In my previous entry I called for Democratic candidates to seize the moment created by the public’s rejection of Arnold Schwarzenegger and offer a vision of change to fix California’s problems.
Almost as if on cue, Gavin Newsom’s campaign released an online ad this morning emphasizing those points. One of the things I find so interesting is that it mentions not once, but twice, both the Constitutional Convention and eliminating the 2/3rds rule. Newsom is positioning himself as the candidate of not just “change” but of structural reform:
With the first snows falling in the Sierra, will Jerry Brown respond with a vision of his own for California’s future? Or will he continue to espouse his party like it’s 1978 vision?
The ball is now in Brown’s court, with a solid first serve by Newsom.
The ad says “lower the 2/3 majority,” but the e-mail sent out with the video says to “repeal the two-thirds vote requirement to pass a budget.”
Is Newsom calling only for reducing the 2/3 majority on the budget (the Hertzberg/CA Forward position) or also for the 2/3 majority on taxation?
Finally Newsom grabs the opportunity. Perhaps the only opportunity for him to get any traction in this race. As repellent a candidate as he is in so many ways, I’m looking very forgivingly in his direction to be the Reform candidate for this election . . . I could enthusiastically vote for someone of his ilk if he’d position himself right. (And so would others, I suspect.)
But this commercial doesn’t quite do it. It’s at least “going there”, the right direction. But it’s sappy and vague. He needs to come out swinging like a progressive Alan Grayson / Peter Benchley / Bullworth hydra and stare into the camera and Tell It Like It Is . . . anything less is likely the path to becoming a political trivia question.
Even the 2/3rds mention (and excellent point raised in previous comment) is something of a throwaway line (or at least a dog whistle line). It just says “the 2/3 rule” or something like that. No explanation of what it is — only the progressives on his flank will hear that. He could have said “majority rule on taxes” or something consonant with Lakoff’s initiative. He could have said something more plainspeak to get at the issue. But didn’t.
It is one of the few efforts I’ve seen to really adopt a “change the system” message, and I think that kind of messaging is important.
But it is missing some key elements – who is responsible for the mess we are in? How did we get here so we can understand the path to getting out.
And more importantly, what about Gavin Newsom equips him for this fight?
When Barack Obama used this kind of messaging, he said that corporate interests had hijacked our country and that we were too busy fighting with each other over petty political grievances to notice and fight back. And he sold himself as the product of two worlds, so uniquely able to see this as a distraction and build a broad coalition to fight back.
If Newsom can figure out how to take those two additional steps, he might catch fire in the way he really needs to in order to make this race competitive.
So far I’m not sold on either candidate.
Not to be obtuse, but I have no idea what position Newsom is actually taking here viz. a constitutional convention. Is he throwing his weight/endorsement behind a ballot initiative approach? Is he saying that once elected he’ll get the legislature to call a convention? And, if the former, is he going to do anything material to get the initiatives on the ballot, or is he just giving them a thumbs up and a dippy soundtrack?
If he’s actually doing something real here, this could be huge for him. It seems to me that his biggest problem so far (based on the e-mails I get from his campaign) is that he can’t tell the difference between real reform, strong campaigning, and empty gestures. Help choose my logo! Sign my petition to Meg Whitman, calling on her to promise not to do something that she can only do if she whips my ass in the election! (Whoever told him to mount that petition should be fired.) I’ll definitely be looking to see what exactly he does to push the convention with great interest.