Former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown says that former state Controller Steve Westly and Orange County Rep. Loretta Sanchez could be getting ready to jump into the Democratic race for governor.
Steve Maviglio, a veteran Democratic operative, tosses names like state Treasurer Bill Lockyer, state schools chief Jack O’Connell, San Mateo County Rep. Jackie Speier, former Los Angeles City Controller Laura Chick and, what the hell, former state Sen. John Burton into the mix.
On the GOP side, there’s talk that Ventura County Supervisor Peter Foy and someone, anyone from the conservative reaches of Southern California will join a Republican primary that now features a trio of pro-choice moderates from Silicon Valley.
These are the dog days of summer and the political Hot Stove League is in full swing. But just like those proposed sports radio trades of a .250 utility man for a big-time slugger or a 20-game winner, the speculation is for entertainment value only.
Like them or not, the folks out there on the campaign trail right now — and that includes you, Jerry Brown – are the ones you’re going to see on the primary ballot come June.
That doesn’t mean there won’t be plenty of weeping and gnashing of teeth before the final lineup is posted. Liberal Democrats aren’t at all convinced that Brown and San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom are willing to push the progressive agenda they’re convinced the state needs after the Schwarzenegger years. And grassroots Republican conservatives feel their views are being ignored by a GOP establishment that’s becoming increasingly pragmatic as the party’s numbers shrink.
But talk is cheap and running for governor in California isn’t. Unless you’re Arnold Schwarzenegger – and nobody else is – it’s impossible to decide on the fly to run for governor and have any chance of winning.
A look at the “Anybody but Newsom or Brown” candidates shows some of those problems.
First, take the two congresswomen. When you’re running for office as a Democrat in California, it’s good to be a woman (see Boxer, Barbara and Feinstein, Dianne). But it’s not so good to be in Congress.
The sad truth is that most members of Congress, and state legislators for that matter, are completely unknown two blocks outside their district. Making matters worse, the last sitting House member to even make it to the November governor’s election was Rep. James Gillett of Eureka in 1906.
Sanchez actually has a governor’s campaign committee, although there was only $620.10 in the kitty on June 30. Speier is a veteran state legislator who has plenty of ambition, but she couldn’t beat John Garamendi in the Democratic primary for lieutenant governor in 2006.
O’Connell? He’s said he’d like to run for governor and has $1 million in his campaign bank account, but he didn’t raise a nickel in the first half of the year, so it doesn’t seem like a run is imminent. Lockyer has about $10 million left from a run for governor he didn’t make, but hasn’t shown any interest in spending the cash.
Westly is another person who was talking about getting into the 2010 race and he’s got the personal fortune to finance a run. But he spent $35 million of his own money to lose the 2006 primary for governor to Phil Angelides. In a March Field Poll on the governor’s race, Westly had only 2 percent support and 76 percent of Democrats had no opinion on him, despite that wad of cash he put out not that long ago.
It’s a little different for the Republicans. While there’s a logical opening for a Southern California conservative in the race, the hefty ante for a challenge to uber-wealthy candidates like state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner and former eBay CEO Meg Whitman makes it a tough sell.
There’s only one non-candidate in either party who could change the primary landscape just by announcing and that’s Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein.
Feinstein has been playing coy with her candidacy, refusing to say whether she’s in or whether she’s out, but the smart money – and her political history – says she’ll stay in D.C.
John Wildermuth is a long-time writer on California politics.