Desperate to win over the wingnut base of the California Republican Party, and likely herself a true believer in the “let’s destroy government” cause, Meg Whitman has joined Steve Poizner and taken the Grover Norquist “no new taxes” pledge:

“By signing the Pledge, Whitman makes clear that if elected she will stand up for taxpayers and not the tenured bureaucrats, coercive utopians, and union bosses that currently run Sacramento,” said Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform. “In a state with one of the highest tax burdens in the country, a dismal business tax climate, rampant overspending, and a government that is so costly that Californians had to work 235 days this year, well over half the year, just to pay for it, higher taxes should be a non-starter for all elected officials and candidates. In signing the Pledge, Whitman has made clear that she recognizes this.”…

“Californians are fortunate to have two high quality candidates who have made this important commitment to defend the overburdened Golden State taxpayers,” added Norquist. “I strongly encourage, and challenge, Tom Campbell, Gavin Newsome [sic] and every candidate for governor to sign the Pledge.”

Presumably this means Whitman and Poizner oppose making the wealthy pay more to help keep teachers in the classrooms, that they enjoy seeing classes with a whopping 42 students in them, and that they are happy to prolong the recession in order to carry out their shock doctrine of California’s once-great prosperity.

Interestingly, you’ll note that of the other candidates Norquist challenged to sign the pledge, Jerry Brown was not among them. He hasn’t officially signed that pledge, but as Brian mentioned last week, he might as well have:

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.

Of course, the polls tell a different story. Californians are quite willing to raise certain taxes to restore and preserve vital public services. How exactly Brown would balance the state’s budget without embracing the kinds of cuts eMeg has proposed is quite unclear.

If we are going to beat Poizner or Whitman, Democrats will have to offer a different vision for California’s future. And that means rejecting the “no new taxes” mantra that is destroying our state and the economic prosperity of the working and middle classes. If Jerry Brown won’t offer that vision, will Gavin Newsom?

As we drift headlong into the 2010 Governor’s race, there are some very big issues facing the state.  One of these, is the prison crisis.  The legislature and the Governor were only able to come up with cuts that would reduce the population by somewhere in the 25,000 range, while the federal courts are looking more in the 44,000 range.

The Bee took a look at how the candidates are talking about this issue, and let’s just say that some of the positions are semi-reasonable, and others simply aren’t.  Now, for those of you who were wondering about the Michael Jackson “Black or White” Video, well, I give you Steve Poizner’s black or white take on the world:

Whitman and Poizner, on the other hand, have tried to out-tough each other, railing against legislation passed last month by the state Senate that would have let some inmates out earlier and appointed a commission to rework state sentencing laws. The ultimate version of the bill passed this month did not include the sentencing commission or a provision to release more than 6,000 inmates to home detention.

“You have to be a really bad person to get into state prison,” Poizner said. “So I’m opposed to releasing people who are dangerous, absolutely opposed. That’s no way to balance the budget.”

Whitman went even further, saying she opposed rewriting any prison and parole guidelines that would shorten prison terms for any inmate.(Sac Bee 9/23/09 emphasis mine)

Poizner simply takes the reactionary view, that is, that if you are in prison, you are a bad, bad, person.  Of course, this ignores the crazy, messed up world of parole violations that lead to people going to prison to serve out a term because they missed a meeting with their parole officer or some other technicality.  So, yes, you have to break the law to end up in prison, but painting all prisoners with such a wide brush serves neither the prison system, the prisoners, nor the state very well.

And then you look at eMeg‘s statement, and that seems all the more bizarre when you put it together with her statement from yesterday saying that she wants to can 40,000 state workers.  As the governor’s staff has pointed out, you can’t fire that many workers without firing a bunch of prison guards.  And if you plan on increasing the prison population as eMeg seems to be saying here, well forget about cutting state employee roles, you’ll end up hiring another 10,000 prison guards.  And that doesn’t even consider the overtime pay that the guards get in spades.

Jerry Brown, who mentioned that he would consider the position, and SF Mayor Gavin Newsom have stated fairly similar positions. Both want to reduce recidivism (good!) but haven’t stated whether they would support a sentencing commission or any serious reform (bad!).  

On the other hand, Republican Tom Campbell has actually been quite the reasonable guy on this front.  He supported the Senate bill (Good!) and has put out specific, pragmatic policies on this and some other issues, many of which are pretty vanilla milquetoast. Nonetheless, a candidate that is willing to talk about the issue from a logical viewpoint, rather than an emotional reactionary viewpoint, deserves some credit.

Campbell, on the other hand, is bucking the prevailing wisdom in his party. He backed both the Senate version and the final bill although both shorten prison terms of some inmates.

“We have an opportunity to direct a more effective prison system,” Campbell said. “I’d rather approach this pragmatically, through outsourcing of prisoners, developing a triage of parole violators and focusing on more violent offenders in prisons.”

Now, Arnold supported the Senate bill too, and that hardly makes him a great Governor, does it? But, unless our elected leaders are willing to deal with thhis issue out of a place of pragmatic, problem-solving leadership, rather than out of fear of an electoral backlash, we shouldn’t expect too much progress.  

Meg Whitman isn’t quite the punching bag of say, an iCarly. She’s dumped a bucket load of cash into her campaign, and has some actual support coming in as well.

But, she saw the red meat that Steve Poizner was dishing up to the base, and thought she better get in the action once again.  So, in a speech that she’s giving, oh, right about now, she puts a bunch of ground round on a platter and serves it up rare as can be. Joe Garofoli at the Chronicle just posted some choice excerpts from the speech:

As governor, I’ll cut taxes to create jobs. Specifically, I’ll cut taxes on job-creating businesses of every size and implement targeted tax relief to rebuild manufacturing in California. I’ll expand research and development tax credits. I’ll establish tax incentives and credits for companies that train and hire displaced workers. And I’ll establish a cabinet-level position in my administration dedicated to private sector job growth. (SF Gate)

So, R&D credits, huh? Well, her friends in Silicon Valley will love that. How about her friends in the Central Valley who are struggling to pay the health insurance bill and the mortgage? No word on that issue.  But don’t worry, because unlike Poizner, she’s got a plan on how we afford the tax cuts: Slash 40,000 government jobs.

As I committed to in February, if elected I will identify and implement at least $15 billion in permanent spending cuts from the state budget. I’ll eliminate redundant and underperforming government agencies and commissions. And I will reduce the state workforce by at least 40,000 employees. That’s a 17 percent reduction that would reset the workforce to 2004-2005 levels and save the state a projected $3.3 billion annually. (SF Gate)

Right, that’s the ticket.  I know Whitman is a business scholar, so I’ll leave this question to her: How does the state sustain an additional loss of 40,000 jobs without a consequential, and substantial, drop in consumer spending and thus private sector jobs.

The fact is that this plan is even more half-baked than Poizner’s merely ridiculous plan.  This one carries few specifics other than “we can improve IT efficiency.” Yes, that’s true, but the state government isn’t ebay, and you can’t simply apply feedback scores and tell everybody that they just have to trust reputation and then pretend everything is hunky-dory. And you can’t really outsource your labor to slave labor, as eMeg does. Nope, the state actually needs its workforce to accomplish some very important goals.  Things like fighting fires, protecting its citizens, you know, silly stuff.

I’m not even sure I need to attack this plan, as the Governor’s people have already done so. From back in June, here’s Schwarzenegger spokesman Aaron McLear criticizing the plan:

Former eBay CEO and Republican candidate Meg Whitman campaigns across California, advocating job cuts to net a 10 percent “head count” reduction in California’s 345,000-person state workforce.

But she got a brushback from Schwarzenegger spokesman Aaron McLear, who suggested such across-the-board cuts are all but impossible.

“The governor only has authority over contracts with 100,000 state employees paid through the general fund,” McLear said. “About two-thirds of those are in Corrections. So it’s unclear how you cut 30,000 positions without affecting public safety.”

Aaah, the battle royale between Whitman and Poizner, where nothing really makes sense, but you get style points just for dressing up your utility grade red-meat.

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.

Newsom:

Ending Cash – $1,244,919.85

Debts – $334,482.67

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)

And despite any stories about tea bags in the ballot, the plural of anecdote is not data. (My apologies to Raymond Wolfringer.) Is the symbolism more robust with a teabag in the ballot? Sure, but symbolism alone does not and should not drive the narrative.

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.