CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2024 OR THEREAFTER
BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“GOP MISSING SO FAR IN
GOVERNOR’S RACE”
It’s easy to criticize the
field now running for California governor, an office now occupied by perhaps
the ultimate lame duck – Gavin Newsom.
One thing for sure, Newsom
will not have much influence over the race to replace him. He’s certainly not
positioned to name his successor, the way President Biden did when he quit his
reelection run and anointed Vice President Kamala Harris.
Instead, the ultra-liberal
Democrats who dominate every major office in California and run both houses of
the state Legislature will be glad to see him go.
After all, Newsom is the man
who vetoed state-funded home loans for undocumented immigrants and immediately
afterward forced legislators to come back to Sacramento earlier than they
wanted for a special session aimed at preventing sudden large gasoline price
spikes.
No one in the field to
succeed him has come close to doing some of the things he’s done: debate a
governor from another state who seems to delight in taunting California and
doing the opposite of whatever this state does, from allowing almost all
abortions to keeping schools and businesses open during the Covid 19 pandemic.
Instead, we have the likes of
Toni Atkins, longtime legislator who pushed through a lot of laws, very few of
which are on the tip of anyone’s tongue. There’s also Betty Yee, the termed out
state controller. And Tony Thurmond, two term state school superintendent who
can’t point to many ways he’s improved public education during eight years in
the office. Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, who has done about has much in her
current office as Newsom did while he held it – virtually nothing – is also
running. Add in ex-Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, beaten handily by
Newsom when he ran in 2018. There will possibly be Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta, best
known for tough enforcement of state laws mandating huge amounts of dense new
housing.
And there could be outgoing
U.S, Rep. Katie Porter of Irvine, defeated in her quest for the Senate last
spring.
None but Porter is exactly a
household name. Yet. All are Democrats, with nary a Republican in sight. The
closest thing to a GOP candidate is Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, now
being sued for claiming his deputies prevented an assassination attempt when
they arrested a man with guns and ammo in his car outside a Donald Trump
presidential rally in Coachella.
In that way, the
gubernatorial race looks a lot like this year’s run for the U.S. Senate did
before former baseball player Steve Garvey got into it.
In short, the state GOP’s
extreme lack of a bench – to use a baseball term – is painfully obvious.
The party not only holds no
statewide offices, but it will not for at least another two years, and there’s
no clone of Arnold Schwarzenegger waiting to pounce on Democrats as the
muscleman actor did to ex-Gov. Gray Davis in a 2003 recall election.
Schwarzenegger is proof the
Republican label does not have to be poison in California. But where are
Republicans with experience in public policy who could govern as a bit of a
counterweight to the big majorities held by legislative Democrats?
One big reason the state GOP
has no significant bench is that so much of the party drank the MAGA Kool-Aid
of Trump, who threatened to “primary” any Republican officeholder opposing him
on almost anything, and then did so repeatedly.
But the “Make America Great Again”
tag has been pure anathema in California. When 2018 GOP candidate John Cox
adopted it while running against Newsom in 2018, he lost by the widest margin
in almost 70 years. Running again in the 2021 attempt to recall Newsom, Cox
drew just 4.4 percent of the vote.
So much for MAGA in
California, which Trump has never come close to carrying.
The reality is that there are
not many differences among the current corps of candidates to take Newsom’s
place in the state Capitol’s “horseshoe” executive area in 2027.
It’s doubtful that any of
them would oppose many ideas the Legislature has been itching to pass, like
those home loans for the undocumented.
That’s what California gets
for having a Republican Party almost fully impotent at the state level.
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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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