Posted on 03/25/2026 7:10:46 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
California is a house on fire, and its political class is arguing over the color of the curtains. The state is hemorrhaging residents, drowning in homelessness, and staring down an affordability crisis that’s crushing working families. With Gavin Newsom finally on his way out, you’d think the crowded field vying to replace him would be focused on convincing voters they’re the one to fix things.
You’d think wrong.
The governor’s race features eight Democrats and two Republicans — a field so bloated that the state Democrat Party chair recently begged lower-polling candidates to drop out before they accidentally split the vote and hand the governorship to a Republican for the first time in twenty years. That alone tells you plenty about the state of affairs in deep blue California. But what happened last week in Los Angeles managed to make things even more embarrassing.
USC and Los Angeles television station KABC organized a gubernatorial debate for March 24. The qualifying criteria were straightforward and race-neutral: polling numbers and fundraising thresholds. Six candidates made the cut — including Katie Porter, Tom Steyer, Eric Swalwell, and two Republicans. The university said its formula was “based on extensive research” and enjoyed “broad academic support.”
One problem. All six qualifying candidates were white.
The excluded candidates — most notably former HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra — held a press conference demanding every invited participant boycott the event.
From NBC News:
“We ask each and every candidate who is in this race to recognize that if we can’t have a fair process for a debate, then we should all not participate,” Becerra said. “We call on them to withdraw from this biased forum.”
Let me get this straight. Nobody alleged the metrics were rigged. Nobody claimed the polling data was cooked or the fundraising thresholds were designed to exclude anyone. The word “biased” here means one thing: the objective results produced a stage full of people with the wrong skin color. That’s it. That’s the whole argument.
And USC caved. Hours before airtime, the university pulled the plug, saying the controversy had “created a significant distraction from the issues that matter to voters.” I have to laugh at that one. They acknowledged voters care about issues — then canceled the only forum where those issues were supposed to be discussed.
This is what happens when DEI thinking metastasizes into everything. A process doesn’t have to be discriminatory to be condemned — it just has to produce the wrong outcome. Merit, objectivity, academic rigor — none of it matters if the results don’t match the approved demographic checklist. USC built the criteria, defended the criteria, then torched the criteria the moment someone noticed the lineup was too pale.
And that, to me, is California in a nutshell right now. A state with crumbling infrastructure and a government that has spent years choosing symbolism over substance — now canceling democracy itself because of skin color. The people who tell you they’re the most tolerant and inclusive just shut down a political debate over race, and somehow they don’t see the irony. California’s voters deserve a conversation about ideas. Apparently that’s asking too much from the state that lectures the rest of us about progress.
I earned an MA from USC in 1975. In those years, it was an excellent institution in which all points of view were respected. However, it began drifting left in 1980 and it has now gone fully woke.
Although under coach Lincoln Riley, the football team has become famous for the Fourth Quarter Choke and has given up its century-old rivalry with Notre Dame, I still root for the USC Trojans (I never missed a home game from 1973 to 1999). However, the Reverend John Wesley, founder of Methodism, is probably very sad as he gazes down on the college from his perch atop Bovard Tower in the center of the campus that was founded by his denomination.
U Clowns Lost Again (UCLA)
Black conservatives are the worst people on the planet according to Democrats.
Xavier Becerra is NOT a person of color any more than I am-he is Hispanic, of Spanish ancestry, same as I am. We are also both Caucasian. Hispanic is an ethnic group like Italian, German, Russian, not a race-most Hispanics are Caucasian. He needs to stop that person of color scam...
“I’m a Lutheran by training and confirmation.”
Did you ever think of going to Pacific Lutheran U in Parkland, WA?
When the Banana Republic is somehow missing the banana.
But it’s not like the group was all white men.
Katie Porter is a woman. In the hierarchy of grievance groups, women are included as a recognized grievance group.
So isn’t the fact that Katie Porter was going to be there mean that it was a diverse group?
Is it somehow discriminatory that black and other minority candidates are polling so low , that that they were excluded from the debate because of that?
But then, wouldn’t that mean the liberal voters of California are racist and bigoted, if these black and minority candidates are polling so low?
It’s enough to get you confused about what the standards are. They canceled a debate and we are supposed to be happy about that? Because it’s a statement against a white political hierarchy?
---If the debate, which contains all white candidates, is racist and biased, what about the election itself, which will contain all the same candidates?
Were there black candidates who weren't popular enough to be in the debate? Whose fault is that?
How are they gonna fix this biased, racist election? Several ideas came to my mind:
1)Call it off and start over. Extend Newsome's term until the new Gov is elected.
2)Have some woke organization like BLM pick a candidate of color and put him/her in, regardless of poll data or party support. I hear Kamala is available, and won't mind that nobody actually voted for her, they just put her in the job.
I know neither one of these options is legal, what with filing deadlines and all, but this is California. It just CAN'T be right if a Republican wins. It must be wrong, racist, unacceptable.
It HAS to be the water!
What else causes this kind of INSANITY?
The debate rules were simple and fair and were not made to advantage anybody. When the preferred group did not qualify they canceled the debate. I am amused in the extreme and also enraged. This is just plain damn censorship of honest debate which the left can not endure.
Debates between more than two candidates for office are useless. Nobody expresses any thoughtful and insightful responses because there’s not enough time.
“I would love to drive around USC and blast out my windows the song “Play that funky music, white boy!””
____________________________________________________________
Until the locals in neighboring areas decided they’d had enough and give you a couple of full bursts from the AK47 they have.
Yes but I lived in No. Bend WA and worked full time at Boeing, Seattle while I went to school part time in
Seattle.
Time spent in Tacoma traffic is
lost time doing homework.
The excuse to cancel was stupid. The reason they cancelled -having two Republicans speaking the truth to a leftist audience scares the heck out of these nuts. Find a way to stop them…
As my grandfather said: ‘California, the land of Fruits and Nuts.’
Adult Babies...🤣
It’s about time for fairness.
All the candidates are also human.
No canines were represented .
There needs to be a Great Pyrenees candidate (of color of course) for Governor .
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