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.