Final Brown-Whitman Debate Tells the Story

by John M. Curtis
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Copyright October 16, 2010
All Rights Reserved.                                

            Slugging it out for the last time, Democratic Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown and Republican Meg Whitman gave voters a firsthand glimpse of how they’d govern.  Brown from a place of experience and Whitman from the promise that she’d somehow translate her success at eBay into state government.  Like her predecessor, Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Meg can’t explain how she’d get her way with California’s Democratic legislature.  She had difficulty explaining to Dominican University moderator former NBC Nightly News anchor Tom Brokaw why as a 54-year-old she only started voting for the first time in the June primary election.  She asked California voters to ignore the obvious and look at her record at eBay.  Her civic-mindedness started only after she decided to run for governor, leaving questions about her commitment to public office.

            When Arnold won a special election Nov 7, 2003, ousting incumbent Gov. Gray Davis—a former chief-of-staff for Gov. Jerry Brown—he promised a new era of bipartisanship in Sacramento.  Arnold quickly find out the hard way you don’t win friends and influence people calling Democratic legislators “girly men.”  While there’s no evidence Whitman will hurl the same insults, Meg lacks state government experience, believing her work in the private sector qualifies her for governor.  In the Oct. 12 debate, Brown and Whitman clashed on virtually every issue.  She accused Brown of being owned by the state’s powerful labor unions, insisting her self-financed campaign gives her the autonomy needed to overhaul California’s dysfunctional politics.  That was the same argument used by Arnold in 2003 to compensate for his lack of government experience.

            Unlike Brown that seemed more comfortable answering Brokaw’s questions, Whitman recited talking points from her TV ads and stump speeches.  She kept talking about bringing jobs to the state by making California more user-friendly to businesses.  She touted her economic plan to fix the state’s red ink but wouldn’t specify which groups she would target to balance the budget.  Without laying it out, she hinted, like at eBay, she would lay off a good portion of state employees, currently the largest workforce in California.  She was hard-pressed to explain a nine-year relationship with her illegal-alien housekeeper Nicky Diaz, explaining she and her husband, Dr. Griff Harsh, were duped by a phony driver’s license and Social Security card.  When Whitman summarily fired Diaz in 2009, it offended some Latino voters seeing Meg’s actions as heartless and insensitive.

            In the prior debate Oct. 2 in Fresno, Whitman harshly condemned Brown for his lax approach to immigration and border security.  She insisted she’s get tough on employers of illegal aliens, making her “maid’s story” even more outrageous.  Whitman’s approach to third debate in San Rafael was to paint Brown as a career-politician tax-and-spend liberal beholden to unions.  When she boasted about her endorsement of the California Peace Officers Association—one of California’s biggest unions—she couldn’t explain why she exempted them from “pension reform.”  Much was made of an off-the-record Brown staffer for calling Meg as “whore,” for exempting the union for getting their endorsement.  Brown admitted that the union endorsed Meg because he wouldn’t exempt them from pension reform.  Meg’s main selling point is that she’s not beholden to any one group.

            Whitman can’t explain how she intends to sell her program to a skeptical Democratic legislature.  She has no explanation for how she’d fair differently than Arnold, who had no kind words for Meg about exempting peace officers from pension reform.  If the current pension system is truly unsustainable, then no one group can be exempted.  All must share the burden of rescuing the state of its whopping unfunded liability, currently billions in the red.  While neither side wishes to offend any group before Nov. 2, Brown said forcefully that he urged pension reform before leaving office in 1983 and would make it happen this time around.  Meg sells her lack of experience in state politics much the same way Arnold did before convincing voters in 2003 that he was a better choice than the more experienced former state assembly speaker Democrat Cruz Bustamante.

            Heading into the homestretch, Whitman prays that Democratic voters sit the midterm elections out.  Since Brown started his campaign after Labor Day, Meg has watched a 10% swing in the polls, with Brown now leading by about 6%.  She’s spent around $150 million largely on attack ads demonizing Brown as the second coming of Karl Marx.  Her debate performances demonstrated she has no real knowledge of the complex issues facing the state, nor does she spell out what exactly she’d do to reverse the state’s red ink.  More promises about “trickle-down” economics hasn’t reassured enough voters that she'd do things differently than incumbent Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger whose approval ratings have hit historic lows as 22%.  Whitman must do more than bash Brown and say “trust me” to convince a growing body of voters that she’s the right one to send to Sacramento.

About the Author  

John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He's editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.