Statewide elections bring big challenges to Republican playbook

by Brian Leubitz

California Republicans really want to be like other Republicans. They want to win lots of elections and support some crazy, right-wing policies. But, it turns out in California, that’s kind of a non-starter. In fact, the odds are so stacked against that craziness, that Republicans statewide are well behind out of the starting gate. From Jim Newton of the LA Times:

Aaron McLear, senior advisor to the Kashkari campaign, pointed out to me last week that, for a Republican to win statewide, he or she needs to carry 95% of Republican voters, two-thirds of independents and about one-third of Democrats. That is, as he said, “tough, really tough.” (Jim Newton / LAT)

Much of this is demographics, as Newton discusses later in that article. I mean, how long can a party in California continue with nativist rhetoric. Heck, the former Minuteman leader (Asm. Tim Donnelly) was a serious Republican candidate for Governor this June. It is hard for a party to simultaneously take the Minutemen and Latinos seriously. You can’t be both racist and support a diverse California.

But it is clearly more than that for the CRP. It would be easy to just say that they should run a more moderate candidate. They’ve done that. Meg Whitman wasn’t really of the right-wing, and neither is Neel Kashkari. But unless another Arnold Schwarzenegger comes along, with something exceptional (like say a huge movie career), the branding of the California Republican Party is like a lead anchor around his or her poll numbers. It is exceedingly difficult, in the modern media atmosphere, to transcend party identification. Even Meg Whitman, with all of her millions, couldn’t accomplish the task.

One candidate can’t change lead a party from the wilderness, even if his name is Arnold Schwarzenegger. The California Republican Party is intent on becoming a regional party, and if that is going to change, it will take a long-term overhaul.

On the left, we tend to cast aside anybody who has a stain on their record fairly quickly. On the right, they celebrate their hatchet men.  Of course, I’m referring to the Breitbart/Sherrod debacle.

For those of you living under a rock, rather than really getting into the story I will summarize the incident in two sentences. Andrew Breitbart edited a video tape to falsely characterize a speech that Shirley Sherrod gave to the NAACP as racist.  The White House, acting out of shear fear of FOX News, fired her, then re-hired her when Breitbart’s editing was shown to be a crock of feces. For more than that, you’ll have to see Little Green Footballs. Yes, I really did just link to LGF…it’s changing over there. Long story short, the whole right-wing went crazy (including arguing that the extra-judicial beating and murder of Sherrod’s relative wasn’t actually a lynching because there wasn’t a rope involved).

The net result of all that is that Breitbart himself is a man who was outed for exactly what he is, a GOP hatchet man that has little regard for the truth. But, the GOP loves their hatchet men! In fact, Breitbart is headlining an RNC event in Beverly Hills in mid-August that will also feature some pretty high ranking California Republican officials.  Jeff Denham, Wally Herger, SoS candidate Damon Dunn, and more.  And, oh yeah, the so-called “moderate” Abel Maldonado.

Abel Maldonado needs to denounce the tactics of hate that emerge from Breitbart and his compatriots.  If the RNC is to ever gain any sort of credibility with Latinos, it needs to do more than run one elected leader on a statewide ticket.  Despite St. Abel thinking he’s already being deified (and behaving as such during the budget fight), it’s far from the truth. The fact is that on issues that matter, Abel has sided with the GOP base.  

For the next few months, Maldonado has a fight on his hands to give the people of California any reason to retain him.  He’s been a man of obstruction and fighting for what’s best for him (and occasionally his new BFF Arnold).