A friend and I were driving to Fresno yesterday morning when I received a very welcome message on my blackberry: Meg Whitman has come out against Proposition 23.
Everyone who opposes Proposition 23 had to cheer - and be cheered by - that news. Now both Whitman and Brown have officially voiced their opposition to this environmentally harmful proposition.
Meg Whitman is trying to shoot the moon with her latest announcement of a position on Prop 23:
Whitman has said she would suspend the law, AB 32, for at least one year, and in a written statement this morning she called the law a "job killer" and said it needs to be revised.
However, Whitman said Proposition 23 "does not offer a sensible balance between our vital need for good jobs and the desire of all Californians to protect our precious environment."(Sac Bee)
Here's her math here: Prop 23 is trailing in the polls, and Democrats are generally bludgeoning the Republicans on this issue. Boxer used it effectively against Fiorina at the last debate, and Jerry Brown has been hammering at Whitman for her failure to announce a solid position.
But, this isn't a solid position. Now, it will be enough to convince a few folks perhaps, but anybody that is really voting on the candidates based upon environmental concerns is hardly going to love this position. That one year moratorium isn't really that hidden as a means of killing AB 32.
Whether the political tradeoff for whatever centrist votes she can get for whatever Right-wing votes she lost was a good one for her is an open question, but expect some additional anger on the right. But hey, they like that sort of thing.
Well, after a few weeks of up and down in the polls, Meg Whitman and Jerry Brown are now at a dead heat in the latest Field Poll. Each is sitting at 41 percent of likely voters (MoE +/- 4.1%) with 6 weeks to go. The numbers break down how you would generally expect these things to go, Whitman gets 75% of Republicans, Jerry Brown gets 69% of Democrats, and they split the DTS vote at 38% each. Now, what Meg Whitman has got for her $111 million is that split down the middle in DTS vote, which you wouldn't normally see absent the unprecedented ad buy, as well as her capturing 15% of the Democratic vote compared to Brown's 9% of the Republican vote.
But like everything else in California politics, it seems people don't particularly like either of the candidates:
"This race is boiling down to a tough decision," said Field Poll director Mark DiCamillo. "More voters hold negative than positive impressions of the candidates, and that contributes to the situation."(SacBee)
Whitman has a minus 5 favorable (40/45) while Brown sports only a minus 3 (44/47). These aren't numbers you would typically love to see an inspired electorate. But, with the barrage of ads from Whitman, and the smattering of efforts on the left, people know that they just shouldn't like these candidates. They aren't exactly why, but it's what they've been told on the TeeVee, the radio, and on the internet. And so, shockingly enough, all that money is having an impact.
Over the next 5+ weeks, while surrogates and the campaigns continue to wail on each other in every media outlet available, the candidates themselves will be trying to give the state some reason to vote for them. In the end, however, the Field numbers indicate about half of all voters will be choosing the lesser of two evils rather than somebody they believe in. Only 49% of Whitman voters and 53% of Brown voters are voting for their candidate rather than against the other one. This is unfortunate on many levels, not the least of which is that the state needs a leader who has some political capital (read: not Whitman's millions) to make something happen in Sacramento.
All things considered, Jerry Brown has to like where he is sitting right now. He'll nearly match Whitman in ad spending the rest of the way, and will hope that Democrats start returning home when they hear a message from their candidate. At any rate, this is clearly shaping up to be one of the tightest elections in recent memory. Progressives will need to focus on turning out and getting their networks to turn out for the Democratic ticket this year, the idea of a Whitman/Fiorina victory party is too difficult to process.
Call me shocked, just shocked to find that there's gambling with California's future in this election.
The state legislator responsible for placing Proposition 23, the anti-climate measure, on the ballot is...a climate zombie. And one of Proposition 23's out of state dirty energy supporters, Koch Industries, Patient Zero of the climate zombie infection is holding a fundraiser Thursday night for climate zombie Senate wannabe Carly Fiorina.
WWMWD? Will Meg Whitman endorse Proposition 23 and its oil-soaked supporters, or will she join the forward-thinking California businesses who urge a no vote?
FLOREZ STATEMENT ON WHITMAN CALLING FRESNO "AWFUL" AND EXPRESSES FRESNO LOOKS LIIKE DETROIT
SACRAMENTO - Senator Dean Florez, D-Shafter, responding to gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman's recent description of Fresno as looking like Detroit and calling it "awful," Senate Majority Leader Dean Florez who represents portions of Fresno made the following statement:
Meg Whitman was greeted at a fancy high-falutin' $1000 a person fundraiser by a crowd of protesters, angry over her supposed "plan." By plan I mean corportization of our state government combined with a subtle effort to just get rid of the whole thing. But, she did her best to rally the base with the noted War Hawk and architect of failure, Condoleeza Rice.
[T]he Republican candidate, speaking to the audience, said she was confident she will turn out the Republican base, noting they are already "carrying pitchforks and torches..and saying "which way to the castle?"
And the former eBay CEO also vowed to turn out Latinos, small business owners, and women, boasting she is working to build "the largest women's coalition ever in American politics."
Whitman also predicted she will attract 18-29 year old voters who supported President Barack Obama in the election of 2008, because she said they are now concerned about one issue -- jobs.(SF Gate)
Everything is bigger with $150 Million dollars! But her underlying facts are dead wrong. Not only are voters between 18-29 strongly going towards Jerry Brown, after all, this is one of the most progressive generations in quite some time, but her "coalition" is a paper tiger. It's a lot of pretty posters and posturing, but where will she be when the rubber meats the road.
I should add what is the deal with candidates calling their own supporters an angry and out of control mob. Way to fuel the fire. As Arnold Schwarzenegger learned (just see his latest poll numbers) the outsider card only works for so long, eventually, when real results are required, her big talk will amount to even less than what we've gotten with the Governator.
Even if you aren't a fan of Meg Whitman's management, you still have to admire eBay. It is a company that brought together people to buy and sell from across the country, then across the world. Any way you slice it, the big idea of an online auction, started by Pierre Omidyar was an idea that helped accelerate the digital economy. Millions of small businesses, and all that we've been hearing Meg Whitman promote.
Thing is, Meg Whitman wasn't the one who came up with that idea. She helped foster the idea from a small operation into an international collussus, and on the way certainly did a better job than CEO flame-outs like Carly Fiorina, but the ideas that she was building were never her own.
So, why not ask Pierre Omidyar what he thinks of Meg Whitman? Certainly there are few people that know her better than he. And they have each other to thank for their respective fortunes. So, would Omidyar vote for Meg Whitman? In a word, No.
"Now I have not endorsed her because we have some differences on some of the political issues," Omidyar, who is now based in Hawaii, told Bloomberg TV in an interview that will air Wednesday on "InBusiness with Margaret Brennan." "I was disappointed in her not-correct decision, in my view, to support Proposition 8 in California. I was disappointed in her alignment with former Governor Pete Wilson on immigration issues, who I think took some very extreme views years ago about denying benefits to illegal immigrants. And so because of those types of issues, I think we are a little bit apart, and I can't quite support her because of that." (LA Times)
Omidyar does well to call attention to Whitman's new-found love affair with Wilson, the godfather of Proposition 187, the measure that stripped away benefits from immigrants that he rode to re-election in 1994. Wilson is also the chair of Steve Cooley's campaign for Attorney General. Through these two, Wilson is attempting to extend his influence, with all the concurrent hard feelings that brings.
Whitman is wrong on immigration. And she is wrong on Prop 8. She's just wrong for California.
You know the days of Hiram Johnson, when he hoped to create a system that wasn't controlled by the railroads, or whatever interest was dominating at the time? Well, we're past that whole industry domination now, and have moved on directly to power of the person. Not of the people, just the person. In our current case, that person is Meg Whitman and her eBay warchest.
Republican gubernatorial nominee Meg Whitman said Monday that she would place pension cutbacks on the ballot if negotiations with state workers fail and would consider using her personal fortune not only to win office but to advance her agenda if elected.
Taking the issue to voters is "not my first choice," she told The Bee's editorial board. "But if we have to ... this is an issue we have got to take up."(SacBee)
She went on to say that she opposes collective bargaining for state employees. Period. End of sentence. Now, she's not likely to make friends with the California Statewide Law Enforcement Association that just gave her its endorsement on the condition that she say that pension reform doesn't apply to law enforcement. But, that was painfully transparent in its say what you need to say attitude; this statement calls for the end to collective bargaining (and thus, all unions) in the public sector. The CSLEA board is going to have a fun time explaining that one.
Returning to where we started, California politics hasn't yet gotten to the point where it is completely owned by just one interest. Part of that is the competing interest groups pushing back against each other, but that part can be easily overwhelmed by a new influx of cash, tipping the balance towards the corporate dollars.
Of course, there is one side of the political power equation that isn't so vulnerable to Whitman's money binges. The people, if we found the time, could be an informed decision maker. However, as of right now, we seem to wait back for what the TeeVee ads tell us/scare us/yell at us. One can only hope that this is the year that we say no to the purchasing of our statehouse for good.
Meg Whitman has been under some pressure to take a position one way or the other on Prop 23. It would be nice to know what her take on one of the most major pieces of (anti-)environmental legislation in the nation is. Yet she has persistently and consistently denied all efforts to get her to say yay or nay.
But never you mind, she is very supportive of Prop 22:
The Republican gubernatorial nominee came out in support of Proposition 22, which would forbid the state from raiding county and city coffers at times of fiscal crises.
At an event in Culver City, a laid-off Long Beach teacher asked Whitman about her thoughts on decentralizing education spending. The state has cut billions in education spending in recent years, leading to widespread teacher layoffs, program cuts and the shortening of the school year in many cities.
"There is a proposition on the ballot in November that actually makes it illegal for the state to take money from cities and counties to balance the budget," said Whitman, who is known for being disciplined in sticking to her talking points during campaign events and discussions with the press. "I think it's the right thing to do. I'll be supporting that initiative." (LA Times)
Now, of course, this wasn't really the question asked. Prop 22 doesn't really change the general structure of education funding. Now, it does change the way the state can grab money that was destined to be allocated at the local level. However, education spending, which is heavily determined by Prop 98 formulas, will most assuredly not be given a boost by Prop 22.
It should also be noted that Prop 22 also has a nice little plug in there for redevelopment agencies, which are kind o f the scorn of the right-wing. They have some eminent domain powers, and folks like Chuck DeVore are not very big fans of Prop 22 for precisely this reason. It will be great to see how those right-wingers take the news of Prop 22.
And then there is the fact that Whitman has still not taken a position on Prop 23 yet. We're still waiting on that...
Apparently Meg Whitman doesn't like her own plans for California, or else why would she threaten to sue TV stations if they don't hide her true ideas from the state:
Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman is threatening to sue television stations that run a California Teachers Association ad attacking the candidate, calling the spot a lie.
The Whitman campaign today said some stations have pulled the ad. The CTA said it is trying to confirm that. ... CTA spokeswoman Sandra Jackson said the ad's claim relies on Whitman's plan to cut $15 billion in state funding overall. She said cuts to education typically make up about half of total budget cuts. (SacBee
In the letter, Whitman's attorney (and attorney for the proposed GOP Dirty Tricks) said that she hadn't specifically cited education as a target for cuts. But, you know what, there are pretty little magazines that you can control, and then there is the real world. If Meg Whitman really wants to cut another $15 Billion, where does she think that is going to come from? She's not doing anything about tax loopholes, heaven forbid.
Her pound of flesh is coming from California's most vulnerable, and she will extract for the short-term from the promise that California holds for the long haul. She will slash and burn through the education budget and call herself some sort of champion of the people.
And it will probably work, because she has money, and these days the one with the money rules, right? Right?
As for this pathetic attempt, TV stations shouldn't be bullied by flimsy claims. If Meg Whitman doesn't like the truth, how about she explain what she means. For real this time, not the blather we've heard before.
Meg Whitman has made it abundantly clear that her campaign is tightly focused on a few key area - one of them being jobs and the economy. There is no doubt that AB 32 is a job-killer. Whether she is the next Governor of California or not, our state will be better positioned to come out of this recession is AB 32 is mothballed until the economy is humming - which will likely take a lot longer than the next Governor's ability to temporarily suspend AB 32's draconian regulations for just a year.
First, I welcome this. I think campaigns should be about ideas. And in this case, Jerry Brown is strongly opposing Prop 23. Meg Whitman, well, like all other areas, she's nowhere to be seen. Instead, she airs another million of TV and pretends that she is owed something. Let's have a real debate, and see Whitman take a strong position one way or the other.
Of course, this being a conservative discussion, you have to toss in some willful ignorance to have a real party. Besides the throwaway use of "Democrat Party", (I get it, very cute, Jon.) you have a heaping helping of climate denial:
There is certainly a vibrant debate taking place in the scientific community about whether or not changing temperature around the globe are tied to actions of people on the planet, or possibly part of a large, epic cycle of atmospheric change that is naturally caused.
To that, well, the quick response is no, there isn't a vibrant debate. Ignorance does not make a debate vibrant. Study after study after study show that humans are contributing to climate change, trying to come up with some false dichotomy only distracts us from finding long-term solutions.
Whitman has been skating along on her vagueness for too long. Whichever way she chooses to come down on Prop 23, she should give the voters a sense of who she really is. As of right now, all we have is a few snippets from 30 second spots.
On Meet the Press, Meg Whitman's consultant, Mike Murphy, laid it out for all the Californians that are getting extremely annoyed with Whitman's incessant ads:
MR. ASLAN: My question, Mike, is, why does Meg what to be governor of California? Why would anyone want to be governor of California?
MR. MURPHY: Because...
MS. MYERS: Let alone spend 140 million of their own money to get it.
MR. MURPHY: Yeah, but the money is about getting--California is so expensive, $3 million a week for television, it's about getting a message out against the entrenched public employee unions.
MR. GREGORY: OK.
MR. MURPHY: I'm mean, I'm...(unintelligible)...but I believe it. I live there. I care about it. (Meet the Press, h/t to LA Times)
So, the reason that she wants to buy the governor's office? Well, we didn't really get an answer to that one, now did we. But what did we get an answer for? Well, apparently Meg Whitman needs to spend 3 million per week to fight the unions that put up...a grand total of around $8 million this summer. And there's not going to be a lot more than that.
The truth is that Meg Whitman is using the state of California. She wants to decimate the middle class by crushing the organization of labor in the state and to use the gig as a jumping off point for her further national political ambitions.
But when you come down to it, there is no there there. Her plans, even according to her Republican "friend", the current Governor, are nothing more than cheap campaign promises. And when she does come close to laying out a plan, she gets the facts wrong in her haste to make state employees the face of all that is wrong in California.
What is wrong is that we have stopped investing in our state. We have stopped building infrastructure, reduced our investments in K12 and higher education, and stopped planning for the future, instead coasting on the success of the master plan legacy. That will not be sufficient if we are to compete in the 21st century. Maybe Meg Whitman knows that, maybe she doesn't. But either way, her stated goals are just wrong for California.
Part 3: The many (actually just two) faces of Meg Whitman
Thanks in no small part to the 2/3 vote requirement for passing a state budget, this year's is now the second latest in history -- 10 weeks and counting -- with no resolution in sight. But just a few weeks ago, the Sacramento Bee reported:
"About one of every 11 residents in the Sacramento region smoked pot during the last month, a usage rate roughly 30 percent higher than the statewide average, according to a new federal study. Local residents were more likely than the rest of the state to have a casual attitude toward pot use."
This must be why passing a budget takes so long: the contact high from all that pot smoke (in and) around the Capitol just slows everything down.
There is a lot of work to do between now and November 2, but right now we are pretty much looking at an even race:
It's too close to call in California's Senate and gubernatorial battles, according to a new poll.
A CNN/Time/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Wednesday indicates that Sen. Barbara Boxer holds a 48 percent to 44 percent margin over her Republican challenger, Carly Fiorina, but Boxer's 4-point advantage is within the poll's sampling error. Five percent of people questioned say if the general election were held today they'd vote for neither candidate and three percent were undecided. (CNN) Full results (pdf)
Care to see a 1990s style witch hunt against the administration? Well, you are set for a fun ride. Otherwise, it's time to get in gear and work for the Democratic ticket.
Robert mentioned Jerry Brown's new TV ad. It's likely not going to make the crowds go wild or anything like that, but it shows the formation of an economic plan and a campaign strategy.
As for Whitman's plan, it looks like she has some champions for her in the ring: Wall Street.
At a fundraiser she held in New York, Whitman said she met with people who "have suffered the financial reforms that are going to crimp our ability to raise capital, and they want California to turn the corner." ... Now the financial industry has lined up behind her gubernatorial campaign.
According to a Bee estimate, investment banks and firms, private investors, financial advisers, venture capitalists and even the chairman of the Federal Reserve in San Francisco have poured $4.7 million into her effort, more than a fifth of total outside contributions she's received. Whitman has also given her campaign $104 million of her own money.(SacBee)
Her plan to rally California is to, umm, let Wall Street run amok? Turn back the clock on the reforms in the financial markets? Under Whitman, governance will apparently be done by the best hedge fund managers that money can buy.
It is no small fact that of the little money she has raised, much of it has been from Wall Street interests. Her campaign is geared towards the long-term benefit of those who have been made rich by the excesses of the last decade, and to continuing the false expectations of bubble economies. The end result can hardly be a surprise for anybody: continuing and growing disparities between the ultra wealthy and the middle class.
Marshal McLuhan famously said the medium is the message, and that was certainly true in late August as the release of a Hollywood blockbuster and two campaign ads drew attention to a central issue of the governor's race, one of Meg Whitman's favorite targets: public employees.
At theaters everywhere, state workers rallied in protest at the opening of "The Expendables," a routine but top-grossing summer action flick made exceptional in California by the appearance of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in a cameo role. Playing on the movie's title, state workers wanted the governor to know that expendable is what they are not.
If you followed the World Cup at all, then you heard about Paul, the amazing octopus who, amazingly, picked the winner of all eight matches Germany played, including its final loss to Spain. Octopuses are considered the most intelligent of invertebrates, and yet, Paul's astonishing knack for picking winners seems almost unimportant next to the mystery of why anyone was asking an octopus in the first place.
Maybe it's because humans are the stupidest of mammals. Still, despite the vast gap in mental acuity and animal taxonomy, the common octopus closely resembles one human subspecies in particular -- the common politician -- in that both respond to threats by spilling a lot of ink to cover themselves while they flee. Indeed, politicians appear to mimic the eight-legged mollusk: Among animals with backbones, only politicians prefer to act like they don't have one. Appearing to walk upright, their good posturing can be maintained without any backbone at all.
Meg Whitman briefly checked in with the San Mateo County Courts a couple of days ago, and was told that she was on call. She got that call, and apparently the whole buying the governor is going to get her out of jury duty for the time being.
Earlier in the day, while being questioned, Whitman told attorneys she would serve if selected but acknowledged this is "not a good time for me to give 100 percent."
Defense attorney Richard Keyes asked the former eBay CEO if, considering "the nature of your current position "... this might be one of those cases that it's not the right time" to serve on a jury.
"I would try my very best," Whitman replied. "Whether it is the right time for me is another question," she added, drawing laughs from the courtroom.(SJ Merc)
Whitman was "Juror No. 11", which meant that unless she was disqualified for some reason, she would have been on the pool. We all have lives and commitments, some of us choose to honor them, and honor our democracy by doing the little things, like jury duty, and, well, voting. Running for governor is great, and it takes a special person to do it.
It also takes a special person to sit on a jury for a terrible child molestation case. Or to work as an in-home support service worker, or as a teacher.
Perhaps Queen Meg would be served well by partaking in the tasks of everyday Californians a bit more.
Meg Whitman has an ad out with some specifics about how she's going to cut 40,000 jobs without harming state services. And she's really serious about this. Only problem is that her plan is really nothing new at all, her "facts" are just wrong, and as an added bonus she goes after the most needy among us while ignoring those who skirt taxes and the billions of unnecessary tax loopholes and credits. Stay classy Meg!
Take a listen to the ad here, the biggest part of this plan is for a civil grand jury to go through and find the "waste, fraud, and abuse." That would be a great idea for some body to go through and compile a list of everything that should be combined, reduced, and other savings opportunities. So great in fact that it has been done before. And not like done before thirty years ago, but done before as in 2005. Arnold Schwarzenegger had this same plank, but he dubbed it the California Performance Review.
These sorts of reviews aren't really all that cheap, so what Meg is asking the state to do is to write another report, on the taxpayers dime, when the CPR is still sitting there. Sounds like some waste to me.
Meanwhile, as she continues on the "billions of waste, fraud, and abuse" right-wing canard, she's really talking to the right-wing base, in the whole wink-wink way. When she says there are billions of waste in IHSS, Medi-Cal, and welfare, what she is talking about to the right-wingers is the whole concept of those programs. To them, IHSS is a big waste. That is until one of their family members gets sick and they need to rely on state assistance. If you look at the actual reports, IHSS fraud exists sure, but not to such a great extent that it is really any more prevalent than other workplaces.
California Watch investigates another flaw in the ad, her statement of fact that the LAO has called 150 employees at the Department of Education superfluous. Of course, they have now changed that to 70 people, months before the ad went on the air, and even that number is heavily disputed by SPI Jack O'Connell, who has said that cuts on that scale would stop the Dept. of Education from carrying out the tasks assigned to it under law.
The whole ad is feeding into the theory of government is not supposed to do anything, shutting down our infrastructure, and stopping the cycle of investment that worked so well for us as we made California into the truly Golden State. Meg Whitman's future is a grim future, where there is no such thing as a fair share, where everybody is left to fend for themselves, and the governor's gig is just a stop on the way to the top for her and her right-wing policies.
San Francisco has a lot of courts, and a lot of litigation is done here. So, there is always a need for jurors. I've been called several times, and a word for the wise: Hope for the civil courts: the facilities are much nicer as you wait there.
But, it seems that Queen Meg Whitman deigned to join the common folk for jury duty yesterday:
Her campaign said Whitman was called, showed up, filled out the questionaire today -- and is actually still in the jury pool. She may still be called to return later in the week, they said.
The funny part: the judge actually asked the former eBay CEO if she had any hardships, or scheduling problems with serving. That's when she informed him that...uh, she was running for governor of California.
Darrel Ng, spokesman for Whitman, issued this statement: "Meg Whitman was called to do jury duty today. She enjoyed meeting her fellow potential jurors this afternoon, but looks forward to returning to the campaign trail where she can continue to tell Californians about her plans to create 2 million jobs during the next 5 years." (SFGate)
Isn't it sweet that she introduced herself to the fellow jurors? Super sweet! I wonder if she introduced herself to the court employees that she hopes to fire as well. But, you know, she'll tell them how she'd definitiely, totally, going to create a new job for them (perhaps as her private plane pilot?!) once they are laid off. It's going to be great. Seriously!
Props to Carla Marinucci and the SF Gate crew for the follow-up joke: at least we know she is registered to vote now.
But that brings up the larger question, doesn't it? For years she hadn't even registered to vote. Of course, that generally means no jury duty as well. But what else does Meg Whitman not do because she is...umm...Meg Whitman?
