To: Meg Whitman
From: One of those Media Guys You Mostly Ignore
Re: How to Show You’re Serious About What You Say
It must be starting to get to you. The millions and millions spent, and still you trail the Old Guy in the polls. You talk about cutting spending and targeted tax rates and about how determined you are to not let California fail. And the state’s voters yawn as though they’ve heard it all before.
Because they have.
How to show you really mean it when you say you’ll fix the state?
Well, there’s one way to show seriousness that would grab attention.
Finance your own recall – in advance.
Here’s how it would work.
You like to talk about your love of "measurables" and data. The way to judge success is by how people stack up against their targets and goals. You’ve set all sorts of targets – numbers of state workers you’ll get rid of (40,000), numbers of jobs you’ll create (2 million), amount of the budget deficit you’ll fix ($15 billion), etc. But how do we hold you accountable for that?
The obvious answer would be at your potential re-election in 2014. But four years is an eternity by the standards of corporate leadership, and you’re promising to bring your business sense to office. No, two years is a better time to judge whether you’re an effective governor or not.
So set down a series of measurables — in job creation, in the shrinking of the budget deficit, in enacting some of your other promises on prisons and education – that you’ll pledge to hit two years into office.
And to show seriousness, put $2 million of your own money into a bank account for a new entity that will be called, "Recall Meg Whitman If She Doesn’t Meet Her Two Years." Appoint a trustee to manage the account who has the following two directives.
First, the money should be invested in California debt (it’s a way to show you’re confident).
Second, if you fail to meet any of your stated targets by the end of 2012 – your second year in office – the money in the account must be used to qualify a recall of you as governor for the ballot. You also promise to call an election for 2013 for a vote on that recall. You’d be under no obligation to support the recall. You could fight it, but you’d have to have a pretty good explanation of what went wrong.
The real value of such a strategy is in the current campaign. Financing your own recall would get attention and show you’re serious – all for less than money than just a week of statewide ads would cost. It would be a new and risky strategy (which is precisely why your consultants will advise you this is a terrible idea). But it also would allow you to draw a stronger contrast with your opponent’s vague descriptions of his plans.
It might also help you refine your own policy plans, since you’d have to think more seriously about what’s really achievable in your first two years in office.
And if you get into office and things go very, very wrong, you’re already have an exit strategy.