Two Reasons Whitman Needs Another Democrat
If another Democrat were to get into the governor’s race, the most logical question to ask him or her would be: Are you in league with Meg Whitman?
The best thing that could happen for Whitman would be for Jerry Brown to get some competition.
There are two reasons for this, one obvious and one not so obvious.
1. The obvious. If Brown sails to the Democratic nomination without facing competition, he can avoid damaging attacks and save his money for what it is certain to be an expensive and brutal general election campaign. In fact, Whitman’s bottomless pit of money is a much greater advantage if Brown has to spend millions in a contested primary.
2. The not so obvious. As Steve Poizner fails to gain traction, it’s become clear that Whitman’s real competition for the Republican nomination is Tom Campbell. And Campbell, more than anyone besides Brown, benefits from the absence of real competition on the Democratic side.
Club California Spends Our Dues Poorly
Before Californians rush off and try to fix what’s wrong with the state’s governance by calling for a new constitution, they ought to consider the simple solution of getting a bigger bang for the taxpayers’ dollar.
William Voegeli, a contributing editor to The Claremont Review of Books and a visiting scholar at Claremont McKenna College’s Salvatori Center, argues that California government has shortchanged its citizens by not providing good services for the amount of tax dollars the citizens provide.
In a lengthy comparison of government efficiency between the states of California and Texas in a City Journal article, Voegeli shows California’s government model fails to deliver for its citizens and overcharges dearly for that failure. Quoting the New Geography’s (and occasional Fox and Hounds contributor) Joel Kotkin, to make the point: “Twenty years ago, you could go to Texas, where they had very low taxes, and you would see the difference between there and California. Today, you go to Texas, the roads are no worse, the public schools are not great but are better than or equal to ours, and their universities are good.”
A Firebell in the Night
“A firebell in the night”: that’s how Ken Auletta described the growing class of persons on welfare in America’s inner cities in his 1982 book, The Underclass.
Auletta’s view, held by many policymakers in California at the time, was that a new class of poor people was emerging, different from the poor of the past. This new group, which Auletta termed the underclass, was becoming more and more entrenched in antisocial behaviors—crime, teen pregnancy, drug addition, and most of all welfare dependency. Auletta saw the underclass as “the most momentous story in America”, and quoted Thomas Jefferson’s description of the Missouri Compromise (“like a firebell in the night”).
In a post two months ago on the San Francisco Renaissance Center, I discussed the job training and antipoverty world of the 1980s in California, and briefly mentioned the ways that conditions have improved since 1979. Among these is the work-orientation of the welfare system and drop in the state’s welfare rolls. It is worth saying a word more on this change, and what its meaning for state government.
Public Service or Public Disdain?
When did being appointed to a local board or commission become socially unacceptable? Why should be elected to a school board make a person politically unacceptable? According to some recent initiatives, these actions of civic engagement are enough to turn someone into a pariah, unfit for redistricting commissions or constitutional conventions. But this disdain toward anyone whose sense of community service leads them into an official position, is wrong, arrogant and ultimately undemocratic.
Examples of this antagonism are common. Proposition 11, approved last November, created a much-needed independent redistricting commission. But the proponents went over-board in their efforts to keep the commission safe from anyone with actual political experience. Not many would argue against excluding current or former legislators but was it really necessary to exclude someone because their father, who now lives with them, gave $2,000 to the Schwarzenegger campaign in 2003 or because they once served on the State Arts Commission?
The sorry fact is that Proposition 11 regards many ordinary and traditionally esteemed civic activities as unacceptable “conflicts of interest”. Indeed, these activities were deemed so heinous that the protective cocoon of Prop 11 extends ten years back.