantor of Virginia, Issa and other triumphant Republicans spoke over and over Tuesday night about “the message sent by the American people.” Apparently Californians, who represent one-eighth of the nation’s population, aren’t included among the American people.

Democrats in California and their progressive allies also won two important victories by rejecting Prop. 23,  which would have overturned the state’s ground-breaking law to roll black greenhouse gas emissions and by approving Prop. 25, which will reduce to a majority, from two-thirds,  the vote required in the Legislature to approve the California budget. These represented huge political statements by the voters on behalf of the environment and in favor of streamlining the budget process in Sacramento.

As expected, Prop. 19, the measure to legalize personal use of marijuana, went up in smoke.

Although Democrats and their progressive allies did not carry every office or measure,  the Brown win at the top of the ticket, which came despite high unemployment and despair about the direction of the state, suggested that voters have grown tired, at least for now, of divided government in Sacramento as they rejected Whitman’s mirror-image candidacy of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s just four years ago.

[Updated 7:30 am] The only Republican statewide candidate who appeared to have a chance for victory early Wednesday morning was Steve Cooley who was slightly behind Kamala Harris in the race for Attorney General. Gavin Newsom was well ahead of Abel Maldonado in the race for Lieutenant Governor; Debra Bowen was crushing Damon Dunn in the race for Secretary of State; John Chiang was way ahead of Tony Strickland in the race for Controller; Bill Lockyer was cruising to victory over Mimi Walters in the race for Treasurer, and Dave Jones was crushing Mike Villines in the race for Insurance Commissioner.

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Posted in Abel Maldonado, Barbara Boxer, Bill Lockyer, California Governor's Race, California Politics, California Senate Race, Campaign Finance, Carly Fiorina, Debra Bowen, Gavin Newsom, Jerry Brown, John Boehner, Kamala Harris, Meg Whitman, Nancy Pelosi, Negative Campaigning, Proposition 19, Proposition 23, Proposition 25 | 5 Comments »

Senate Sniper: Babs, Carly, Mobsters & Malfeasants

Thursday, August 12th, 2010

The two faces of Babs: Not since the Port Huron Statement was drafted  has there been as big a collection of left-wingers as that which gathered in San Francisco Wednesday to dedicate a train station.

Led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a parade of libs that included, but was not limited to, Barbara Boxer, Willie Brown, Gavin Newsom and George Miller offered a surfeit of mutual encomiums and plaudits on the occasion of the groundbreaking of the new regional Transbay Transit Center, being built in part with federal stimulus funds.

The presence at the festivities of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, who is technically, um, a Republican, however, appeared not only to have put a damper on blatant partisan rhetoric, but also to have led to one of the most astonishing, man-bites-dog statements in the history of politics, straight from the maw of the Junior Senator from California, who was heard to say:

Lord knows we need to work across party lines, particularly in times like these.

Lord knows indeed.

Stop the presses, Maude: Barbara Boxer, the original tax loving, tree hugging, nuke hating, latte sipping, Chablis sucking, Marin County peacock feather hot tubbing scourge of oil companies, warmongers and Republicans of every stripe actually endorsed bipartisanship.

Bring on the Calbuzz fainting couch.

But wait: Just when we feared Babs might lose her lifetime senior citizen SDS honorary membership card, we were relieved to receive a copy of the latest e-blast fundraising pitch from her leadership PAC.

On behalf of Dems running in three open Senate seats, Boxer writes:

If we don’t hold on to these three Democratic seats, Republicans will increase their efforts to bring our legislative agenda to a standstill. That means more breaks for big corporations, more roll-backs of environmental protections, and few people fighting for American consumers.

Lord knows.

Just askin’: One of the three worthies that Babs is tin cupping for (the other two are Dick Blumenthal in Connecticut and Joe Sestak in Pennsylvania) is Alexi Giannoulias, the Illinois state Treasurer, who’s seeking Barack Obama’s old seat.

Alexi Giannoulias? Really?

At a time when congressional Dems across the nation are trying to out-run the ethical cloud hanging over longtime New York Rep. Charlie Rangel, and when Boxer is already being slapped around by Republican rival Carly Fiorina for her relationship with Rep. Maxine Waters, who’s also facing House ethics charges, does Babs really want to be shaking people down for  Giannoulias, scion of Chicago’s scandal-ridden Broadway Bank?

In her fundraising e-mail, Boxer calls Giannoulias an “excellent progressive candidate” who “is known as a people’s champion.”

Well, but…

In Chicago, Giannoulias is also known as the guy who, as senior loan officer, oversaw $20 million in loans to two convicted mobsters from his family’s bank, which also lent another $22.5 million to now-convicted political fixer Tony Rezko, a few months after Giannoulias left his post.

We’re just sayin’.

On the other hand: The hits just keep comin’ for Hurricane Carly’s fine stewardship of HP. Now she’s been named to the Top 20 “all-time malfeasants” list of business execs who got away with murder outrageous corporate parachutes.

Not Really: Some time around 11 am on Wednesday, Jerry Brown tweeted: “Take a look at this picture of me with the godfather of soul, James Brown: http://bit.ly/bqtFmO.”

Which led to a Flickr page with this shot of Jerry Brown and James Brown and this notation: “The photo was taken 7 hours ago using a Canon MF 4320-4350.” But we don’t think so, since James Brown DIED on Christmas Day in 2006, which would mean Jerry would have been posing with a really live looking mummy which we are not aware of. Memo to Jerry: You look old enough already; don’t pose with dead guys.

Whitmanopoly: HT to Roy Rivenburg, former humor writer for the By God LATimes (who knew they EVER had any humor there?) who has come up with a great new board game: Whitmanopoly, California’s Election Buying Game, which demonstrates a keen nose for the news and eye for the absurd.  All this lifted directly from Roy’s site, notthelatimes.com:

RULES OF PLAY

PREPARATION: Meg Whitman starts the game with $150 million. Jerry Brown gets $20 million and an autographed poster of Linda Ronstadt.

TOKENS: Brown travels around the board with a 1974 Plymouth. Whitman commandeers a wheelbarrow of cash.

SCANDAL: When a player lands on SCANDAL, he or she is caught in an orgy with Lindsay Lohan, Mel Gibson and the city manager of Bell, and is sent to BAD PRESS. Do not pass DOUGH, do not collect campaign donations.

INCOME TAX: If a player lands on this space, he or she must propose a 20% tax hike to erase California’s budget deficit. The player then automatically loses the election and the game is over. The same thing happens when a player lands on BUDGET AX and proposes drastic cuts to popular programs.

BORDER SECURITY: When a player lands here, he must take a stand on illegal immigration, inevitably alienating a large bloc of voters and losing one turn. Exception: Whitman may take both sides on the issue, one in her English TV ads and another in Spanish-language spots.

BUYING VOTES: Instead of houses and hotels, players who land on a community buy radio and TV ads, skywriting messages and attack mailers. Or they can hire Leonardo DiCaprio to plant ballot instructions in voters’ minds. If both players land on the same space, a televised debate is held. However, the candidates must speak only in vague generalities and discuss inconsequential issues such as who should replace Ellen on “American Idol” and whether Comic-Con should move from San Diego to Anaheim.

DOUGH: Each time a player’s token passes DOUGH, he or she receives new campaign donations. Whitman writes herself a check for any amount. Brown holds a Hollywood fundraiser (costing him one turn), or instantly collects $1 million by kowtowing to public-employee unions.

There’s so much more at Roy’s site.

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Posted in Barbara Boxer, California Politics, California State Budget, Carly Fiorina, Gavin Newsom, Nancy Pelosi, National Politics, Senate race, Willie Brown | 1 Comment »

How “San Francisco Democrats” Could Hurt Brown

Wednesday, June 9th, 2010

It speaks volumes that Meg Whitman’s first public appearance as the Republican nominee for governor will be a joint event with the GOP’s other statewide candidates while Jerry Brown plans to hold a rally of one.

California has scant history of campaigns that feature major party candidates running in tandem with down-ticket nominees, but last night’s results on the Democratic side offer eMeg plenty of reasons to try to tie Krusty the General closely to some of his party colleagues.

With all the money in the world to run multiple campaign themes, don’t be surprised if Whitman constructs a narrative that appeals to independent voters and underscores her attack lines on Brown, by identifying him as the leader of a statewide ticket of Bay Area Democratic liberals.

With such a gambit, eMeg could try to frame the election as a choice between an outside challenger (her) and a California political status quo dominated by arrogant and ineffective lefties (Jerry and his Kids) whom she portrays as weak on taxes, soft on crime, permissive on illegal immigration and in the thrall of public employee unions.

The notion recalls the 1984 presidential race, when President Ronald Reagan was nominated for a second term at a convention that rocked with raucous bashing of “San Francisco Democrats,” who had nominated the ill-fated Walter Mondale in that city a month earlier.

“It’s a very plausible strategy,” said one top Republican consultant. “That’s what I would do if I was running against Jerry,” chimed in a Democratic statewide strategist. “Duh,” said another.

The basics were suggested weeks ago, by Democratic political consultant (and Jerry Brown hater) Garry South, who argued that his client for Lite Gov — Janice Hahn — would be a better “running mate” for Brown than South’s former client, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, a liberal white male who’d be a drag on Brown statewide.

As a political matter, Whitman would certainly have raw material to work with:

— Newsom, the lieutenant governor nominee, is known statewide for his sneering “whether they like it or not” comment, flung at foes in his role as the High Priest of Gay Marriage, not to mention the anything-goes values and left-wing politics associated with his city around the state.

— San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris, the attorney general nominee, is not only embroiled in a scandal involving the city’s drug lab which has threatened  prosecutions in hundreds of drug cases, but also the architect of a decision not to seek the death penalty in the high profile case of a cop killer, among other controversies.

— U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer, since beginning her career in Marin County, has long been a vivid symbol of California liberalism, a three-term incumbent with a reputation for arrogance that went on full display in her now-famous dressing down of a military leader for not addressing her as “Senator” during a public hearing.

And that’s not to mention U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the San Francisco liberal conservatives love to hate (often with absolutely no rationale.)

The Bay Area lefties strategy, of course, carries considerable risks, as well as opportunities.

For starters, Democrats still dominate Republicans in voter registration statewide, and President Obama remains very popular in California, two factors that could make the move backfire. A majority of independents appear, also, to identify with Democrats more often than with Republicans on many issues.

For another thing, while Whitman might be quick to frame Brown and the Democrats as a purported “ticket,” she would likely be loathe to invite comparisons with the Republican slate, which at times bears resemblance to the bar scene in Star Wars:

Lite Gov nominee Abel Maldonado has a well-earned reputation as a flip-flopping wiggler who is hardly a beloved figure among his own party; Attorney General candidate Steve Cooley was assailed by GOP primary rivals for being soft on Three Strikes prosecutions and Senate candidate Carly Fiorina is, well, she’s Hurricane Carly and all that implies.

The Dem reply to an attempt to ticketize Jerry’s Kids might well be to cast Carly and Meg together and ask: “Do you want to be represented by a pair of greedy business moguls who would take away your right to choose, cut pensions for cops, firefighters and teachers and turn back the clock on global warming?”

To be sure, some political professionals just don’t think the ticket strategy works in California.

“That assumes the whole ticket effect and I don’t buy that for California,” said one prominent GOP consultant. “Guilt by association, the boogie man – I don’t think is going to be effective with voters.”

On the other hand, we’ve never seen what you can do with an unlimited campaign budget, have we?

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Posted in Abel Maldonado, Barbara Boxer, California Governor's Race, California Politics, Carly Fiorina, Gavin Newsom, Janice Hahn, Jerry Brown, Meg Whitman, Nancy Pelosi | 1 Comment »

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