Meg Whitman was wrong not to vote for many years, as she admits, but I find it surprising that the union funded independent expenditure chose to kick off its television ad campaign against her on this issue. You would think the unions would want to get to its solution for fixing the California budget crisis – raising taxes by $40 billion dollars.
Okay, maybe they want to keep that a secret.
It’s unlikely the issue of voting will have a great impact. The same charge was made against our current governor in the recall election of 2003 and did not stop his winning campaign.
Sure it was a long time ago, but Zachary Taylor rose to the highest office in the land, President of the United States, without ever voting. Some histories say he didn’t even vote when he was on the ballot for president.
California just held a primary election with a turnout of less than thirty percent. Is the union ad aimed just at these voters? Do the ad’s sponsors think that only those who participated in June will vote in November? I’m guessing there will be a much greater turnout in November and those voters are not going to punish a candidate for doing what they have done.
In the end, the question for those who do vote is how will California’s problems be fixed. The unions behind the voting ad are going to have to justify their solution of a tax increase equivalent to over $1000 for every man woman and child in the state. And, we know who their candidate is.
A tax increase of that magnitude would drive voters to the polls in great numbers to vote No.