At 11:00 this morning, Jerry Brown will announce that he's running for governor of California, because he's cycled through all the other jobs in the state, and he's back at stage one. (It's a Buddhist thing.) He joins a race already in progress between Steve Poizner, a billionaire with no personality, and Meg Whitman, a billionaire with multiple personalities. We're 99 days out.
Q) How can there still be 99 days until the election? I saw so many Meg Whitman ads during the Olympics, I thought kissing her ass was a sport.
A) Meg Whitman has a lot of money and buys a lot of ads. She just started airing attack ads against Steve Poizner, a man some polls show her leading by 30 points. Oh, and the election isn't in 99 days. That's just the primary.
Q) Steve Poizner has a billion dollars too. Where are his ads? When's he going to start making me want to kill myself if I hear his name one more time?
A) Steve Poizner doesn't need fancy ads. He has ideas.
Q) Like what?
A) You know California's $20 billion deficit? He's going to get rid of it with tax cuts.
Q) Okay, don't talk to me about Steve Poizner anymore. Ask me about the serious candidates.
Fine.
1) Which candidate has pledged to spend up to $150 million of their personal fortune to win the election -- the first public office they've ever sought?
Jerry Brown
Meg Whitman
2) Which candidate has, so far, refused to debate an opponent and has spent the bulk of the $30 million they've already put into the campaign on ads?
Jerry Brown
Meg Whitman
3) According to the L.A. Times, which candidate told their primary opponent to drop out of the race, or, in the words of a campaign consultant, "You know, Steve, if you proceed, the campaign will leave your political career in shambles because we will spend that much money to beat you and pretty much destroy you?"
Jerry Brown
Meg Whitman
4) Which candidate was the inspiration for John Ritter's character in the underrated 70s comedy Americathon?
Jerry Brown
Meg Whitman
5) According to the L.A. Times, which candidate has "warned labor leaders that if they gave money to Democratic operatives planning to attack her, the billionaire candidate would respond by spending millions to qualify a ballot initiative that would make it harder for unions to use dues for political purposes"?
Jerry Brown
Meg Whitman
6) Which candidate's mother said: "Meg was a pretty good swimmer. But at meets, I had to be there, because if she wasn't at least first or second, she'd be screaming with rage."
Jerry Brown
Meg Whitman
7) Who said "Money doesn't talk, it swears."
Bob Dylan
Meg Whitman
8) Which candidate appeared in a Reaganesque pose on the cover of a business magazine with a horse that turned out to be a rental?
Jerry Brown
Meg Whitman
9) Which candidate took a million dollar bribe from Goldman Sachs -- and a position on their board -- but had to give both back like a rented horse?
Jerry Brown
Meg Whitman
10) According to a flyer someone stuck on my windshield in the parking lot at Target, which former California governor covered up the Kennedy assassination on orders from the Pope and the Knights of Columbus?
Jerry Brown
Earl Warren
11) Which candidate has been a governor before?
Jerry Brown
Meg Whitman
12) Which candidate has never done anything for anyone except for money and the main chance?
Jerry Brown
Meg Whitman
What does this really mean? In a year, I won't have a job in SacTown, neither will many people I know. 30K = 1/3 of all state workers. Who will repair the roads ? (yes they work on them constantly). Who will run snow plows all over the mountain towns so you can drive? Who will teach in public schools? Who will guard prisoners in prisons?
Who will wait on you at DMV? Who will take care of the disabled in their homes?
Who will be there at every single state office in CA? 1 of 3 people will be out of work (more than that at some levels, at the clerk level half the workers will be GONE!)
YOU will be without services. You will have no one to blame but yourself. Just having the furloughs has been VERY difficult to get state work done. People who are not working for the state LOVE to complain about state workers, there are problems, but the cure is NOT to cut the state workforce by 30% or more. Who is the job-killer?
Vote for Jerry Brown to actually keep CA working.
California is not a "Buy It Now" item.
I am one state away and ALREADY MY OPINION of Meg W. has tanked! The poster who said they are worried she will be autocratic since as a CEO she unilaterally got her way has it right ... this woman is going to be something else, if she wins.
And then we have the far right guy, and the seventies guy.
WHOO HOO!!
Oh, yes it is. It's a blue light special.
Hey anyone even remember Al Checchi?
She comes from the same mold.
Good then - let the reactionary conservatives tear themselves apart in the primary. However, I do pity any governor; the legislature does seem to have made itself helplessly dysfunctional.
One of the most disturbing problems with electing corporate elites to public office is that business is run as an absolute dictatorship. And I fear too many ex-ceo's would bring that mentality into government, which, like it or not, is based on compromise - theoretically.