Posted: 12:00 am Monday, Nov. 02, 2009
Updated: 8:12 am Monday, Nov. 02, 2009
Dan Walters: Voters, expect more exercises in reality denial
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closeExactly one year from today, California voters will pretend that electing a new governor will somehow improve their chronically ineffective state government.
They will cast ballots after hearing months of competing claims from contenders, first in the run up to the vernal primary election and then in the autumnal duel between primary survivors, that they can succeed where other recent governors, including Arnold Schwarzenegger, have abjectly failed.
The political situation changed sharply Friday when San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, badly trailing Democratic rival Jerry Brown in both fundraising and popularity, dropped out. There is some speculation about other Democrats (Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Rep. Jane Harman?) entering the fray, but barring that, Brown, a former two-term governor and current attorney general, is now the heavy, albeit not prohibitive, favorite.
With Newsom gone, Brown can take the uber-liberal activists in his party, who have been leery of his flexible ideological positioning, for granted and continue to hew to a more centrist line on crime and taxes that appeals to independent voters. He is publicly rejecting, for instance, the left's demand for more of the latter, thus echoing his 31-year-old, post-Proposition 13 declaration of being a "born-again tax cutter."
Were he to win and stick to that position – which, with Brown, is never certain – he could be forced to make immense spending cuts. If anything, the state's budget situation will likely be even more precarious than it is now as the temporary tax cuts and spending deferrals currently holding the budget together expire. But even were he to opt for new taxes, as those on the left demand, it would require some Republican legislators' votes, and GOP lawmakers wouldn't give a Democratic governor any traction.
The Republicans, meanwhile, are vying with one another in promising to bring state government to heel by slashing billions of dollars in spending and cutting taxes, in hopes of impressing right-wing radio talkers and swaying conservative GOP primary voters. However, none of their numbers is grounded in fiscal or political reality. The Legislature will still be dominated by liberal Democrats who would not, if a Republican wins the governorship, entertain what the Republicans are peddling.
The primary and general election campaigns are destined, therefore, to be exercises in reality denial. We will choose one of the contenders to be the next governor of California, based on his or her promises that almost certainly will be pure fantasy – just as Schwarzenegger promised to balance the budget and otherwise clean up the mess in Sacramento six years ago.
However, in that same election a year hence, we also will be voting on a batch of ballot measures, some of which will purport to reform California's government. It will be an interesting juxtaposition of metaphysical forces.
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