{"id":10483,"date":"2009-11-13T01:30:29","date_gmt":"2009-11-13T01:30:29","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2009-11-13T01:30:29","modified_gmt":"2009-11-13T01:30:29","slug":"jerry-brown-uncommitted-on-the-public-option","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/2009\/11\/13\/jerry-brown-uncommitted-on-the-public-option\/","title":{"rendered":"Jerry Brown “Uncommitted on the Public Option”"},"content":{"rendered":"

We didn’t intend today to be Jerry Brown Day here at Calitics, but we could not pass up reporting on some rather stunning statements Brown made at a recent appearance at UC Irvine. As reported by the OC Register<\/a> (with a h\/t to Calitics alum David Dayen<\/a>):<\/p>\n

But Brown did address Proposition 13 – the property-tax limit – and taxes in general.<\/p>\n

“I don’t think taking on Prop. 13 is viable,” said Brown, who was on hand as part of a speaker’s series at the school. “I don’t think it (change) is needed.<\/p>\n

“As a candidate, if you even peep about a tax, you’re dead,” he said. “We’ve got to downsize government to the maximum degree. We’ve got to make it efficient and bring it to the community.”<\/p>\n

Brown said he opposed reducing the two-thirds majority vote required for tax hikes, but said he was open to reducing the two-thirds majority vote needed to approve the budget. He voiced support for the state’s three-strikes law, remained uncommitted on a public option for health care, and said he supported a path toward legalizing those now in the country illegally.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Anyone who still thinks Brown is a progressive, please raise your hands. Thought so.<\/p>\n

If Brown is not even willing to embrace the public option, which is widely popular here in California, if he won’t commit to majority rule, and if he believes in “downsizing government to the maximum degree” then we’re looking at someone who is clearly planning to run a centrist, even DLC-like campaign here in California.<\/p>\n

Brown likely has concluded that 2010 will be like 1994, and that if he is to avoid his sister’s fate<\/a> he must appease Republicans and independents who supposedly are skeptical of government.<\/p>\n

The problem with that thinking is it almost certainly guarantees the same outcome as in 1994. Sure, Jerry will improve on the 40% Kathleen got in that race, but if he is going to refuse to embrace the public option, there’s just no way at all he will be able to motivate California progressives, and even many California Democrats will not be enthused to do more than cast their vote for him on Election Day.<\/p>\n

As I’ve argued before<\/a>, 2010 will be a turnout election. If Brown can’t motivate the Democratic base, he’ll be facing a Republican candidate with a strongly motivated right-wing base, and his victory will become anything but certain. Brown may think those statements played well in Orange County (even though Irvine voters cast a majority of their votes for Obama). They’re definitely NOT going to play well with the people he needs to help him win.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We didn’t intend today to be Jerry Brown Day here at Calitics, but we could not pass up reporting on some rather stunning statements Brown made at a recent appearance at UC Irvine. As reported by the OC Register<\/a> (with a h\/t to Calitics alum David Dayen<\/a>):<\/p>\n

But Brown did address Proposition 13 – the property-tax limit – and taxes in general.<\/p>\n

“I don’t think taking on Prop. 13 is viable,” said Brown, who was on hand as part of a speaker’s series at the school. “I don’t think it (change) is needed.<\/p>\n

“As a candidate, if you even peep about a tax, you’re dead,” he said. “We’ve got to downsize government to the maximum degree. We’ve got to make it efficient and bring it to the community.”<\/p>\n

Brown said he opposed reducing the two-thirds majority vote required for tax hikes, but said he was open to reducing the two-thirds majority vote needed to approve the budget. He voiced support for the state’s three-strikes law, remained uncommitted on a public option for health care, and said he supported a path toward legalizing those now in the country illegally.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Anyone who still thinks Brown is a progressive, please raise your hands. Thought so.<\/p>\n

If Brown is not even willing to embrace the public option, which is widely popular here in California, if he won’t commit to majority rule, and if he believes in “downsizing government to the maximum degree” then we’re looking at someone who is clearly planning to run a centrist, even DLC-like campaign here in California.<\/p>\n

Brown likely has concluded that 2010 will be like 1994, and that if he is to avoid his sister’s fate<\/a> he must appease Republicans and independents who supposedly are skeptical of government.<\/p>\n

The problem with that thinking is it almost certainly guarantees the same outcome as in 1994. Sure, Jerry will improve on the 40% Kathleen got in that race, but if he is going to refuse to embrace the public option, there’s just no way at all he will be able to motivate California progressives, and even many California Democrats will not be enthused to do more than cast their vote for him on Election Day.<\/p>\n

As I’ve argued before<\/a>, 2010 will be a turnout election. If Brown can’t motivate the Democratic base, he’ll be facing a Republican candidate with a strongly motivated right-wing base, and his victory will become anything but certain. Brown may think those statements played well in Orange County (even though Irvine voters cast a majority of their votes for Obama). They’re definitely NOT going to play well with the people he needs to help him win.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1990,204],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1990","category-204"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Pvhz-2J5","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10483"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10483\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}