CALIFORNIA
FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, JUNE 17, 2014, OR THEREAFTER
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, JUNE 17, 2014, OR THEREAFTER
BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“KASHKARI NOMINATION BRINGS GOP BACK FROM
BRINK”
No
candidate campaigned harder this spring that Neel Kashkari, the former federal
Treasury Department official and ex-Goldman Sachs executive who just become the
first Asian-American ever nominated to for governor of California.
He was someplace every day. His
campaign issued a seemingly non-stop barrage of press releases. He willingly
met with political reporters, who took him seriously even when he was at 2
percent in the polls.
Kashkari also won the endorsements of
every prominent Republican who took sides in this month’s primary election. These included ex-Gov. Pete Wilson, former presidential
nominee Mitt Romney (now a La Jolla resident), possible GOP presidential
candidate Jeb Bush and Rep. Darrell Issa of northern San Diego County, chairman
of the House Governmental Oversight Committee. Ex-President George W. Bush made
fund-raising calls for him. There are no bigger GOP guns.
But Kashkari’s campaign was so
cash-starved that during the month before the vote, the candidate who once said
he couldn’t fund his own campaign because his net worth was “only” about $5
million felt he had to put up $2 million of his own cash (by his reckoning,
about 40 percent of all his resources).
This was still barely enough to put
Kashkari into the November runoff election, beating out primary opponent Tim
Donnelly, an assemblyman from the High Desert town of Twin Peaks best known for
attempting to carry a handgun onto a Southwest Airlines flight at Ontario
International Airport two years ago. Before that, the Tea Party favorite’s main
claim to fame was being a co-founder of the Minutemen group battling illegal
immigration. Imagine what that might have done to the Latino vote.
Donnelly’s campaign manager, Jennifer
Kerns, quit in mid-March, amid reports the candidate consistently refused to
take her advice. He compared President Obama to Adolf Hitler and groundlessly
accused Kashkari of promoting Islamic Sharia law. Yet, somehow, Donnelly almost
managed to make the runoff, primarily because much of the Republican Party’s
California base believed he was the only purely anti-government candidate
available.
Kashkari’s win meant that the
Republican establishment beat back the grass roots GOP right this spring. In a
contest that drew very few Democratic voters, Kashkari’s last-minute spending
inspired just enough moderate Republican voters to back him. Many apparently
feared having Donnelly top their ticket would drag down dozens of other Republicans
in swing districts, while Kashkari might be a neutral factor.
As of early May, just over two weeks
before the first absentee ballots went to voters, Kashkari had barely run any
commercials. So he was undefined to most voters before his last-week ad
campaign, even as Donnelly tried to tag him a purely establishment hack.
But at least Kashkari is a real
candidate. While Donnelly railed vaguely against big government, Kashkari
issued detailed position papers on job creation and education.
Kashkari’s primary win over Donnelly
at least indicates the GOP does not have a total death wish, as it avoided
nominating a candidate who could alienate even more voters than the California
GOP already has. But in a very lightly-voted election, with Democrats having
little at stake in most places, Brown still managed to win a large majority
over both Republicans combined.
It’s possible Kashkari will make
inroads into that cushion by the fall, for he’s promised that if elected, he
will frequently compromise with Democrats who dominate the Legislature.
The vote also might indicate GOP
feelings against illegal immigration have eased a bit, as the party nominated
the son of immigrants while rejecting a leader of the vigilante-like Minutemen.
The bottom line is that after flirting
with a potentially deep electoral disaster, just enough GOP voters realized
that their party would be a dead duck on many levels if it sent Donnelly
against Brown, whose job approval ratings in polls this spring were well over
50 percent.
All of which probably means Brown,
sitting on a campaign war chest of more than $21 million, will still have a
clear path this fall, but the GOP likely will at least avoid a Democratic clean
sweep of every competitive race in the state, which Donnelly could have made a
distinct possibility.
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Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net
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