Tom Campbell was totally in it to win it. It's just that he was in it to win another "it." But his heart is totally in the Senate race now, though:
"What we've seen in the last year is a tremendous growth of the federal government, tripling the deficit and an expansion of the federal role in health care and financial services," Campbell told The Bee. "The federal issues are just exploding in the last year." (SacBee)
You see, it's just now that he realized that federal issues are important. Not when 12 months ago when Barack Obama inherited the worst economy in a generation. Not 6 months ago, when the vitriol around health care reached its crescendo. Not when President Obama was struggling with Afghanistan decisions. Now. When it looked like he was about to buried under a mountain of Whitman's cash.
Not to be a cynic twice over, but, well, I'm going to be a cynic again. Not only did Campbell wait, but he was also preening for the cameras in a perhaps more visible campaign. And one more thing, under state finance laws, one is allowed to raise a lot more than you are allowed to raise per contributor under federal laws. I wasn't able to determine how many big donors Campbell had, mostly because his funding was so anemic and the second half numbers haven't been filed yet. But, if one were to really, really need to raise his name ID, I'd think some additional time in the Gov race would be appealing
This has been brewing in the rumor mill for a few months now it seems. It looks like tomorrow will be the day that Tom Campbell makes it official. He's going to run in the GOP Senate Primary rather than for Governor.
In a move that will rock the state's political landscape, former Silicon Valley Congressman Tom Campbell will announce Thursday that he is dropping out of the California governor's race to run for the U.S. Senate, the Mercury News has learned.
Campbell has scheduled two news conferences to make the announcement: one at 9 a.m. in Los Angeles, the other at 2:30 p.m. at the San Jose Fairmont hotel, according to an e-mail from Campbell's campaign that was sent Monday to his major supporters. The e-mail referred to a "soon to be announced new venture" - confirmed by campaign sources to be a Senate run. (SJ Merc)
I think in order to rock the state's political landscape, you sort have to a) not telegraph the move months ahead of time and b) have a clear path to victory.
Tom Campbell would be a pretty tough race for Barbara Boxer. I think the betting line would still lean Boxer, but he's a more polished candidate than either Fiorina or DeVore. And he has the whole, not crazy thing going for him over DeVore. The trouble for Campbell is the same in the Senate race as it was in the Governor's race, except with a lot less money sloshing around. Basically, he's trying to run a campaign for the general electorate of the state in a primary. And given that the only people really excited to come out and vote in the GOP primary will be the right-wingers, the primary will be really, really tough for Campbell.
I suppose on the bright side for him, he won't be fighting Whitman's crazy dollars in this race. But the real winner here has to be Chuck DeVore. The "I can play sane on TV" vote just got split between Fiorina and Campbell. DeVore just might be able to somehow grab this nomination.
It is a rare day that every major candidate for the California governor's race is from Northern California, but that's they way it is today. And specifically, all three Republicans are from the Silicon Valley. It's generally a Democratic leaning area, as it is hard to find a Republican in the Bay Area at all. But in the Valley, Republicans tend to be the less dogmatic type than you'd find in the Central Valley. They'll focus less on social issues and more on their own pocket books. They want a generally functional government, but would like to get it on the cheap.
And that's why despite the fact that all three candidates are from the area, Tom Campbell's wonky campaign carries some sway. In a poll by San Jose State's Survey & Public Research Institute (PDF, Campbell was shown with a pretty hefty lead in Silicon Valley. While the poll was quite small and the margin of error was huge (6.9%), the size of the lead means there is something to this data. Campbell is at 39%, Whitman 11%, Poizner 7, and the famous "Undecided" at 41.
Campbell is a wonk and a bit of a nerd. And perhaps that is what is playing so well down there. Or perhaps it is the fact that he has represented much of the region when he was in Congress. But for whatever reason, Silicon Valley Republicans are leaning hard for Campbell. The question with Campbell in this race is always the money question. Can he come up with enough cash to really compete with Whitman and Poizner. He can't self finance, and he'll need to spend a hefty chunk of change to really make any headway with the right-wing base of the party.
However, if Campbell does manage to squeak out, he probably makes for a very tough campaign for the Democratic nominee, whether it be Jerry Brown or some other late announcing candidate. While his "solutions" tend to be pretty much the same as his former boss, Arnold Schwarzenegger, he is still able to talk the moderate talk.
How generous of her. She's worth a billion, give or take a couple hundred million, and she's willing to pass on the $200 K or so. Incidentally, the Bee has it on good authority that Tom Campbell will accept the salary (he's not a billionaire, you know) and Poizner (who is) will also accept the salary.
Why do we need to know this? Perhaps so that we can feel just how small we really are. It's certainly not to solve any budget problems, as the amount of money won't by itself really break the budget one way or the other. No, this is a gesture that says to the people of California that she is making a big sacrifice to take this job, and that we should be thrilled to have her experience and ill-informed judgment to save us.
For the record, I'll be happy to pay a governor for the work he does. We got the last one on the cheap, as Arnold isn't accepting a salary either, and look what that got us. Sometimes you get what you pay for. And trust me, it'll be worth it to pay the cash for a governor who has a clue about the problems facing the state, can reasonably discuss the issues, and isn't there to shock doctrine the state.
In the Democratic primary, there's really not much conversation to speak of. Basically, you have Gavin Newsom running around trying to increase name ID by conducting town halls and the like. Jerry Brown is just patiently waiting back for the spring, or so it seems.
But that is hardly the case on the Republican side. The three candidates have been lobbing hand grenades at each other for several months now. Two of them, Poizner and Whitman, are former CEOs who have given money to, gasp, Democrats. The other, Tom Campbell, is a self-described champion of bipartisanship.
But how do you show the right-wingers of the party, ie the party base, that you are the Real Republican. Well, if you're Tom Campbell, you don't try, and just call yourself bipartisan. I know that might work to pull in 20% in early polls, but that strategy seems like quite the longshot in a Republican primary that tends to skew hard right.
Meanwhile, as Poizner and Whitman go for the "conservative" mantle, they have to deal with their Democratic skeletons in the closet:
Whitman gave $4,000 to Boxer in November 2003 and an additional $4,000 to Boxer and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee that same month, according to the Federal Election Commission.
Whitman also endorsed Boxer in 2003 as a member of the group Technology Leaders for Boxer. In a joint letter publicized by the Boxer campaign, Whitman wrote, "Barbara Boxer is a courageous leader and friend of California's technology industry."
*** *** ***
Poizner has faced similar questions about his contributions to Gore and the Gore/Lieberman Recount Committee, which funded the Democratic candidate's unsuccessful legal efforts in the aftermath of the 2000 election. (SacBee 10/26/09)
Of course, that they each have these issues takes out much of the teeth out of this fight. Unless Tom McClintock is somehow lured into this race, Whitman and Poizner are only judged on a curve defined by the other. If a longtime Republican conservative enters the race, the complexion changes markedly. However, at this point the field seems to have solidified. McClintock is really the only name conservative that would be able to have a major impact on the race.
So, press releases are tossed back and forth on who is the Real Republican, and still the phrase has no meaning and no value to the bulk of California voters.
Assembly Member Tom Ammiano is a San Francisco Treasure. Always has been and always will be. But Tom Ammiano is special. He's hilarious. He's passionate. He's progressive. He's just Tom Ammiano.
And this brings me to the San Francisco Democratic Party annual gala, or the nerd prom as my friend Beth Spotswood likes to call it. All was going well, a smidge boring, but Former Assembly Speaker/Da Mayor Willie Brown got up on stage to really take it up a notch. Brown let the crowd know that he had another offer on the same night for the President's Cup dinner, a PGA event, that featured Tiger Woods, Bill Clinton and the Governor. The event just so happened to be in the same hotel.
The remark about the Governor being in the building brought a smattering of boos, as you might expect from a Democratic audience. But the event continued on as expected, dinner was served. And as people were just finishing dinner, we began to notice something of a commotion.
And there he was, the Governator. On our turf. In the San Francisco Democratic Party event. This wasn't the Assembly Chamber. This was a raucous Democratic Party event.
He was talking with Willie Brown and his entourage for a while. And then, former SF Board of Supes President Aaron Peskin brought him up on the stage. As he began to talk, Asm. Ammiano yelled out "You LIE."
The Governor began to say a few words about how he heard that the Democratic Party event was in the same hotel as a chorus of boos and other random hissing noises rained down upon him. I, of course, was taking pictures with my cell phone. Apparently the Governor felt that he should visit the Democratic event because he "sleeps with one every night." And then proceeded to tell the room that he was "post-partisan" and that he didn't care whether you were a Republican or a Democrat.
And as he continued, Asm. Ammiano still couldn't believe this man was up on the stage at a Democratic event. The San Francisco Assembly Member yelled something to the effect of "kiss my gay ass" as he left the room.
But the more interesting part was when Tom Ammiano accepted an award, the SF DCCC Trailblazer Award, from Willie Brown. Ammiano began by praising Brown's excellent record on LGBT issues. And then continued by hinting at their differences in the past. And then he proceeded to bludgeon the Governor's record. He questioned why he was holding bills hostage to get a bad water deal. He questioned why a Governor who has vetoed the Harvey Milk Day bill would stand up in front of a room that was at least 25% LGBT. He politely asked Mayor Brown to send a message to the governor to sign the bills already.
And finally, Senator Mark Leno closed the proceedings for the evening. Leno took a different tack than Ammiano's passion. He simply stated the facts. He said that the events of this evening were all funny and stuff, but the fact is that this Governor had cut state workers salaries by 15% with the furloughs. This Governor wanted to cut IHSS salaries to minimum wage. This Governor illegally used the line item veto to slash funding for domestic violence shelters. And that he, and the Senate Democrats, were going to fight him tooth and nail.
And to a loud applause, Leno stepped off the stage and the crowd began to thin. And everybody was saying, "um, wow."
I'm still trying to collect my thoughts from the evening, so I apologize if the order is slightly skewed or I missed an important point. Feel free to add anything in the comments if you were there.
California political junkies are buzzing about the new Rasmussen poll which shows former Governor and current Attorney General Jerry Brown handily leading all the major Republican gubernatorial contenders (Meg Whitman, Steve Poizner and Tom Campbell) while Brown's rival for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination trailing the same three possible Republicans. Here's the data:
This is definitely NOT very good news for the Governor Gavin movement. That's too bad, because MadProfesah has been leaning towards Newsom, especially since Gerry Brown hasn't announced whether he wants the job (again) yet, and acting as attorney general, Brown was responsible for the devastatingly incompetent presentation by an Assistant Attorney General during the Proposition 8 California Supreme Court oral argument.
UPDATE by Dave: I would say that this poll is fairly meaningless. I'm guessing Rasmussen pushed leaners hard to get any kind of opinion. I don't think anyone has really engaged on this race, and anyone thinking it will remain static isn't being honest. This is more of a reflection of name ID, for good and ill, than anything else.
Tom Campbell, among all the Republicans in the gubernatorial field, has at least been willing to lay out detailed plans for how he would fix the state. Typically this manifests itself as the same old Hooverism. But his health care plan at least gets points for creativity.
GOP gubernatorial hopeful Tom Campbell released a unique health care proposal Thursday that would redistribute $42 billion in federal and state funds already spent on health care in California to buy private health coverage for everyone in the state who's "involuntarily" uninsured.
Under the former congressman's plan, the funds would cover an estimated 2 million such people in addition to the 7.6 million already receiving public health coverage under the state Medi-Cal and Healthy Families programs.
"The astounding conclusion," Campbell writes in his proposal, "is that, using only the money already being spent by the federal and state governments for health care in California, we could buy free market health insurance currently available and cover all involuntarily uninsured in California, and still have more than $700 per person left over!"
Instead of dedicating funds to services for the poor or children, Campbell would split the state into regions, and allow insurers to bid against one another to cover everyone in that region who earned below a certain level, along with everyone denied coverage for a pre-existing condition. Insurers wouldn't bid on price, but quality of coverage - the money would be fixed, and insurers would bid against each other based on what they would cover and at what rate.
I'm wondering why any insurer would bid for this right. They deny people with pre-existing conditions because they are more likely to use health care, increasing their medical loss ratio. And the poor are more likely to need health care treatment based on lifestyle and environment. And the kicker to Campbell's plan is, if nobody bids, the status quo would remain in place for that geographical area. So basically, Campbell is touting a big plan that would do... nothing. And he wouldn't embark on it if the federal government enacts their own plan.
Mavericky!
Really, that interesting, if impossible (try getting a federal waiver to set it up and face Congressmembers with interests in protecting SCHIP and Medicaid), proposal is a cover for Campbell's apparent agenda - to permit the interstate sale of insurance and to bring up the canard of tort reform as a panacea. Medical malpractice is an insignificant percentage of total health care costs and states which have embarked on major medmal reform, like Texas, have seen no change in health inflation. As for the interstate sale of insurance, you can do it now - only you're responsible to comply with the laws of the state in which you sell. This proposal would allow insurers to only be responsible to the regulations of the state where they are based. Tom Campbell wants to do for the health insurance industry what this kind of proposal did for the credit card industry - send all insurance companies to a small state with no regulation, and gut all state-based regulation in the process, leaving California's insurance customers at the mercy of the laws of South Dakota or Mississippi.
To his credit, Campbell wants to remove the anti-trust exemption on the insurance industry. But really, that's a means to an end here. However, there is a point of consensus between conservatives and liberals to do away with the McCarran-Ferguson Act, that offers that anti-trust exemption. Bills to this effect were just introduced in Congress. If Campbell wants to talk them up to the California GOP delegation, go ahead.
Jerry Brown is really a riddle wrapped in an enigma. First, he tries to play coy as to whether he is planning a run:
"The whole system is bogged down all over Sacramento," Brown said. "We need a very strong leader who can pull everyone together. I'm not a candidate. Yes I am leading in the polls, but I'm not yet convinced....The people of California are not anxious to hear from their candidates yet, and the deadline for filing papers isn't until March - so tune in." (SF Chronicle 9/16/09)
Wow, isn't that cute. I'm ahead and going to crush all of you, but I may not run. So keep guessing, suckas. But from a tactical standpoint, you can't blame the guy. He has nothing to gain by officially announcing. He's already way ahead of any non-self-funding candidate, and likely already has a slew of (wink-wink) commitments for more money once he switches the Jerry Brown2010 campaign account to the Gov race. He's in no need of additional name ID, so why not keep them "guessing?"
But, once again, we're back in 1978. As Steve Poizner sought to grab the right flank by talking crazy on taxes, it seems that Jerry Brown is still repeating the mantras that he began reciting on June 7, 1978:
Brown followed by calling the logjam in Sacramento "a management problem" and saying legislators needed to carefully choose priorities in deciding how to stimulate the economy.
Brown said he would not raise taxes if he became governor, noting that the public is opposed. "We're not in the revenue raising business," he said.
A management problem? That's like saying the Titanic took on a little water. Sacramento has more than a mere management problem. Is management going to make the Republicans cease their petty power plays? Going to make the legislative system more functional? Going to get the few Republican votes that we need every year?
That's all just a management problem?
Look, I think Jerry Brown is as qualified, if not more qualified than the field for this gig. Perhaps he can find Republican votes where our current (Republican) governor could not. He does know the building better than pretty much anybody. Given his experience, he'd be in a better position than any other candidate to bring about a consensus.
But how is it that we get out of this mess without even considering revenue. At some point, the lines between Tom Campbell, who supported a gas tax increase last year, and Jerry Brown begin to blur. And, unfortunately for us, they aren't meeting in the middle. I know I'm picking on Jerry Brown, but it really isn't just him. We are losing the battle on talking about this budget, over and over and over again.
While perhaps not a sign of the better side of our politics, the money race in California politics is crucial. This is especially true for the Governor's race, where the campaign has been mostly fought via air war in the last few elections. Thus, it is time for a Calitics look at the money situation in some of the statewide races. We'll start with the Governor's race, and within the next few days, I'll post information on some of the other races of note.
So, let's get right to it. First, the Republicans:
Meg Whitman Ending Balance - $4,962,065.61
Debts - $295,175.64
What isn't included in this report, however, is that Whitman donated a bit of money to her campaign. You know nothing, major, just $15,000,000. Yes, you read that right. Whitman has now donated over $19 million to her campaign. Money will be no issue for the Whitman campaign. There is a litany of problems for Whitman, both with the Republican primary electorate as well as with the general election voters. However, if she has an overwhelmingly large a lot of money, she might simply be able to drown out any message that isn't exactly to her liking. It is a bit worrying, despite all the fun that you can have with Meg Whitman.
Steve Poizner Ending Balance - $3,701,993.79
Debts - $176,186.66
Steve Poizner hasn't dumped the kind of money that Whitman has into her campaign. He's getting some decent level of grassroots support from the right-wing, as there has been no real hard-right McClintock-esque type of candidate. Poizner doesn't have quite the wealth of Whitman, but he can afford to drop a few million into his campaign if he begins to get overrun by the Whitman machine.
Tom Campbell Ending Balance - $317,381.69
Debts - $0
Poor Tom Campbell. Not that Campbell is a poor man, but compared to the other two, he simply cannot donate to his campaign. He cannot get the right-wing grassroots support as he has consistently ticked off the right-wing with his positions on Prop 8 and taxes. At some point unless his fundraising picks up steam rapidly, you begin to question whether this is a serious campaign and not some platform for him to talk about the budget. If that's the case, well, it's a fairly good tack, and would give him some power over the discussions in the campaign. He'll need to raise a lot more to actually be competitive in the Republican primary though.
On the Democratic side, it's starting to look like an un-fair fight. Attorney General Jerry Brown (and supposed candidate for that race again) has a lot of money heading into the Democratic primary, SF Mayor Gavin Newsom had a fairly disappointing first half of the year for fundraising, considering he was the only announced candidate. Running for Governor also allows a substantially higher maximum, so Brown can go back to a lot of his maxed out donors when (if?) he declares for the Governor's race.
Brown
Ending Balance - $7,386,669.12
Debts - $0
Brown has been extremely thrifty, with his staff very limited. His wife, Anne Gust, is doing much of the day-to-day work, and Joe Trippi is doing a bit of consulting. But, there just hasn't been much money flowing out of his campaign. If he goes back and double-dips to his other contributions, he'll have even more money. This is a train with a lot of steam now.
In years past, these numbers wouldn't have been terrible. But costs have gone up, and you simply need a lot of money. With the exodus of Eric Jaye and the now unquestioned authority of Garry South, it is a fairly safe assumption that there will be a big push on traditional fundraising methods over new media and grassroots fundraising. Whether Newsom will succeed with such methods is still an open question.
Thanks to the power of twitter, we have some real-time reporting from this afternoon's "debate" between Tom Campbell and Steve Poizner. They each came kitted out with props. Campbell apparently is a fan of whiteboards, and Poizner brought massive copies of the current California budget. Ooh, fun!
But neither actually addressed the real problem: the economic crisis in California. Instead, they choose to address the symptoms by cutting spending from the California budget. Robert described Campbell's "plan", but Poizner is even more ludicrous. Apparently a "process" makes massive cuts palatable
Poizner says it's "distasteful" to talk about cuts without a "process." LAT's George Skelton says "process doesn't solve budget problem." (John Myers twitter)
The narrative is this: Californians are sick and tired of a dysfunctional government. They want quality schools and services that work for California. And while some taxes aren't all that popular, there are a lot of taxes that could pass provided that the Governor provided some real leadership. Rather than just sitting behind a podium trying to scare people, we need a leader that is willing to go to bat for Californians.
Tea bags are a distraction from what is the sad fact facing California: we are about to Hoover our economy, and the Republicans are cheering it on.
Tom Campbell and Steve Poizner are going around "debating" the propositions. Campbell says yes on 1A, 1D, and 1E, Poisner says no on everything, owing to the fact that John and Ken said so. John Myers will be at their next stop, the Sacramento Press Club, and will be doing some live tweeting.
Ultimately both Poizner and Campbell fundamentally misunderstand the electorate. Californians are angry at their politicans, yes. They want them to do what they sent them there to do, which is work for the people. The people want a stable government which works. Sure, there are a few people who only vote based on what John and Ken say, but a much larger share of Californians are terrified of the cuts that are looming and the Failornator just hasn't helped things with his scare tactics.
California's media likes to play up Tom Campbell as some sort of "moderate" or "sensible" Republican. As compared to Attila the Hun this might be plausible. But even a cursory glance at his alternative budget solutions shows that he is a typically conservative politician. Sure, his conservatism seems to be of the Ronald Reagan sort as opposed to the Grover Norquist sort. But there never was much difference between the two, except in tone, which is apparently all that matters to the media.
Campbell's proposed budget claims to want to solve a "systemic" crisis in a way that doesn't hurt our ability to recover from the economic crisis. Yet his budget merely offers a different method to achieve the same downward spiral that has afflicted the state - particularly Campbell's total ignorance of the revenue drop and the negative impact of spending cuts on consumer spending.
Tom Campbell believes the budget can be balanced by hammering social services, even though there is unprecedented need for these services. An example of his proposals:
•15% salary reduction for state workers OR 15% layoffs of state workforce
• $156.7 million savings in Cal Works by implementing Federal work participation requirements.
• $248.5 million savings by reverting to federal minimums on Supplemental Security Income and the State Supplementary Payment.
• $114.1 million savings by reducing compensation to in-home supportive service workers to the state minimum wage.
• $882 million savings in Medi-Cal, provided California receives a federal waiver from terms of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
In other words, he's offering a mixture of attacks on the poor and attacks on Obama's stimulus. His rationale:
1. California must, in large part, return to national standards on welfare and health care; we cannot afford to provide more than the national average in areas where we have long exceeded those levels;
2. California must ask those capable of taking care of themselves to do so;
3. California must not undercut its ability to bounce back when the national recession ends. This means being careful about cutting education, especially Community Colleges where much workforce retraining takes place.
This is complete bullshit. First, the national standards on welfare and health care are woefully insufficient. Campbell acts as if there is no national health care problem, as if there is no issue with the working-class finding and holding jobs. Campbell is a typical Republican - wealthy and totally ignorant of how everyone else experiences life in California.
Second, how the fuck are people supposed to "take care of themselves" in a recession like this?! Campbell is the sort of guy who drives through a poor community in his Jaguar and shakes his head saying "why don't they just get a job?" That statement alone is proof that Campbell is intellectually unfit for office by virtue of his unwillingness to understand the challenges facing most Californians.
Campbell also proves he has no clue about modern economics - otherwise he wouldn't so blithely ignore the work of Nobel Laureates who point out that if you cut social service spending, folks have to replace that lost money by curtailing consumer spending, hammering jobs and tax revenues.
Third, Campbell's whole budget blueprint is designed specifically to prevent California from enjoying economic recovery. How are people who have no health care benefits supposed to find work? How are people supposed to find work period if you're scaling back Cal-WORKS? How are small businesses supposed to open when the state is laying off workers or cutting their salaries?
Campbell's also internally inconsistent. He states he wants to be "careful about cutting education" and then proposes:
$150 million unallocated cut to UC and CSU (I realize this would require further increases in student fees, or improved fund-raising).
Tom Campbell isn't some kind of new Republican. He's no moderate. Instead, he is the same exact kind of Republican that the party has offered dating back to Herbert Hoover. He is a man of the upper class, determined to protect the wealth and privileges of the upper class at the expense of everyone else.
Campbell's economic policies are no different than Reagan's, or Bush's (either one, 41 or 43). Campbell offers the vast majority of this state only reduced services and less money in their wallets. His Hooverite policies would merely make the recession worse, and ensure that when economic recovery does come, only Campbell's rich friends see any of its benefits, while everyone else is left behind. Which will apparently be just fine with Campbell, since everyone else should just take care of themselves anyway.
We've all seen this movie before. We know how it ends - we're living through it right now. Californians will reject Campbell's Hooverism. But will the media report on exactly what Campbell offers? Or will they continue to lie to their readers and claim he's some kind of "moderate"? I'm not exactly holding my breath.
UPDATED at the top, as the Governor lays off 5,000 state workers, the perfect thing to get California working again. He's basically borrowing from the Whitman playbook here. See below for why that's crazy.
It's a long way until the 2010 Governor's race, but I think Calitics needs to do our part in pointing out that Meg Whitman is frequently full of crap. She's seized on this idea that California's problems can merely be solved by firing all the state employees. Now, first of all, California has the second-lowest rate of state employees per capita in the entire nation, a conveniently forgotten fact by eMeg and the rest of the swinging corporate raiders in the Yacht Party. Next, as Josh Richman explains:
"We haven't looked hard enough at where we can cut. We can lay off 20,000 to 30,000 state employees while prioritizing public safety and teachers," Whitman told the Long Beach Chamber of Commerce. "We shouldn't have to lay off teachers, we need to lay off bureaucrats."
Fact is, "cut the bloated bureaucracy" has been a GOP rallying cry for decades, and yet whenever the study, the audit or the blue-ribbon commission report comes back, we're suddently talking about far less "waste, fraud and abuse" than they'd implied. Is there some fat to cut? Sure. Should we? Probably. Will it fix this deficit? Not even close.
The budget deficit now looks to be about $21.3 billion; it would be about $15 billion if voters approved Propositions 1C, 1D and 1E next week, but that almost certainly ain't gonna happen. And $21 billion isn't 30,000 jobs, as George Skelton so eloquently put it back in February:
According to the state budget document, there is the equivalent of 205,000 full-time jobs controlled by the governor. There actually are more workers than that because some are part-time. Do the math based on 16 months, since that's now the time frame of the projected deficit, assuming a balanced-budget package could be implemented by March 1.
You could lay off all those state workers - rid yourself of their pay and benefits - and save only $24.4 billion.
Meanwhile, you would have dumped 160,000 convicted felons onto the streets because all the prisons were closed after the guards and wardens were fired. There'd be no Highway Patrol because all the officers were canned. State parks would be closed because there were no fee-collectors or rangers.
Truth is the savings wouldn't even add up to $24.4 billion because some of those employees are paid out of small special funds that are self-sustaining.
If these people were in an empty trash bin, they'd still clamor to "cut the waste."
Let me again commend Chris Kelly's Meg Whitman week on the Huffington Post, he's doing an oppo research job that should practically ensure him a spot on any number of campaign staffs. I particularly like the part detailing the $1.78 million she stole from Goldman Sachs, which for all I know might make her a folk hero.
Next year oughta be fun.
...by the way, I'm not letting other Yacht Party gubernatorial hopefuls off the hook either, like Tom Campbell. He predictably dissembles about California's low per-pupil spending on K-12 education, making the same debunked "hey, the schools have plenty of money" claim that Dan Walters likes to peddle. Allow me to introduce them both to Julia Rosen circa April 2008, which by the way is before the even deeper cuts to schools made in the February budget agreement.
I've been reading a bunch of stories about Tom Campbell, and I'm pretty sure that he is the greatest person in the history of all politics EVER! He's brilliant and really far more serious than any of us silly "partisans" could ever dream of being. He's sincere and never takes any of those hippy or fascist positions. Really, this is the greatest man since, well, Arnold Schwarzenegger circa 2003.
That was actually pretty hard to write, but it's not all that far off from the tone of the coverage that Campbell is getting. Take this Skelton column from today's LA Times today:
Tom Campbell is a rarity. He's a politician who carefully thinks through contentious issues and takes positions based on his notion of good government.
Good politics seem to be a low priority, if one at all.
Not that all politicians are finger-to-the-wind opportunists. Each varies by degree between being a policy wonk and political survivalist. But Democrats tend to genuflect to labor, particularly public employee unions. Republicans tend to cower before the anti-tax crowd, to name one.
Campbell is practically all wonk.
And he must have missed the memo to rookie politicians about going along to get along.(LA Times 4/9/09)
I will say this, Campbell is fairly wonky. And compared to the Governator, he is far more introspective and far less showman. But, you know, Arnold is an actor and a professional showman, so that's hardly saying much.
There's this emphasis in Sacramento, but in politics generally, to always look for the next great moderate hope. And apparently this time, the focus has settled squarely upon Tom Campbell. He opposed Prop 8, which gives him solid cred on the socially progressive vote in the Republican party. All seventeen of them statewide.
And boy is he serious. I mean he's so serious that he supports Prop 1A, but not Prop 1B. That'll really show those crybaby school kids. We'll cut and cap spending and then make sure schools get less than they are legally entitled to under Prop 98. That's very serious indeed. From Debra Saunders:
With his service in Congress, the state Senate and then as Schwarzenegger's state finance director, however, Campbell told me, "I am banking on the electorate to favor experience in government."
That's some bet. ... Bob Stern, president of the Center for Governmental Studies in Los Angeles, noted that as with Davis, Campbell's only hope would be "if Poizner and Whitman knock each other off - and that's a possibility."
"Maybe competence wins out," Stern added.
Well, that would be something. Competence winning out over money and right-wing nuttery? Well, long shot indeed. Saunders goes on to note that Campbell is the guy trying to win by supporting Prop 1A (but not 1B, but I digress). Perhaps it would be nice if the Republican party had more people like Tom Campbell and even a few to his left. But the unhappy lesson from the Republican electorate at the Sacramento state convention right after the budget deal was not that they should be more moderate, but that they must make every effort to be completely inflexible. Completely ignore the situation that's actually happening and how to address the problems, and just be Grover-zombies.
The fact is that Campbell is really no moderate in the classical sense. He's moderate only because the Republicans have gone insane. Read his take on the issues of the day. They are moderate if and only if you take the ever-rightward-shifting pole of the Republican party.
But, Tom Campbell is serious and silly bloggers are not. So, I'll do my best not to interfere with any of his very serious work.
Tom Campbell has been getting a lot of favorable media coverage for being the supposedly moderate candidate in the Republican field. But his May 19 endorsements strike me as a rather right-wing stance and ought to call into question his claims to being a "moderate".
Campbell argues for yes on all the initiatives except 1B and 1C, which he opposes. That's not an inherently conservative position to take. But it's the reasons he gives that suggest Campbell is very much a right-winger. Specifically, he firmly believes government spending is a problem and that in a severe recession, that spending ought to be cut, Keynes and historical fact be damned. For example, his argument in favor of Prop 1A:
This creates a real rainy day fund, and constrains the growth of state spending... This is almost as good as Prop. 76, the legislative version of which I authored, that cut spending across-the-board when revenue fell. The public employee unions defeated Prop. 76, but the Governor negotiated with them to hold off criticizing 1A; so this has a real chance of passage.
Prop 76 was the hard spending cap Arnold backed in 2005, and was soundly rejected by the voters. That Campbell, who knows Prop 76 well, sees 1A as "almost as good" should be troubling to any progressive considering backing Prop 1A.
Campbell's desire to attack public spending comes out in his endorsement against Prop 1B:
No one wants to see fewer resources for schools, but more money does not guarantee better performance either. The key to my recommending NO is that in a tough economic environment, all state spending should be on the block. Indeed, in Prop. 76, of which I was the chair, automatic across-the-board cuts went into effect when revenue dropped by as little as 1% in any given quarter. We're all in this together, schools too.
A progressive case against Prop 1B can be made. But this isn't it. Campbell's criticism of Prop 1B is insidious. He denies that public schools are getting destroyed by the budget cuts, which are going to make it impossible to provide students with a quality education. Further, he believes that cuts are a wise move no matter their effect - cuts for cuts' sake. This should not inspire confidence in his potential leadership skills. I'm genuinely curious to see how California's economy can recover without restoring the education cuts. That's not to say Prop 1B will actually restore those cuts, but it's clear Campbell believes that teachers should be fired.
His endorsements for 1D and 1E are of the same attitude - in a crisis, we must cut. It's a recipe for ruin, sending California into a death spiral that our economy might never recover from. His opposition to 1C is a more philosophical opposition to using a lottery at all to fund public services, but that doesn't change the overall right-wing thrust of his May 19 positions.
One would hope that this would end the lie that Campbell is some kind of moderate Republican. He isn't. He's not a knuckle-dragger, but as these endorsements make clear, he is very much a conservative Republican when it comes to government services. And in this economic climate, that's all you need to be a right-winger.
In the last few weeks, CalBuzz has gotten a lot more content and a lot more interesting. It was started by a couple of former political editors, from the Merc and the Chronicle, so they have a bit of experience with California politics. The site itself is an ugly Blogspot blog, but I can forgive a bit of poor formatting if the content is interesting.
At any rate, I bring this up because they have asked all of the presumed candidates for governor to respond to a list of questions. Tom Campbell took up the offer first, answering the full questionnaire in the comments section to the original post.
First, I will say this, Campbell is clearly running to the left of Poizner and Whitman, but that doesn't take a whole lot. On social issues, he wins the moderate argument. He is at the same place or to the left of Arnold on seemingly every social issue. He's not really progressive on immigration, but I think you could find quite a few Dems that would be to the left of his position on that issue too. He spells it all out succinctly, in one run-on sentence:
Here are my positions, with respect for those who disagree: gay people should have the same rights as straight people, including the right to marry, a woman should make the choice on abortion up until the time of viability, we should not drill offshore where it would damage our fishing or tourism industry or run a higher risk of damaging the environment than shipping petroleum does, those who break our country's laws to come here should not be treated as though they were legally here, except that public health should be accessible lest all be endangered by communicable disease, and children K-12 should be in school lest they be recruited for criminal activity, drivers' licenses should not be granted to those who are not here legally , and we should use the California National Guard to assist in making our border more secure.
So, score one point for post-partisan Tom, and his courage to publicly and vocallyoppose Prop 8 should not be taken lightly. That being said, social issues aren't the only positions he shares with Arnold. He is also in love with the business lobby, just like the Governator. He even uses the words job-killer throughout the responses. Here he is on splitting the Prop 13 property tax rolls:
When I was California Finance Director, I'd speak before the California Manufacturers' Association, the Chamber of Commerce, and other groups, whose members included some employers thinking of moving out of the state. One of the only arguments I had for them to stay was Prop.13's limits on taxing commercial property. If the employer moved to Texas, for instance, where the sales tax is lower and there is no income tax, the property might be reassessed once it was developed to the point that it could not move. That could not happen in California. So the "split roll" idea is job-killer.
He addresses the inequality of long-term homeowneres paying so much less than newer homeowners, and gives an answer about expectations of the purchasers. But the inequality he doesn't address is the inequality between businesses and residences. Business property doesn't transfer nearly as often as residential property, yet he isn't concerned that the owner of a high rise is still paying taxes on property values based in 1978.
And, guess what he opposes democracy, still relying on the broken supermajority system. Because, you know, the majority would run amok and kill jobs.
The rule that used to apply was that a 2/3 vote was required only if the budget spent more than the Gann Limits: that is, more than the previous year adjusted for inflation and population. I'd reestablish that. Keep the 2/3 requirement for tax increases; otherwise, our taxes would rise above their already job-killing level.
Of course, he ignores the fact that if the majority hated the taxes so much, they could simply vote out the majority. It is a basic tenant of democracy, that just doesn't exist in California. Here in California, it is the minority that rules, not the majority.
And he still is a Republican, so there's some garbage about how taxes really, really suck:
On taxes, we need to lower every tax that discourages jobs in our state. We need to get more in line with our competitor states' levels on income tax, sales tax, and business tax. (A good start was in the recent budget deal's adoption of the single sales factor for apportioning multi-state income: before that change, we were actually taxing employers more the more employees they had in our state.) We should eliminate the sales tax on productive machinery, and adopt a capital gains tax mirroring the federal one, to encourage investment in California that leads to jobs. I'd keep Prop. 13; without it, our number one marginal income tax rate, number one state sales tax, and number 3 state business tax make California a very unattractive place to hire people.
In the end, Campbell's social positions will likely doom him in the GOP primary. But, he should not be underestimated if he does somehow squeak into the general election. He is running on Arnold's campaign platform, which was quite successful for two elections. It might be wearing thin these days, but a face lift could bring new life. And the last thing we need is a repeat of Arnold.
The latest Field Poll is out (SF Chronicle here and Field PDF here) and it shows the favorability ratings of various leading contenders for 2010 gubernatorial race in both parties. And while the Chronicle wants to make this an "omg DiFi is the favorite" and "ha ha - Newsom sucks" story, the two most important things the poll actually tells us are:
1. DiFi has very high unfavorability ratings among Democratic contenders, and
2. Nobody - and I mean nobody - knows a thing about the Yacht Party potentials, except that they don't like them.
Let's take this in order. First, the Dems:
Name
Favorable
Unfavorable
No opinion
Dianne Feinstein
50%
39%
11%
Jerry Brown
34
34
32
Antonio Villaraigosa
28
33
39
John Garamendi
27
20
53
Gavin Newsom
25
41
34
Jack O'Connell
10
16
74
Among Dems only Gavin Newsom has higher unfavorables, but not by much, and since this poll was taken right before the election - when Newsom was getting pounded in the press and on the airwaves by the Yes on 8 campaign - this may be a low point for Newsom.
That makes the 39% unfavorable figure for Feinstein rather significant. Sure, she has the highest favorable rating - 50% - of anyone in the field regardless of party, but that's not a great figure for such an established politician. As we've noted before, her numbers among Dems aren't so hot either. I don't see much basis for a DiFi inevitability argument, which the Chronicle is trying to get started.
Jerry Brown has a lot of room to grow, since much of that 32% "no opinion" are probably younger Californians who (like me) were born late in or after his previous terms as governor.
Antonio Villaraigosa has to be considered a sleeper here. At 39% "no opinion" that gives him room to grow as well. He has been building a solidly progressive reputation over the last year, coming out strong against Prop 8 and leading the fight for mass transit in LA (seriously, getting to 2/3 with a sales tax for rail in LA County is a major achievement). As Brian noted a few weeks ago, his endorsements were the closest match to our own. He is also making a high profile link with Barack Obama, serving on his economic advisory team. If you want to run for governor, it is a damn smart move to link yourself to a popular president who won CA by 24 points.
And what of the Yacht Party contenders? They have Bill Simon written all over them:
Name
Favorable
Unfavorable
No opinion
Meg Whitman
17%
16%
67%
Tom Campbell
14
13
73
Steve Poizner
10
14
76
Even with enormous unknown ratings, none of them have a net favorability rating outside the margin of error, and Steve Poizner already has a significant unfavorability rating that will only grow once his links to voter registration fraud get a wider airing. The Chronicle article promotes Meg Whitman as a breakout star, but I'm not seeing it here. All California voters will need to hear is that she's a Republican and that she was an advisor to the McCain campaign and that may be enough to torpedo her.
The only Republican who might have a snowball's chance is Tom Campbell, the moderate Republican, but he didn't fare well in a statewide race in 2000 (losing to DiFi). Of course it's highly unlikely that the "down with the ship" Yacht Party primary voters will vote for a moderate like Campbell.
This goes to show that the 2010 governor's race may well be decided in the June primary, which should be one of the most interesting primary fights we've seen in this state in a long, long, LONG time.
You know how we just finished the Democratic primary for 2008? Well, apparently it's time for 2010. Just a few weeks after Gavin Newsom launched his exploratory bid, we have a poll. Terrific, can we at least get a lollipop or something between merry go round rides?
State Attorney General Jerry Brown leads San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and other Democrats making noises about running for governor in 2010 - but if Sen. Dianne Feinstein were to jump into the pool, she would swamp them all, a new poll shows.
On the Republican side, former Rep. Tom Campbell has a 2-1 edge over other possible candidates - ex-Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner and ex-eBay chief Meg Whitman.
DiFi is, through sheer omnipresence, a powerful force in California politics. While she would be a heavy favorite in the race, such an election could provide a powerful opportunity for progressive Democrats to seek out and elect our own candidate. Is DiFi better than Arnold? Probably. But setting the bar at Arnold undersells our capacity to elect a progressive governor. We have an incredibly strong bench, why must we mull through candidates of the past?
On the Republican side, Tom Campbell would be a decent opponent, as formidable as any GOP candidate could be in California. He has a well cultivated moderate image, and his absence from politics to have a turn at Berkeley's Haas Business School, leaves only the memory of a moderate without the recollection of the bad votes. His campaign against DiFi allowed Californians to see through his rhetoric of bipartisanship, primarily through his vote for the articles of impeachment against Bill Clinton.
Of course, both of these candidates face monumental uphill climbs to take the Republican nomination. The primary electorate is pretty wing-nutty, and won't take kindly to all these "moderates" jockeying for position. A strong conservative could break the logjam of supposed moderates. Maybe Dick Mountjoy will run, I mean he carried 35% in the 2006 Senate race. That's pretty good, right?
UPDATE: Down in the comments, Dave points out that 50%, what the poll gives her, isn't a particularly inspiring number for a politician of such name recognition. If her re-elect number were 50%, one would consider her vulnerable. As I pointed out, I think we have other viable options.
With the passing of Labor Day, we have entered the traditional campaign season: a time for politicians to go meet voters. Yet the reality is that -- even as you are reading this -- many candidates are locked in a small room as part of the daily ritual known as call time. Somewhere along the line, it became conventional wisdom that money equals ads which equals votes, with call-time seen as the most effective way to raise money and thus win elections.
An entire generation of politicians have been evaluated not by their leadership or ideas, but by their discipline when it comes to spending hours on end begging for big checks, one call after another after another after another. It is commitment to call-time that positions a politician as a contender during the primaries, it decides if a candidate is seen as viable in the general election, and it plays a major role in whether a legislator will rise through the ranks into "leadership". In short, call-time is seen as one of the most critical attributes in every stage of politics.
Wouldn't it be nice if politicians could spend the next two months listening to voters instead of talking at donors? The answer is public financing, it is working in other states, and this is the year when it can start working in California.
, Meg Whitman has come down from her ivory tower to inform the plebes that 
