As Goes California . . .
In California today there is zero respect for members of the Assembly or State Senate. Everybody hates them. The colossal failure of our elected “leaders” to deal humanely with the state’s finances cancels out any effort by well-meaning legislators who might be trying to do the right thing. The Republicans, who control the state’s finances through the “two-thirds rule,” tell us every day that in a $1.8 trillion economy we can’t do anything but cut, cut, cut because we simply “don’t have the money.” They tell us that a $19 billion budget deficit — about 1 percent of the state’s GDP — requires us to dismantle the higher education system, lay off teachers and social servants, close parks, and demolish public institutions that took a generation to build. Deservedly, the State Legislature has a 13 percent approval rating, and the Governor’s is about 25 percent.
The nation is catching up to California. The contempt directed at Sacramento politicians is already bleeding over on every other politician in the state. What happens in California has national significance. California’s deficit fetish (which is really just an excuse to gut social programs the Right has always opposed) paves the way for Washington’s own deficit fetish that is sure to dominate the national discourse in the next few election cycles.
The nation should take a hard look at Meg Whitman’s gubernatorial campaign. Her Karl Rove, Mike Murphy, recently threatened to tear apart her Republican rival, Insurance Commissioner Steven Poizner, with a $20 million negative ad buy if he didn’t exit the race. Whitman has already spent $39 million of her own money without even securing her party’s nomination. Granted, $39 million is pocket lint for this billionaire, but how bored do you have to be to throw away that kind of money just to stroke your own ego and have the chance to hobnob with presidents and Senators? Seventy-five percent of Californians say the state is heading in the “wrong direction” and Whitman wants to step on the gas.
There’s something creepy about a billionaire calling for gutting what’s left of California’s beleaguered welfare system and throwing tens of thousands of poor women and children into the streets at a time when unemployment is 13 percent and people all over the state have lost their homes.
Whitman’s pricey, stylized TV buys are currently inundating the airwaves. It’s all soft-focus emotional bullshit right now but she’ll have no choice but to go very, very negative in the general election this fall. It promises to be a spectacle worth watching. It will reach a new low in Swift Boating.
The U.S. Congress, with the Republican minority owning the Senate, is growing in unpopularity. Most people don’t pay attention to process so they just blame the institution. The Republicans’ strategy of blocking everything and letting the country deteriorate is paying political dividends as the contempt for Congress grows and voters move to punish the party “in power.” The strategy is working in California and it will work like a charm nationally too.
Post Script:
Mantra-like we hear repeated from all corners of our political discourse that we live in a “center-right” country. Yet public opinion polls show that most Americans support a woman’s right to choose, look favorably on a single-payer health care system, don’t like the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan, and think the military budget is too large. They love Social Security, Medicare, and unemployment insurance, and even the Joint Chiefs of Staff believe gays and lesbians shouldn’t be discriminated against inside the U.S. military. These days the majority of Americans are not fond of Wall Street. They don’t like “partisan bickering,” and they don’t like corporate special interests corrupting Washington (thereby disagreeing with our esteemed Supreme Court).
In 2004, George W. Bush and Karl Rove ran a base strategy and won. They won because they energized their base and then motivated just enough people in Ohio to push them over the top. After winning a razor close election they ruled as if they had won a mandate.
Bush had a Hollywood stage set he called “a ranch” in Crawford, Texas. He cleared brush for the cameras to transform himself from a Yale-Harvard-blueblood-trust-fund- -preppy-boy into a “cowboy.” As soon as he was out of power Bush jettisoned the “ranch” and now lives in a gated suburb of Dallas. No more “clearing brush” for him. This play-acting contains within it the class-conscious assumption that if working people understood where the Republican Party is really coming from its candidates would never win a national election.
Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck and the rest of them “clear brush” too. Each of them make more money in an hour than most of their followers do in a year. They’re just “regular guys” whose neighbors aren’t bricklayers, schoolteachers, and letter carriers, but CEOs, bond traders, and hedge fund managers. Frank Luntz has a thriving business based entirely on misrepresenting and twisting right-wing ideas to make them sound palatable. In a “center-right” country this kind of class-conscious flim-flammery would be unnecessary.
All I know is the war-mongering trifecta continues to bring this country down. With all of his health problems, wouldn’t Cheney realize the universe is saying slow down, shut up, retire? I believe Bush is basicallly a nice, impulsive guy. With these two on either side of him pulling strings he became dangerous. Ask ANY Iraqi or Afganian, or veteran of any of the wars this trifecta started by lying to Congress & the American people..
The problem with this country is BOTH the Democrats and Republicans. Anyone who seriously thinks that one side isn’t corrupt or slaves to Corporate America hasn’t done an adequate job of paying attention. To the Republicans: The GW administration will go down in History as one of the worst administrations. They eroded your constitutional rights, expanded the power of the wealthy elite, invaded countries under false pretenses, destroyed diplomatic relations with the rest of the world, and spent money like it was going out of style. To the Democrats: Obama is a dud. He promised much and has turned out to be another corporate lackey. He made deals with big pharma to ensure you could not get your medication cheaper elsewhere, he flip flopped on military tribunals, he refuses to fix health care properly through nationalization or single payer, he populates his inner circle with more Wall Street insiders, he spends money on bailouts and useless stimulus packages.