Remember not to drink the kool aid.
Posted on 11/04/2010 6:35:35 AM PDT by Kaslin
At his post-victory news conference Wednesday morning, Governor elect Jerry Brown showed why he won the election with a million votes to spare. He's steeped in the issues, he listens to what is happening on the ground, and he's not afraid to mix it up.
Now, I don't agree with Brown on a number of issues. But in the course of the campaign, I rarely got the feeling that Meg Whitman was listening to anyone other than her consultants or that she was even curious. California needs a strong governor; Whitman showed them a wind-up doll.
Worse, the former eBay CEO spent most of the campaign ducking. She often ducked reporters' questions. She ducked all but one primary debate. She ducked her responsibility to look beyond the spreadsheet.
Now it may be that if Whitman had run a great campaign, she would have lost anyway. California is a solidly Democratic state. Voters here rejected the red wave that washed over other states, and it is possible that anti-tea party sentiment buoyed the Democrats to victory.
(I thought Senate hopeful Carly Fiorina ran a much better race than Whitman, yet Fiorina garnered a mere 67,000 more votes than Whitman -- and also lost big.)
We'll never know what would have happened if Whitman ran a great campaign because she didn't. Whitman's profligacy in pouring $141 million of her own money undercut her claim that she would be a cost-cutter. (When Whitman conceded the governor's race, she looked as if she were going to cry. I'd be bawling like a baby if I had spent $140 million to get trounced as soundly as she was.)
In September, Field Poll Director Mark DiCamillo told The San Francisco Chronicle, "People were toying with the idea of voting for Whitman." Some Republicans will blame the Nicky Diaz Santillan story for Whitman's demise. But I think that by the time voters learned that Whitman had hired and fired an illegal immigrant housekeeper, they already had decided there was no "there there."
I don't see a way out for the California Republican Party.
"The party depended on Meg," Abel Maldonado, who lost his bid to hold onto the lieutenant governorship, told me. "There's no secret. The party's in a wheelchair and we have a respirator on it."
Whitman was rich, and for reasons unknown, she thought she would be a swell candidate for governor.
Republicans in the fellow big-shot club decided to throw raised buds in her path. They didn't care about her spotty voting record, history of donating to Democrats or the fact that she'd never run for anything. They saw themselves as big-picture people.
Consultants queued up with their hands out, proffering money-sucking strategies. Whether Whitman won or lost, they'd be cashing big checks through November. With all their clout behind her, Whitman essentially had won the GOP primary before a single vote was cast.
You watch. In four years, the folks behind Whitman Inc. will find another rich sucker who just discovered politics and wants to make a big-splash career move. And they won't care if that candidate is a drag on the ticket because they'll have got theirs.
What can Brown do for you?......................
In states where the democrats/leftists outnumber the conservatives you are not going to win elections with Tea Party types. Wanna argue that? Try running liberals in deep Red states and see what happens.
No, you don't get it. Where conservative principles are actually preached, they are embraced. It's the "middle of the road", "must be a moderate" types who hurt the conservative message. Hillary Clinton sounding like a watered-down Ronald Reagan isn't a standard-bearer for conservatism.
Your alternative shows how "deeply" you hold conservative beliefs. Preaching liberalism in a conservative state is like preaching Islam to a Christian... it's laughable on its face. Preaching Conservatism in a liberal state is like preaching Christianity in a Muslim State... they'll get mad and hot under the collar and make threats... because under the radar, you are converting them in droves.
Nothing makes a liberal madder than the truth... because that's the beginning of their undoing. Nothing makes conservatives weaker than watering down the truth... because the only result of compromising truth is agreeing to a lie.
moderate Republicans don’t have a chance in today’s Tea Party world. People want passion.
Wrong. With 17% effective unemployment , counting those no longer on the rolls, that has now changed.People no longer want kids to run the store. They want jobs. The old model is gone, finito. KAPUT. You do not get it.
Rove is about to become history. He is about to meet a cadre of new freshmen in Congress, like Lt Col. Allen West, amd MArco Rubio. My , what a surprise Karl has coming.
Remember not to drink the kool aid.
If it’s Brown- Flush it down.
Principles of being self-reliant, self-sufficient etc are going to fly in deep blue areas??? Are you mad???? The dems have institutionalized large blocs of people to the point that they don’t want to get off of the welfare teet. Oh, and the unions are going to vote conservative??? Yeah...SUUUUUUUURE. College kids? HA HA HA HA HA
There is what is and the way people would like it to be.
Look at the blue vs red concentrations on a map. If the % vote on the national level is fairly even then it stands to reason that you have pockets of the country that are tried and true democrat. They will not vote Repub no matter what.
Yes, but we need t carry the campaign to them.Notice that they do the same to tried and true Red State areas? They wage war in poltics and demographics. We do not. Big mistake.
Your still no good.....
I have changed the minds of quite a few “died in the wool” dems. One told me he voted “straight Republican” this time and his father would be spinning in his grave. My own experience tells me your hyperbole is a mask for laziness.
Is that Joyce Dewitt next to him?
You are completely correct.
Whitman also needs to sue the ‘employment agency’ who put her into this mess in the first place.
It was THEIR job to properly screen this woman.
LLS
Meg is a billionaire.
No lawsuit. SHe ought to buy them and fire all of them and close the shop down.
I would so love to be a billionaire and take vengence directly on those who mess with me. Lawsuits for for us proles.
Brown is a Biden twin.
Brown and Boxer ran as progressives...and won big. In a wave election that was heavily against them.
What we need in CA are Marc Rubio type conservatives. I love Sarah but she would get slaughtered here. The Dems have 4 pillars backing their control, unions..wealthy coastal marxists..college kids..and the Hispanic vote. Republicans need to capture a bigger chunk of the Hispanic vote because they sure as hell aren’t getting the union and Marxist vote.
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