Meg Whitman and Jerry Brown are the 2 candidates running for governor of California this year. This race epitomizes one of the reasons I am glad not to live in California anymore.
Several years ago, I was driving through Sacramento, listening to the news on Sacto radio, and I recall then candidate for governor Tom McClintock describe his proposals to begin to fiscally turn California around. In about 3 minutes, he laid out his platform, which seemed reasonable, well-thought out, and specific (as specific as 3 minutes allows). It made complete sense. So, I knew then and there that McClintock would not be elected governor of California.
For many Californians, they have their heart strings pulled by liberal causes, their sensibilities stirred by almost hyper-environmentalism, and financial responsibility takes a back seat to these notions. If someone can promise free healthcare for everyone, many Californians will sign onto this, because it is the right thing to do. If you question the fiscal soundness of this, they will point to Europe and Canada, and say, “Well, they do it and we are better than them; so we can do it.”
During that same election, Arnold the Barbarian was up to be elected, and, although he often spoke like a conservative, he was a left-leaning moderate. However, it was clear, in this wide-open election, that he would be elected. He had charisma and star power, and a very liberal wife, and, as most Californians will agree, he has done a lousy job as governor. And personally, there are things which he says and does which embarrass me as a conservative.
So, Californians elected Arnold, and they got what they deserved.
This time, the race is down to 2 real candidates: Jerry Brown, the governor of California back in the 70’s (if memory serves) and Meg Whitman.
This past week, all of the news has been about the sad-faced illegal immigrant who worked for Whitman, brought to light by Gloria Allred. Nicky Diaz Santillan, the illegal alien, gave teary-eyed public testimony, reading from prepared remarks, as to her suffering as an employee of Whitman. She apparently suffered the degrading hourly wage of $23, at least for a portion of the time that she worked for Whitman.
And it seems to be a wild coincidence that (1) Gloria Allred is a strong supporter of Jerry Brown and (2) this all came to light roughly a week before their scheduled debate on Univision, which was a debate that would target Spanish-speaking people in the United States.
Here is something you need to know about California voters—there will be some to whom this is an issue, and they will cast a vote for Jerry Brown because Meg Whitman may or may not have known that she had an illegal alien working for her (the evidence seems to suggest that she did not know, but we really don’t know).
If I was a voter in California, and this became a significant issue, I would be pulling my hair out. California is going broke for several reasons: (1) they have too many state employees; (2) many of these state employees are retiring right now and in the near future (the baby boomers) with extremely generous pensions and nearly free healthcare, negotiated by unions (much of which took place under Governor Brown decades ago); (3) California is taxing its rich people so much, many are leaving (as they have done in New York and New Jersey); and (4) environmental restrictions are so onerous, as to destroy businesses and increase unemployment (there is a small fish whose existence has shut down much of the cental valley for growing crops—something not widely publicized in California).
So Meg Whitman could have a compound filled with illegals. She could have illegals all over her house, as Colin Powell admitted to a few weeks back, and it would be unimportant. This has got to be the least significant issue ever when it comes to what is really important to California. Yet, many Californians argue about this. The same thing is true of Jerry Brown and whatever he did down in Cuba–it is a non-issue. But, Brown is a seasoned politician and Meg Whitman is not. Whether he or someone in his campaign pulled the strings behind this, and out of nowhere, one week before the Univision debate, Gloria Allred presents Nicky Diaz as somehow an oppressed minority, Meg Whitman took the bait Whitman is a business woman, not a politician, and Brown got her good with this meaningless issue. If Meg were a good politician, she would have shut this issue down quickly, saying, “That Nicky is an illegal alien is not that important an issue to California. I have clearly stated that I did not realize that she was illegal, and it is obvious that I will never be able to prove this to some people. What is important to California is hiring a non-politician who actually understands business and is willing to deal with California’s massive debt directly, instead of electing a politician who had a hand in causing this debt.” But, Meg did not pivot, and it hurt her with some voters.
Liberal Californians, for the most part, are playing this well themselves. Most of them (apart from the “useful idiots”) could care less about whether Meg Whitman hired an illegal. They aren’t going to vote for Whitman, even if Brown comes out and says, “I will intentionally screw up California worse than it is now.” I know some Californian Democrats and they will vote Democrat no matter what. This just gives them something to argue about, because, when it comes to the real issues, they have nothing.
Here is what we have in California: 2 candidates, one of whom actually knows how to run a business and how to be fiscally responsible, and one who is not only a lifelong politician, but actually contributed to the mess that California is in—and yet, even though this seems like a simple choice to me, this is a real horse race, where the voters are almost evenly split, and leaning toward the career politician.
And, sa dly, one illegal alien is a real, honest-to-goodness issue to some Californian voters—and this one woman, because of her appeal to Hispanic voters, may actually tilt the election toward Jerry Brown. California, once again, you will deserve the person you vote for.
A retired math teacher who spends most of his time exegeting the Old Testament and, once a week, puts out an ezeen.
Californians aren’t the smartest people in the world. It would be sad to see Jerry win. I don’t know why a rationale person would vote for these failed liberal policies. California is not a poor state, yet, they are on the edge of bankruptcy. San Francisco, a place with more billionaires than most countries, can’t fund a “health care” system. Crony capitalism flourishes in California where libs talk about “paying their fair share,” yet well connected tech billionaires get a pass.
@ Gary Kukis,
While Whitman is not a paragon of moral virtue (she proved morally weak when she was bought by Wall Street, by taking kickbacks from Goldman Sachs and Friends while CEO of eBay**), it is obvious that this illegal immigrant surfacing is a red herring.
Brown has proven to be incompetent, however, you are quite correct, . . . he’s an experienced politician. He’s just a goof who has no clue how to fix California. If he gets elected, California will revisit the “bankruptcy” abyss, and this time, it will slide right in.
Californians want easy answers. They elected Arnold because he promised to float more debt through bonds, rather than cut spending. They’re spending more than they want to pay for, and have done so for too long.
** She excused it with, “Well, everyone else was doing it.”
I am one of many volunteers at Meg Whitman phone banks up and down the state.
I’ll tell you – by way of anecdote – what has happened since the Nicky Diaz/Gloria Allred thing broke.
I used to hear folks say “I’m going to vote for Meg” or “I’m going to vote for Jerry” without much explanation.
Now I’m getting an earful!
It looks to me like Hispanics are going to suffer in the jobs market because of this.
People who have businesses will not be hiring Hispanics EVEN if they have a valid set of ID’s.
Why?
Because of what Nicky did to Meg!
They say, in effect, “If Nicky would do it to Meg my next hire will not be someone who can do it to me!”
Well, who can they rely on not to be lying about their papers?
Blacks and whites.
As to whether this is helping Jerry I think it might help him with uninformed would-be voters.
I have seen and heard really stupid remarks, belying true ignorance.
But among people who will actually be going out to vote I doubt it will hurt Meg.
She is behind in the polls by a 50 to 43 margin as of a couple days ago (PDF Ipsos-Reuters poll slants 292 D to only 223 R, and includes all registered as opposed to likely voters).
My husband’s business hasn’t hired in over 19 months.
And, as you pointed out in your essay the main reason he can’t expand his business (even if the nation’s economic picture brightens) is the excessive environmental regulations imposed on CA businesses.
The printing business is ”dirty” enough to where hubby had put ”scrubbers” on his air conditioners decades ago.
When he has a choice between a dirtier or cleaner toner, cleaner or ink he always picks the cleaner one.
Workers get lessons in proper handling of the various chemicals.
But still, CA makes it hard to stay in this business in this state.
But businesses cannot wait for out of state printing.
Some of it is so time sensitive that it must be done here.
I think, were some people in the state not some of our regular customers, along with big utility companies and casinos we would both be retired already, instead of just me.
Oh, and the breadwinners from 49 other families would be looking for new well-paying jobs.
Perhaps before republicans decided to play up the issue of undocumented Hispanic workers as a centerpiece of their 2010 election strategy, they should have considered how many republicans have routinely taken advantage of undocumented Hispanic labor in their own homes and businesses.
They set themselves up for this.
Gloria Allred is a liberal shill and should be disbarred forthwith for throwing a CLIENT under the bus in the way that she has set up this woman to be deported to her native land! After Nicky serves some time for document theft and identity theft! Those are not the actions of an ethical attorney and Allred has truly crossed the line big time!
And to Greg – what proof do you have of your blanket statement? Paying the woman $23 per hour is not exactly taking advantage of her! I lived in California and quite nicely on less than that! On the other hand, I’m living a whole lot better NOT in California.
@ Gayle Miller, #5:
I wasn’t actually using “taken advantage” in the exploitation sense.
No matter who is elected governor, the legislature will still be Democrat majority, will still be in the pocket of the state employee unions, and will continue to spend the state into oblivion. I don’t think Whitman is sharp enough to deal with them. She is rather slow on her feet.
The reason these two unimpressive characters are what we have to choose between, is that nobody better wants the job. What sensible person wants to be in charge as the state inevitably collapses?
Maybe it would actually be best if that space cadet Moonbeam Brown got elected. Finish the endgame quickly instead of dragging it out. Let this silly narcissist and the rest of the Democrats provide to the rest of the nation an object lesson in the destructiveness of ‘progressive politics,’ i.e. excessively taxing the productive to buy the votes of the unproductive, plus pursuing the hobby of passing thousands of needless, idiotic little micromanaging laws.
The only thing in Californian politics I care about at this point is the start-up of the Redistricting Commission in 2011. Right now the legislature draws the boundaries of their own districts, and as you would expect, outrageous jerrymandering and predictable elections year after year are the result. Redistricting is the only wild card I see. Everything else is predictable. It’s like being in Johnstown PA in 1889, two minutes ahead of the flood. There’s no time to even get out of the way.
I voted for McClintock. Yet, I have to give Arnold credit for actually making a little progress. The Redistricting Commission was his baby. So was Workers Compensation Reform. He shot his bolt when he gave up on the Legislature and put the rest of his agenda into voter initiatives, that were shot down after the state unions spent over a hundred million dollars (of our tax money, indirectly) to defeat them.
Progressives will also have to deal with economic realities. The concern of the rich and super-rich is that progressives may do exactly that, and that they’re less concerned about diminishing the lions’ share of power and wealth than with the majority of people who are struggling to maintain their modest places in the world and to attain some basic level of comfort and security. The majority of Americans are working hard just to hang in there.
Part of me hopes Brown wins, because California will become the New York City of the 1970’s; a formerly rich entity that will have to go to Uncle Sugar and beg him to pay the bills. Part of me wants to see California go bankrupt and then try to soak the remaining businesses with high taxes, and then see those businesses flee the state. I keep waiting for the state of California to tell Steve Jobs “Steve, Apple just isn’t paying it’s fair share!”.
Meg Whitman supports the 33% renewable energy mandate in CA.
Check her web site if you don’t believe me.
Meg is also against drilling for oil off the coast of CA.
Again, check her web site if you don’t believe me.
Meg claims she will work to create “green jobs.”
I won’t be voting for Meg.
I will be voting third party.
Fine, blame me for Jerry Brown winning.
Just because Meg has an “R” in front of her name doesn’t make her a palatable candidate.
CA Republicans should have learned their lesson after the Arnold debacle.
Greg-
Like the Federal Government, the State Government’s tax revenue comes largely from the middle class. That’s where the money is. The wealthy are few, the middle class are many. The idea that the whole thing could be turned around by taxing the wealthy at a higher rate is a canard, a misdirection.
California’s “progressive” policy of getting much of their revenue by taxing capital gains has made the state’s revenue highly volatile and unpredictable. In good years, they commit to high expenditures years into the future based on the favorable revenue picture at the time. When the economy inevitably slows down and the capital gains dry up, the legislature expresses surprise and insists that taxes have to be raised to cover it.
The problem is a commitment to spending way too much money. Much of that is going to generous pensions and benefits for retiring government workers, who incidentally can retire at a rather early age. The people sucking this particular taxpayer money at such a rate are not ‘the poor’ by any means. At least, they will not be the poor until the whole unsustainable Ponzi scheme finally crashes and the state defaults. Nationwide, government workers actually have much better pay and benefits that the private sector. Think about that next time you’re waiting in line to renew your driver’s license.
Vote for Brown and crash the system sooner.
The simple fact is there are no real conservatives in the California race for Governor, and probably never will be again. The only people that can get elected in to that office come from either Los Angeles or San Francisco. That being said the (R) tag really means RINO. Being a Central Valley resident myself I can only hope that the lesser of the two get in office, and that is why I will be voting for Meg.
I suppose it would be better if millions public employees–like their private sector counterparts–had seen their real wages and benefits markedly decline over the years, and–like their private sector counterparts–had seen their promised pension plans disappear?
I’m wondering where we would find an example of the private sector 24-to-1 pay ratio between CEOs and regular employees in the public sector?
Incidentally, public employees pay taxes on their wages, just like anyone else.
Employee contributions into the Civil Service Retirement System take a higher percentage of employee wages than Social Security tax.
Federal employes are required to pay Medicare tax, even though they may never apply for Medicare. Retirees often continue their employee insurance instead, and continue to pay 1/3 of the total cost of the group insurance throughout their lives. (Sharron Angle gets her own health insurance coverage as a result of her husband’s status as a federal retiree. I guess she has no personal stake in the repeal of “Obamacare”, or the privitization of Social Security.)
Unlike Social Security benefits, public pensions are subject to federal income taxes from the first dollar, and are generally subject to state and county income taxes as well.
Any public pension can be offset by a reduction in Social Security benefits; you don’t necessarily get the full amount of Social Security you’ve paid in for; you might not get any Social Security, even after paying separately into the system for years.
Thanks for the boilerplate, Greg.
You are trying to make the case that government workers, including Federal government workers (!), are overworked, overtaxed, abused, and underpaid for the amount of work demanded of them.
Good luck with that.
The taxation that funds their pay, benefits, and job security is a drag on the economy. Many of the rules and regulations the government imposes are a drag on the economy. The government does certain things that a government can do best – enforcing immigration law, for example (oh – right). Currently, in the Western world, it does lots of other things that it does not need to do.
Government workers, when everything is added up, do quite well indeed, and that has come to some extent at the expense of the private sector for which you cry crocodile tears.
And many of the corporate fat cats you complain about have become rent seekers, soliciting, and getting, special benefits from the government that put them at an advantage over their smaller competitors.
Jerry Brown is playing hardball.
Yes, he is a seasoned politician.
Back in 1978, as governor, he signed a bill he helped create: the Dill Act.
The Dill Act gave powers to public employee unions that even FDR opposed.
And now, after just these few years, those public employee pensions threatening to bankrupt California.
How underfunded are CA’s public employee pensions?
How about $326.6 billion when you combine the state’s teachers’ and public employee programs.
Using funny math the state of California reports a $75.5 billion pension shortfall — $40.5 billion to the California State Teachers’ Retirement System or CalSTRS and $35 billion to the California Public Employee Retirement System or Cal PERS.
But, according to the Foundation for Educational Choice’s study using more accurate, private-sector accounting measures to determine outstanding pension obligations, the total pension shortfall is an astounding $326.6 billion with an additional $51.8 billion in unfunded employee health benefits.
(see: “Trouble Brewing: The Disaster of California State Pensions” for more.)
Jerry Brown is almost 100% backed by these unions.
Do you think CA’s streets, prisons, or other obligations stand a chance if he is governor and gets to prioritize?
No wonder he’s doing everything he can to muddle what should be the real message.
@ Nan G, Greg does not believe in the National Debt, the Deficit or Pension shortfalls. Like Obama, he believes that the Treasury can print money until the cows come home. Kinda like “What do you mean, I’m broke, I still have checks!” 😉
You folks in California seem to be slow learners. Brown is a nut job. You elected him Governor before and it didn’t work out so well. So now you want him back?
The most important thing Meg Whitman needs to bring to the attention af EVERYBODY is that California law says you can only serve 2 terms as governor,and jerry Brown has ALREADY HAD HIS 2 !! Wouldn’t this make him inelgible to run now???PLEASE SOMEBODY TELLL ME.And before you say it,no it doesnt sat consecutive,it says 2 TERMS.
I voted for McClintock. That’s the kind of economic rationale we need to make California great again. But Arnold’s showbiz popularity meant we would have a RINO for governor in California. Arnold’s wife, it seems, won’t let him into bed if he doesn’t play “nice” with the Dems. Remember that Arnold’s wife is a Kennedy — Dem dirt.
Jerry “Jesuit” Brown should not even be running for governor. On a technicality, Brown is attempting to win the governorship of California when the people of California, in the spirit of the terms limit law, have said NO THIRD TERMS for governor.
Jerry Brown, the sleazy old-timer (72 years OLD) that he is, is defying, like most radical liberals do, the spirit of the law put into place by the majority of voters in California. If Brown had any decency (which he does NOT) and respect for the will of the people, he would not even be running for governor. And, the tricks he and Allred are hatching stink.
Brown has the gall to say that it’s Meg’s word against her maid’s. This is high-horse talk. Brown has no business comparing Meg Whitman, an accomplished woman, with the maid — a cheating liar who should immediately be deported after she’s jailed for her crimes. Brown, to show how bad an attorney and attorney general he is, should know that Meg is right and that she followed the law.
For Allred to say that the maid is making a case just to get money for having used her car in her employment is just utter nonsense. And although many people are fooled by all this Allred trash talk, I am not and will vote for Meg Whitman.
Get this, the maid was getting paid $23.00 per hour. This maid was illegal and has the muck to say she was mistreated. That hourly rate is one for a legal immigrant with some education. Besides, aren’t liberals like Allred supposed to favor the idea that illegals should not only be here illegally but also work here in California? — so why is she complaining and feeding the maid to the dogs?
Meg Whitman has my vote. She fired the blasted maid when she knew for sure the maid was here illegally. That’s what we need. Our economy is at stake here.
During the election between Ronald Regan and Jerry Brown’s daddy, Edmund G. Brown, Sr., the unofficial slogan we spread as school kids was, “If it’s Brown, flush it!” And, the Republican, Ronald Regan won.
@Greg:
Any person, whether a federal employee or not, who wishes to receive Social Security must enroll in Medicare.
See Hall v Sebelius.
Don’t worry, when the dumb–s democrats finish bankrupting this State we won’t have to worry about the Hispanics coming across the border. Nor we will have the lazy, uneducated, overpaid State workers bloating the system.
Just a matter of time….
@ Aye Chihuahua, #21:
Federal employess under the Civil Service Retirement System have been required to pay the Medicare portion of the FICA tax since 1983, even though they have the option of retaining their employee group health insurance beyond the point of retirement. It’s very common for them to keep the coverage they prefer and are familiar with at 65, even though the monthly cost is considerably higher than the Medicare premium. Filing for Medicare in such cases may get such a retiree no additional coverage for services, while having the effect of turning their group insurance carrier into the secondary payer. At this point in time, a Civil Service retiree might have paid into Medicare for nearly 30 years with no expectation of ever benefiting from those contributions.
It’s true that one can’t file for monthly Social Security benefits without filing for Medicare, but Civil Service retirees often aren’t eligible for monthly benefits in the first place. Those who are have Social Security’s public pension/government pension offset to contend with, which can reduce any Social Security otherwise payable down to nothing. Thus, anything they paid into the Social Security retirement system while working a private sector job can turn out to be a total loss as well.
Interesting facts about Jerry Brown –
California [read: Democrats] grossly miscalculated pollution levels in a [”]scientific[”] analysis used to toughen the state’s clean-air standards…..
The pollution estimate in question was too high – by 340 percent, according to the California Air Resources Board, the state agency charged with researching and adopting air quality standards.
The estimate was a key part in the creation of a regulation adopted by the Air Resources Board in 2007, a rule that forces businesses to cut emissions [to 1990 levels] by replacing or making costly upgrades to heavy-duty, diesel-fueled off-road vehicles used in construction and other industries.
Independent researchers found huge overestimates in the air board’s work and attributed the flawed work to a faulty method of calculation.
Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman has promised to suspend the law for at least a year,
while Democrat Jerry Brown supports the law.
Mary Nichols, chairwoman of the California Air Resources Board, asked why the air board estimate of a nitrous oxide source was off by at least a factor of two – air board scientists have since revised their numbers, and data show the estimate was off by 340 percent – responded: “I can’t answer that for you.”
Nichols was emphatic, though, when asked whether she has concerns about other scientific calculations made by air board scientists.
“No, no, no, no, no, no, no and no,” she said. [Why Not???]
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/10/07/BAOF1FDMRV.DTL#ixzz11mFxFLTh
Political Chess OR a debate over whether CA ought to be worshipping at the alter of the very expensive false religion of Gaia?
I don’t care if California is engaged in a suicide compact; I only care that it’s me who’ll be helping bail out these idiots. I want to know the rules right now. When California goes bankrupt, who will make them pay in oil? I’ll vote for him/her.
I hear the same message from Arnold and Meg and other like them- we have to cut down on the State Employees because the state can’t afford them anymore. Come on- let’s get real. You could probably fire every single state employee in California and you still wouldn’t fix the budget. The problem is bigger than how many people work for the state. Its a whole mess of things that need to get fixed and the state employees have only been made an easy target, even though the majority of them are the same as everyone else- hard working people trying to do the best they can. Blaming all of the state employees for the problem because a few at the top have abused the system is the same as blaming all the employees of a huge corporation for the mess the CEO and management has made. And laying off state employees as a result is no different than the CEOs laying off a large amount of their employees to fix the corporation problems. And we’ve seen how that works. Laying off the hard workers at the bottom doesn’t fix the problems at the top. Why doesn’t everyone leave the innocent hard working people alone, whether state or corporate and go after the real problems at the top.
Oh yeah, they’re not as easy a target, nor as easy to get rid of.