Posted on 08/27/2009 5:07:21 PM PDT by RightOnTheLeftCoast
George F. Will: One long shot to watch
The most ominous domestic event of the 1970s was the collapse of self-government in New York City, which before being put into receivership by the state was liberalism’s laboratory. Since then, California has been the slate on which liberalism boldly writes its recipe for decline — high taxes, heavy regulation, subservience to public employees unions and environmentalism that is simultaneously apocalyptic and chiliastic.
Because California’s calamitous present — creative accounting as a rickety bridge to the next budget crisis, coming soon — might prefigure the nation’s future, next year’s gubernatorial election is portentous. An especially intriguing candidate in a colorful field is Tom Campbell. Colorful he is not. “Talk softly and carry a small calculator” could be his motto. What glitter, however, are his resume and agenda.
He has a Harvard law degree and a doctorate in economics from the University of Chicago, where his faculty adviser was Milton Friedman. He clerked for Supreme Court Justice Byron White. Working in the Reagan administration in 1983, in the wake of a severe recession, he assumed Reagan would lose in 1984 (“proof of my political acumen,” he says; Reagan carried 49 states) and accepted a professorship at Stanford’s law school. He represented Silicon Valley in Congress for five terms. He unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination for Senate in 1992. He won the nomination in 2000 but lost the election. His third statewide run might work because, after Arnold Schwarzenegger’s childlike faith in personality as the conqueror of problems, blandness may be charismatic.
There is no constitutional mechanism to do for California what the state of New York did for New York City in 1975 — transfer to an improvised authority responsibility for problems the political process cannot solve. But having been California’s financial director in 2004-05, Campbell believes politics can restore something like the “Gann limit,” a constitutional provision that, from 1979 to 1989 (California’s malleable Constitution only intermittently constitutes), limited annual spending by a formula based on inflation and population growth.
He favors resetting the budget cycle so that the state would accumulate one year’s revenues to be spent the following year, when precise knowledge would replace wishful thinking about available revenues. He would aggressively use the line-item veto by which governors can reduce as well as eliminate particular spending items. He thinks Berkeley and UCLA are providing an education comparable to Stanford’s and should be priced accordingly, with higher tuition and compensating scholarships for the needy.
He favors a constitutional convention to reform the initiative process by forcing proponents of particular propositions to stipulate the taxes they would raise or programs they would cut to pay for their measures. But only if a convention can be limited to specific changes stipulated in advance. He knows that the 1787 Constitutional Convention, which was called to merely revise the Articles of Confederation, scrapped them up and started fresh.
Campbell’s two rivals for the Republican nomination — former eBay CEO Meg Whitman and another tech entrepreneur, Steve Poizner, currently California’s insurance commissioner — are rich. Campbell is a professor. Whoever wins the nomination, he says, will quickly become flush with funds. Yes, but you cannot steal first base in politics either. How can he be nominated?
Like this, he says: Gray Davis, a professional politician of modest means, won the Democratic nomination in 1998 when two rich opponents nullified each other with media bombardments. Republicans are a shriveling tribe: Their registration is at a record low 31.1 percent, and they do not have a majority of registered voters in any of California’s 53 congressional districts. Democrats have a registration majority in 20 districts, and a statewide registration advantage of more than 2 million and growing. But the fastest-growing cohort of voters are independents who can vote in either party’s primary. Campbell believes he is energizing them inexpensively by buying lists of likely voters (who have voted in four of the last five elections), inviting 150,000 to call in to an enormous conference call, and discussing issues for 90 minutes with the 20,000 who do.
If nominated, Campbell will face either the once-exotic but still canny Jerry Brown, who will be 72 and perhaps familiar to a fault, or Gavin Newsom, 41, San Francisco’s dashing and evidently delusional mayor whose campaign suggests that the bankrupt state’s biggest problem is its denial of same-sex marriage. If Campbell is nominated, he can win, but if Californians were sufficiently rational to nominate him, their state would not be shambolic.
I agree with George Will, then: Campbell is one to watch as the primary season ramps up. http://www.campbell.org/
He’s been a regular guest on Hugh Hewitt’s show both as a state legislator and a Congressman. I like what I’ve heard from him.
Other than that he's Feinstein-lite.
you are confusing Tom with John Campbell. It’s John who is on Hugh’s show and is from Orange County (Irvine). Tom is from Northern Cali.
I believe John has a bright future as well.
I have no sympathy for the people of California.....they are bankrupt while sitting atop an enormous field of oil and natural gas which they refuse to insist that their government drill and sell.....BILLIONS UPON BILLIONS of dollars to poke a hole in the ground.....pathetic
Don’t mention Tom Campbell while I’m eating dinner! He was my representative when I lived in N. Calif. Blech! Ack! Yuck! (He was a Susan Collins kind of republican. I’m sure Hugh Hewitt would like him though)
Fail.
Thanks. I did confuse the two.
I had asked Campbell, Whitman and Poizner the same questions about voting record while in office and how they felt about Prop. 8. Hope this helps. Campbell responded first and I’m waiting on the others.
Here’s Campbell’s response;
Dear Mr. *****,
When I was running for US Senate, it was necessary for me to miss days in the House of Representatives. (The same was true for Congresswoman Barbara Boxer, who won for the US Senate. It is almost unavoidable for a House Member running for statewide office.) However, I never dodged any vote because of an unwillingness to go on the record; so if there is any specific issue on which you would like my views, won’t you please just ask? Regarding Proposition 8, I opposed it because I believe that gay people should have the same freedom to marry that straight people have in our state. Now that it’s in the California Constitution, however, it can only be changed by another vote of the people; the Legislature cannot undo it. I would support such an effort, but, as Governor, I would have to veto any laws attempting to undo Proposition 8 because such laws would be unconstitutional.
With best wishes,
Tom
I’ve met Tom on several occasions, and this letter from him is very typical of his style and forthrightness.
I know gay “marriage” is not a popular principle here, but as a little-l libertarian, I agree with Tom’s original opposition. His commitment to not overrule the will of the people through legislation is another matter. I understand where he is coming from but find his reasoning to be incorrect and unproductive. He’d do better to offer a constructive position that both pro- and anti-gay “marriage” partisans can endorse. And that would be to find a way to encourage gay monogamy by another name. The state, basically, has no business licensing this thing we call marriage. As a heterosexual who is married, I have chafed under the knowledge that my marriage to my wife had to be authorized by the state. Tom should make that point, and propose a framework that provides rules of survivorship and other legalities that all parties can buy into, leaving the spiritual union we call “marriage” a matter for the houses of worship, where it belongs.
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