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Well if it isn’t our old friend, the two-faced politician
or: Brown smartly appeals to younger voters, GOP entrenches for further in-fighting
The gloves have come off for the holidays; the season of pomp and cheer being replaced with an air of accusation and jeering. It seems that the three major candidates are already dealing with crises, the GOP candidates especially seem to still be trying to separate themselves from one another and, by smearing the next guy, trying to make it a vote that consists of just ‘not voting’ for the greater of the evils. Brown has had few PR issues and is now making some smart moves appearing at a fundraiser recently to get out and damage control the ‘recording scandal’ while Whitman and Poizner and both dealing with yet another round of unflattering facts coming out under scrutiny of the platforms and merit badges they point at to show their qualifications. So early in the campaign these candidates are already doing more repairs than improvements to their campaigns as this shapes up to be less of a ‘race to the Governor’s office’ and more of a pushing and shoving match to grab the last slice of pizza at a frat party.
Steve Poizner, third place GOP candidate with essentially no chance of winning even a ‘participant’ trophy at this point, has been cut down in some of his claims that, under his leadership as Insurance Commissioner, the state has seen a reduction to insurance costs to the tune of nearly $2 billion. Analysts at Consumer Watchdog seem to conclude that this figure really is inflated by $800 million since these cuts were set forth by Garamendi, Poizner’s predecessor. The Mercury News goes further to explain that Poizner, in fact, made some changes in May of 2008 to actually make it easier for insurance companies to hike up rates in certain sectors totaling $282 million in price increases. Poizner’s people, of course, defend his actions by saying that necessary changes were made and cite that the decreases of overall cost are factual, and no matter who initiated the changes, Poizner approved them and set them in motion.
Here is where you need to question the facts. There are facts that contradict one another under Poizner’s actual effect in his position. You could argue that he has simply been a custodian of the Garamendi legacy as insurance commissioner while doing little of his own work. It seems that Poizner’s people, as with all other candidates, cite facts, and they are facts, that paint him in a good light. They aren’t all out lies, what is more closely related to the reality of the situation is that the facts have been shaped and are stated as vague enough that you can’t call him a liar or a lame fish because he gets to tote the accomplishments of the office he hold and does not have to state what he has actually done. This creative manipulation of stats and facts shows up again when he beats the drum of cutting department cost by 15% overall and cutting staff by some 200 or so. Those numbers are a bit inflated and it seems that he should not be claiming this as his accomplishment being that the mandate for those cuts came down from legislature and the Governor due to the state deficit. So Poizner really should be claiming that he was able to operate within the constraints of a failing economy in California; he’s a good ‘Yes Man’.
Jerry Brown has faced a similar issue in the ‘recording scandal’ that was never really a scandal per say. Like Poizner’s claims being ambiguously inaccurate but not entirely a lie Brown has faced the same scrutiny in his poorly handled internal investigation of the incident that saw one of his senior aides resign. But Brown has chosen a very clever strategy of finally taking the offensive in fundraising and doing something that is entirely necessary in his campaign, he is reaching out to those that don’t remember ‘Brown’s California’…the young people. In a stroke of genius, in my opinion, the 71 year old Brown spoke at a club on the Sunset Strip to a group of 20, 30, and 40-somethings, called the Generation for Change. This is who he needed to reach out to, those that either were not alive or have no real recollection of what he did as Governor so long ago. This is a group of progressive professionals that may only be able to recall Brown in his ’92 bid for President, which failed, so it is vital that he reach out to this voting base and either change the impression they have of him, or give them an impression at all.
Brown, in ’92, ran on a campaign finance reform idea that he would accept a maximum of only $100 dollars from individuals and organizations; smartly he has abandoned this platform commenting that it is impossible to do this today in a state race and that if Whitman was willing to return the contributions to her campaign and take back the nearly $20 million of her own dollars she has spent then he would agree to a $100 maximum contribution rule for this election…unlikely though. Brown was able to get the group to laugh, he very creatively explained away claims that he changes all the time, “Well, if you are alive and if you are listening and you are growing, you will change, because the world is changing, and if you still were where you were before, you are dead.” He was able to outline the problems we face in California with a deficit, but he spoke to the fact we all seem to forget, that California has a state wealth of $1.6 trillion…it’s not all bad since our deficit is only about 1% of our overall wealth, this can be fixed.
I have to say here that I have a growing respect for the ‘campaigning Brown’. He is making a lot of good decisions thus far in so many different areas. The fact that he let Newsom burn himself out was a savvy decision on his part, to say the least. Brown has also now started to reach out to the younger voters with an air of charisma and has handled the recording scandal very well hushing it down to mere whispers. He is positioning himself with his record as a man of age, a career politician, that has changed with the times and is human in his maturing and changing over the years. It has to be said that he has also done a great job in highlighting issues of the election in a light of optimism and speaking in more constructive and positive terms, also avoiding name calling and negative ads, which can’t be said for his opponents. Brown is on a roll with great poll numbers and alliances with powerful players to get through the primaries unopposed and unscathed. When the debates start is when he may be tested, but by then there will be so much negative press for his opponents that it seems he will have no problem cutting them down as inexperienced opportunists with very negative, short histories in his beloved state.
Now we come to Meg Whitman…wow, this woman is running an insane campaign right now that seems to keep springing leaks that money can’t plug. Most recently she has had to contend with tax returns that only further highlight her inabilities as a recent conservative convert and business woman. Recent tax returns show that a foundation she is a director of contributed $200,000 dollars to the Environmental Defense Agency in the struggling delta of California. This is the same group that, since running for Governor, she has criticized and come out against as an opponent of development and farming jobs. She gave the group she is campaigning against money to support them, odd to say the least. Being that she only recently started voting, and the fact the only more recently she registered republican, in addition to he funding of projects she now opposes shows she is trying to pander to the conservative right to get in to office without regard for what she really believes.
If this weren’t enough two other facts have come out to destroy her claim of being a savvy business woman. I have written before of her poor record of running Ebay in the last few years at the company, nearly ruining Skype, and now there is more facts to support this claim. As with many different foundations in 2008 it took a bit of a hit with the failing markets, but her foundation took it particularly hard, at the rate of nearly 50% loss of equity. This might have something to do, though, with the fact that about 79% of the company’s value was represented in Ebay stock at the start of 2008, by the end the number was closer to 15%. This coincides oddly with her sitting on the board of directors at Ebay until late 2008. at the start of the year stock value was at about $33 a share, when she left they sat at under $15, since she left Ebay entirely they have seen an increase of stock value to nearly $24 a share under the direction of new acting CEO Donahue. A weird coincidence to say the least; though some losses were inevitable in 2008, under her direction in the last few years, during a national crisis, she has not performed well to stop financial blood letting in ventures she participates in. Anyone can succeed in a good times, but we need someone who can succeed during crisis, her record speaks for itself on this front.
Where we find ourselves is at a point when the three big names in the campaign are at very different points of decision. I feel that Meg’s projected $150-million dollar campaign will get her to the general election, but that is simply because her GOP rivals just cannot compete with her name recognition and propaganda team. Brown will skate to the general election with ease and he has yet to officially be in the race. Poizner has some serious soul searching to do as he is not closing the lead Whitman has and has no chance against Brown if he made it to the general election. Poizner should try to save face, dropping out soon, and reload for a position in the state people give a crap about before he jumps in to the Governor’s race. The primaries will embarrass Poizner as Campbell and Whitman enjoy very large leads over him now, and Campbell has done less than anyone!
I think that the opportunistic, flawed politics of the GOP candidates is going to fail, it is not genuine and they will not be able to contend with Brown’s views and record as things like immigration, reform, and a history of service in California come in to play. Poizner and Whitman will lose some of the conservative base with their history and their position on abortion that pandering and flip flopping on other views won’t make up for. The hubris of the rich elitists will not sway the people of California when matched against the life of service Brown has tucked up his sleeve; this is the Achilles Heel that will become apparent as middle american California hits the voting booths.
Brown sidestepping a pre-campaign ‘scandal’, timing could be better though
I know that I rant and rave about the mass media today and the terrible state it is in. I know that many of you might find my commentary on the 2010 gubernatorial election for Governor in California as bias and crudely thrown together. You might find that my commentary on the social implications that both the media and politics have today are tightly bound by a generally accepted social contract, for good or ill. It is a rare occasion that I get an opportunity to speak on a subject as this one. As few of you know, I am sure, a personal aide to State Att. Gen. Jerry Brown recently ‘resigned’ after a bit of an unfortunate situation with a journalist, recordings, and a lack of candor that proved to be too much for him to overcome, leading to his resignation from his position. What you may not know is the unfortunate timing of this overblown situation of ‘illegal’ tapings and the Att. Gen.’s possible action against the ‘pimp n ho’ ACORN tapes that were released a while back as being illegal and possible entrapment. This all sounds very complicated I am sure to those of you not in the know and not as obsessed and quite possibly addicted to the little ins and outs of the emerging candidates and campaigns in the 2010 election for governor of the most populous state in the union. What has transpired here, and what may transpire is nothing short of a wonderful moment for me to connect Nixon to Reagan to Brown, and I will do so in the most eloquent and demonstrative way possible.
A few weeks back an aide to Jerry Brown named Scott Gerber made a call to the San Francisco Chronicle pleading for changes to a story they did on Brown citing some very extensive quotes from the interview reporter Carla Marinnuci did with Brown. The red flag went up when he was able to quote to an almost impossible length contextual quotations from the interview and what was said. He was present at the interview with Brown, as were others, and it became clear that he could only have recalled such minute details if the conversation had been recorded and he were reading from a transcript. Turns out the conversation was recorded by Gerber without the consent of the reporter, or as they claim, even Brown. Gerber had apparently taken it upon himself to record the interview for posterity and for the express purpose he used it for, to refute inconsistencies or falsehoods in the ensuing article.
Jerry Brown, as any good unofficial candidate would do, claimed no part in the event, claiming no knowledge of the taping at the event. Jerry Brown pulled a classic Reagan and Nixon-esque move with complete deniability in the situation. He had no idea what his aides and subordinates were doing and did not approve the tapings. Just like Iran/Contra incident under Reagan, Brown claimed that he did not have anything to do with the event, and I’m sure, would not have approved such an action without the express consent of the reporter. Just as with Nixon during Watergate, Brown did not know what was going on, and holds Gerber in the highest regard and respect and that the actions taken were taken in the best interest of Brown and the parties involved, though the judgement of Gerber was questionable, his intentions were not.
Old Gerber stepped down under what has turned out to be a bit of an overblown situation calling the taping ‘illegal’ being the state of a very ambiguous statute in California legislation stating that you cannot secretly tape confidential conversations and meeting, without the express consent of all parties involved. The salacious media is picking up on the vague nature of the phrase ‘confidential conversations’ and blowing it out of proportion, as Peter Scheer of the Huffington Post illustrates. This was a conversation with a journalist for the express purpose of providing information that was expressly going to be used in the public sector. This interview was not a confidential conversation, there rarely, if ever, is such a thing as a confidential conversation with a reporter or journalist. Where this incident falls is somewhere under the guise of a broken social contract that reporters don’t secretly tape interviews and vice versa. It is not really ethical and not something done today; reporters are generally very open, honest, and frank in asking permission to record a conversation for accuracy and posterity sake. The real issue was the Gerber did not disclose that it was being recorded, and then he made the mistake of quoting way too much from the conversation for it to just be from memory; poor judgement clearly, but illegal, not at all.
I think the reason that this has become an issue, and it was necessary for Gerber to distance himself is two fold: One is that with a burgeoning campaign and still running unopposed as Brown is for the Democrats in the 2010 election, this kind of ‘scandal’ (which it isn’t) cannot be associated with his current position as the lawman looking to protect the people. Secondly, it is really poor timing as the Att. Gen. is making plans to prosecute the ‘pimp n ho’ filmmakers that ran the sting on ACORN earlier this year, for illegally taping and entrapping the offices that they visited in the state of California.
With this campaign getting seriously close to needing to become official the Jerry Brown camp knew, that if this situation continued is could become an issue to come out officially under this scandal growing, so they needed to nip it in the bud. Jerry Brown didn’t file any charges against Gerber as the internal investigation was scrapped, to the chagrin of proponents and the elation of those critics trying to get anything on Brown. In response Brown has called for n outside investigation in to the situation to cover his ass. This thing needs to disappear quickly if he plans on announcing his candidacy by the end of the year. Brown is currently enjoying great approval numbers and simple name recognition right now without having done a damn thing to campaign, so if this situation festered it would get this team on the defensive the moment they stepped on to the field.
The other issue is his possible prosecution of the whistle blowers that secretly taped meetings with ACORN employees to find a way for the pimp to do his taxes and the prostitute to do hers so as to make their income sound legitimate in the eyes of the government. Now this is a much more slippery slope these filmmakers treaded. They went in to confidential meetings, under assumed identities without disclosing the recording they were doing and lured the ACORN employees under false pretenses to give them legal advice for fake occupations. In essence they could be accused of illegally taping confidential meeting, entrapment, and possibly other charges Brown can drudge up on them. This case, though similar to the Gerber incident lends itself much better to a judicial proceeding in that the meetings, on tax information, are assumed confidential, and the use of those recordings were for public use without the express knowledge of all parties involved; the key word is ‘all’. There is also arguing the entrapment since the parties posed as fake personas and illicitly asked for the advice they wanted, not that they were approached, they asked for specific advice of an illegal kind, under illegal pretenses. I would go as far as to argue that those tapes are not legal evidence in a court case that may try and prosecute ACORN because the means by which they were obtained is on shaky ground to say the least.
The situation and the timing of these two events is cause for a little bit of questioning. Could it be that a secret taping scandal just pops up at the same time Brown is getting ready to attack the filmmakers of the ACORN tapes? I find it a little odd, but I am no conspiracy theorist so I won’t go there, but I do find it interesting that these two issues are coming to bear at a pivotal time in the Brown campaign. With Whitman on the GOP side spending enough money to match the GDP of a small country, and getting some poll numbers to show it is working, a little, Brown is in a precarious spot to either go official or continue to stay out of the limelight to some extent. Is it better for him to get in the ring and start campaigning, getting the fallout of the Nixon-esque recording scandal through Reagan-esque deniability out of the way, dealing with it now and letting the short term memory of the public relegate it to the past as his campaign chugs along? Or should he stay out of the limelight, let this thing go away, never directly addressing it to the public and instead letting it disappear until it comes up in a smear-campaign TV spot put together by Whitman, or possibly his not-yet-decided possible opponent? I think the latter is the way to do it because I think it is going to come up in some debate in the future and it will look fishy to the voting public if it is the first they are hearing about it, as if Brown was trying to hide from it and then looks cornered as a non-secret appears to the public as an all out scandal that we are so far removed from the fact sifting will take to long and cost more to the campaign than getting out ahead of the issue.
The resignation of Scott Gerber was the first, and most important step in letting the Brown campaign distance itself from this little hiccup and in turn gives Brown the option of still going after the ACORN filmmakers all the while giving him deniability, and even the ‘appearance’ of an outside investigation insulates him from allegations of a double standard and hypocrisy, not to mention what may be phrased as an ‘abuse of his power’ and ‘doing favors for his friends’. Now, what the public will hear is ‘secret recordings’, ‘allegedly illegal’, and other terms used to further vilify the actions taken by a single man, and Brown will claim ignorance and be able to say that an outside panel was assembled to investigate and that Gerber resigned after ‘a lapse in judgement’. The fact of the matter is what Brown’s aide did, with or without the consent and knowledge of Brown, was NOT illegal specifically, it is in a gray area at worst, and just a bad call in reality.
The Brown ‘campaign’ should be up and running by the end of the year, it really should, so that it can get out ahead in the democratic voter’s eyes so that they can deter any possible opponents from running. If Brown can get a head of steam now, or at least soon, anyone that might have thought of running would not be able to afford the kind of fight it would take to gain ground AND overtake a man so solidly planted in the state of California. Brown has made a good decision by not running officially yet; he has been able to skirt criticism and early campaign fighting, letting one man, Newsom, defeat himself already. His campaign could use one Republican dropping out though, before he jumps in. How nice it would be for Brown to see Poizner drop out before he got in the race, or Campbell, but I doubt Poizner with all his money is willing to roll over just yet, and Campbell is enjoying some numbers close to or equal to Whitman’s by spending next to nothing, so he will probably stay in for a while, if not to the primaries, though it depends greatly on his funding. Whatever happens one thing is certain, Brown has done a great job with this first ‘scandal’ by copying the best plays from Presidents across the aisle; He sacrificed his close aide as Nixon did with many of his men, and he has total deniability to insulate him from too much criticism as Reagan did. Brown just seems to have done it better than both of those Republicans, and that puts him right up there with one of the great Democrats, ol’ Bill Clinton, a scandalous hall of famer.
