High-Profile Republicans Flee Golden State

CA GOP cartoonWith an underperforming field of gubernatorial candidates and no dominant figures leading the party, California Republicans have found themselves hard up for statewide leadership.

Many high-profile California Republicans have shown a strong inclination to leave the state altogether to pursue their political fortunes in the wake of a major defeat. As the San Francisco Chronicle noted, recent departures have taken their toll on the party’s ability to field prominent candidates across the range of statewide offices, with former Orange County Assemblyman Chuck DeVore relocating to Texas, onetime gubernatorial hopeful Neel Kashkari shifting gears to run the Minneapolis Federal Reserve, and current presidential candidate Carly Fiorina moving her home base to Virginia.

In a painful indication of how limited GOP ambitions can be on the west coast, all three have won praise and a higher profile outside the Golden State than within it. MayKao Hang, the incoming chairwoman of the Minneapolis Fed’s board of directors, underscored the impression that California is often little more than a proving ground for political talent to the right of center, calling Kashkari “an influential leader whose combined experience in the public and private sectors makes him the ideal candidate to head the Minneapolis Fed,” according to the Los Angeles Times.

Meanwhile, some who stay behind have left the bounds of party orthodoxy entirely. Perhaps the state GOP’s most famous resident Californian, former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, has accompanied Gov. Jerry Brown to the United Nations climate talks in Paris, posting an open letter on Facebook that declared, “I don’t give a [expletive] if we agree about climate change.”

The lack of leadership has exacerbated the party’s recent tendency toward disunity. In an effort to soften the language of its stance on unlawful immigration, the state GOP changed its platform to indicate that members “hold diverse views” on “what to do with the millions of people who are currently here illegally” — phraseology that has been criticized as fodder for Democrats without marking out a principled position.

Business trouble

At the same time, the state GOP has been unable to effectively pivot away from social issues that divide it and toward economic issues that have traditionally reaped reliable dividends. Recent trends suggest that big business has come to view Republican candidates as risks not worth taking where electable corporate-friendly Democrats are to be found.

Cathleen Galgiani

“At a time when GOP power in Sacramento has been on the wane, many business interests — which have traditionally skewed Republican and wield considerable clout in the party — are throwing their weight behind centrist Democrats,” the Times reported separately, such as state Sen. Cathleen Galgiani, D-Stockton, whom GOP favorite Assemblywoman Kristin Olsen, R-Modesto, wants to defeat. “A year from election day, groups such as the California Assn. of Realtors and Chevron have told the candidates and other political players that they’re for Galgiani,” the Times added, “a show of support from entities that routinely spend big to back their choices.” The state GOP has refused to support Olsen, preferring to sit the race out entirely.

Outside energy

In a strange irony, presidential politics has offered California Republicans a glimmer of hope for better organization, inspiration and leadership. While they have often been looked upon by barnstorming candidates as little more than a source of campaign cash, the unusually fluid and uncertain presidential primary season has led some White House hopefuls to pursue the kind of ground game in California that can be the lifeblood of state and local parties.

“If the nominee is not obvious by the June 7 primary, which is unlikely, Republican candidates would need to compete in San Francisco, Berkeley and Democrat-dominated downtown Sacramento, as well as in Reps. Tom McClintock, Doug LaMalfa and Dana Rohrabacher’s red districts,” the Sacramento Bee noted. Ron Nehring, the former nominee for lieutenant governor, has found a fresh mission in-state as Ted Cruz’s California campaign chairman. “We are preparing for California to matter,” he told the Bee.

This piece was originally published by CalWatchdog.com

2016 U.S. Senate Race: Can Duf Sundhiem Crack Top 2 Primary?

Duf SundheimIt’s been 27 years since a California Republican has won a campaign for U.S. Senate.

The deck may be stacked against Republicans in California, but Duf Sundheim isn’t discouraged. The former California Republican Party chairman and small business attorney says that his underdog campaign for U.S. Senate is motivated by a desire to give average people “a voice in their government.”

“The people of California are tired of the professional political class of both parties who make promises that they never keep,” Sundheim said. “For over a decade, we have taken on the establishment of both parties and won.”

If Sundheim’s independent message doesn’t sound like the 2016 GOP presidential contenders, that’s because of the unique electoral landscape in California.

Top 2: Only Democratic options

Next year’s U.S. Senate race will be the first such election under California’s Top 2 Primary, which advances the top two primary candidates to the general election regardless of political party. Although Republicans struck out in every statewide race last November, the party succeeded in getting a candidate through the June primary election and onto the November general election ballot for every partisan statewide race. But only barely.

The June 2014 primary for state controller ended in a virtual four-way tie between two Democrats and two Republicans. Most political analysts believe that the Republican candidates, including an unknown candidate that spent $100 on a four-word ballot statement, were aided by the historically low turnout.

It won’t take much for Democrats to improve on those numbers. Historically, voter turnout is higher in presidential election years than in gubernatorial election years. Moreover, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders’ insurgent challenge to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination could further boost turnout among CA Democrats, who outnumber Republicans by 2.68 million voters.

Early polling show the effects of that favorable electoral landscape for Democrats. A Field Poll of more than 1,000 registered voters taken from September 17 to October 4 found Democratic Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez safely in second place to frontrunner Attorney General Kamala Harris. Sundheim and his fellow Republican candidates, Asm. Rocky Chavez and former California Republican Party Chairman Tom Del Beccaro, managed only single digits.

“Both Harris and Sanchez are better known and are much more favorably regarded among the state’s likely voters than any of the three Republicans,” wrote Mark DiCamillo, director of the Field Poll. “As the election nears, this may create as much interest to who finishes second as to who wins the primary, since it will likely determine whether the fall general election will be a traditional Democrat vs. Republican affair or one that pits two Democrats against one another.”

Builds on Kashkari’s rhetoric

In an effort to prevent an all-Democrat November U.S. Senate showdown, Sundheim has built on the rhetorical foundation laid by 2014 GOP gubernatorial candidate Neel Kashkari to appeal to independent voters by focusing on jobs and poverty. Sundheim says the state has “suffered and economic earthquake,” which has left millions in poverty.

“We have seen one of the greatest accumulations of wealth in history, but 8.9 million Californians live in poverty,” he said, referring to an issue first raised by Kashkari’s gubernatorial campaign. “There are more people living in poverty in California than there are people in Nevada, Hawaii and Oregon combined.”

He added, “Now the fastest growing path to the middle class is a government job.”

Sundheim has shared this message and his experience as a federal court mediator and volunteer settlement judge beyond the partisan political chicken dinner circuit. The Stanford graduate has a track record of reaching across the aisle and working with Democrats that share his passion for improving the state. In 2012, Sundheim supported Democratic San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed’s pension reform proposals, which were overwhelmingly approved by voters.

Shultz, Chambers Campaign Co-Chairs

In his initial fundraising report, Sundheim announced that he’s raised more than $240,000 — an impressive figure without any loans and only three weeks after his announcement.

“We will have the money we will need not only to compete, but to win,” he said.

Sundheim’s confidence comes with a list of big name endorsements, including former U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz and Cisco’s John Chambers.

“I’ve had the pleasure of knowing and working with Duf for two decades, and I’ve seen how much he cares about the future of California and is inclusive of every one of its citizens,” said Chambers. “We need strong, principled leaders in Washington, DC who can bring together people from all political perspectives to craft workable solutions to our country’s most pressing problems. Duf Sundheim is that kind of leader.”

Originally published by CalWatchdog.com

Why is California voter participation so demonstrably low?

VotedSure, it’s been more than half a year since California’s last statewide election. But Californians’ remarkable failure to participate still deserves some attention today as we start focusing on the 2016 elections. In last November’s midterm Congressional election, the largest state in the nation had about the lowest voter participation of any state in the country. Hardly more than 42 percent of California’s registered voters bothered to mail-in their ballots in the conveniently provided pre-addressed envelopes, or even show up at the polls. This dismal voter participation was even worse than voter disinterest in one of the state’s other previous bad showings in 2002 when just over 50 percent of participants elected Gray Davis, the Democrat, over the GOP’s Bill Simon. In neighboring Oregon, voter participation in the November 2014 election at 69.5 percent was more than half again by percentage the level of participation of California voters in the same election.

Why is California voter participation so demonstrably low? Some pundits have offered that last year’s election was not a presidential election when voter interest would be higher and that popular Governor Jerry Brown, who was on the ballot, was destined to cruise to a big victory over feeble Republican opponent Neel Kashkari anyway, thus lessening voter interest. Democrats have a big political registration edge in the state, control every statewide elective office, and have near two-thirds control of both Houses of the state Legislature. And even with low voter turnout, the state bucked the national trend in which the GOP picked up seats in Congress, and Californians who did vote actually expanded the number of Democratic Congressional seats in Washington, D.C., from California by two (though improving GOP representation in the state Legislature just above the critical 33 percent needed to thwart tax-increases).

Yet a recent Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) poll reveals that more Californians, by 46 percent to 45 percent, think their state is headed in the the wrong direction rather than the right direction.

One reason for low voter turnout, and even for failures of the GOP to have made more gains in California in the November 2014 election, could be a failure to give voters a really good reason to turnout and feel their vote will be counted and make a difference. There are after all plenty of GOP and middle-of-the-road, independent voters in the state, as the same PPIC poll says 65 percent of CA voters are center/right, with conservatives, at 35 percent, having the plurality. An earnest young political consultant might conclude these voters just need to be contacted and given a good reason to get fired-up to change the results of many elections in the state.

One election where better voter turnout, perhaps by more focus on core GOP voters who sat on the sidelines and who didn’t get inspired enough to vote might have made a difference was the 52nd Congressional District race in conservative San Diego County. Just four years ago this seat was represented in Congress by Republican Brian Bilbray. But a Democrat won the seat in 2012 and the Republican challenger in 2014 was Carl DeMaio, a former member of the San Diego city council who had lost a close race for Mayor of San Diego. Unfortunately, DeMaio’s campaign became embroiled in a sexual harassment scandal, some key aspects of which were found to have been manufactured against him. Scott Peters, the incumbent Democrat who was thought to be vulnerable in the GOP sweep in other states, ended up winning the election with 51.6 percent, to DeMaio’s 48.4 percent.

Yet a key factor in DeMaio’s loss was low voter turnout. At 49 percent, according to the California Target Book, some observers believe that if DeMaio’s campaign could have brought out the same level of base voter participation as even the lopsided victory of fellow Republican, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield, (about 56 percent), if the campaign not seen the scandal in the press, and had the campaign perhaps redirected resources to simply inspire baseline Republicans to do their public duty and come out to vote in larger numbers, the result could have been quite different, a GOP victory. According to the Target Book’s analysis, voter turnout in the 49th Congressional District where Darrell Issa cruised to a lop-sided 60 percent victory was 47 percent. One need not have a political science degree to understand that voter turnout in the 52nd race was not remarkably different given all the political spending and emphasis of Republicans to win the race; and that many GOP voters had to just pass on making a vote in the race. This observer believes that the problem was a failure to give more focus on peer-to-peer direct-voter contact with core Republicans, and this issue might have repeated itself in several of the other close Congressional races the GOP lost in California in 2014. Hard-core Republican voters were just not given a compelling or convincing reason to vote in the numbers needed to win the races, and especially in the 52nd, which was a winable seat.

Even with comparatively lower registrations in California for Republicans than Democrats, the GOP has great opportunity to win elections in the state and bring reform in the current generally apathetic low voter turn-out environment. A few victories could help Republicans grow in numbers. Voters are truly unhappy with the direction liberal Democratic leaders are taking the state, and if the GOP can better seize on ideas, candidates, strategies and tactics that really motivate conservative and middle-of-the-road voters to return their millions of empty ballot, they can win. Will they?

This article is cross-posted by the Flash Report

And The Political Oscar Goes To …

Oscar Sunday has arrived, and while the celebrities are preening for their 30-seconds on screen, we thought at F&H we should put out Oscars for California political performances so far this year.

Best Actor: Neel Kashkari, on the streets of Fresno (albeit a performance that the locals didn’t vote for)

Best Subtle Performance: Jerry Brown at his budget press conference assuring reporters Prop 30 taxes are temporary … or are they? See Joel’s column here and Dan Walters here both picking up the same thing, maybe there is some flexibility in the word “temporary.”

Best Imitation of Hamlet: Antonio Villaraigosa – Will he or won’t he run for the U.S. Senate?

Best Special Effects: Kevin de Leon’s swearing in as Pro Tem

Best Original Song: Kim Alexander and California Voter Foundation 2014 Proposition Song

Best Director: Ace Smith, making all the political actors move as he wishes

Best Editing: Nathan Fletcher, turning his war hero Republican movie into an independent film, then a mainstream Democratic one

Best Adapted Screenplay: Prop. 2, with spare parts from previous rainy day fund attempts

Best Supporting Actor: Sutter Brown

Best Costume (to Prove this is Not 1980 California): Proposed ballot measures to reverse English Only, require condoms in porn films, and legalize marijuana

Surprise Newcomer of the Year: Assemblywoman Patty Lopez

Most Surprising Performance: Leland Yee, really was there any doubt?

Originally published by Fox and Hounds Daily

Joel Fox is Editor of Fox & Hounds and President of the Small Business Action Committee. Joe Mathews is Connecting California Columnist and Editor at Zócalo Public Square, and Fellow at the Center for Social Cohesion at Arizona State University.

What Can Jerry Brown Buy With His $24 Million War Chest?

Being close to a one-party state is distorting California politics in unpredictable ways. The latest: According to the Los Angeles Times, Gov. Jerry Brown still holds almost $24 million in his 2014 war chest for governor.

The reason is his Republican opponent last November, Neel Kashkari, wasn’t much of a challenge, Brown spent less than $6 million on his re-election campaign, largely for ads backing Proposition 1 and Proposition 2.

That was different from in 2010, when he faced billionaire Meg Whitman, who spent $180 million.

Which means that, in the future if a Democrat for governor faces a Republican in the November election, a similar war chest will be built up, giving the new governor enormous financial clout. The only exception would be if another wealth Republican wanted to blow $180 million — or, perhaps, is a Hollywood celebrity, like Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Brown now will be using his war chest to back statewide initiatives in 2016. So he’s going to be courted. And legislators, even those in his party, will be wary of opposing him lest he fund their opponents.

What about if he runs for president? The Federal Elections Commission told me, “No, he can’t use that money for a federal campaign. Only for state campaigns.”

So if he makes a run at Hillary, he’ll be starting from zero.

Originally published on CalWatchdog.com

CA GOP looks ahead to broaden base

Analysts expected it, but it hurt all the same. The gains in the California Legislature were welcome. But in state-level races, California Republicans did not enjoy the same tidal-wave election results as their fellow party faithful across the country.

For decades at the national level, moderate, centrist and liberal Republicans have urged the GOP to pivot leftward on social issues in order to broaden the size of the party’s base. But in California, that strategy has long been baked into the cake of the political establishment’s culture — and it hasn’t turned back the Democratic tide.

That’s why California Republicans have begun to look even more closely at social issues amid this year’s disappointing — but not crushing — elections. To begin with, the limits of liberalizing have become apparent even among Democrats.

Nationwide, Democrats were widely judged to have badly miscalculated that identity politics would suffice to drive voter enthusiasm and win close contests. Party elites and opinion-makers have begun to argue that Democrats must focus on an economic message over a culture one.

For California Republicans, two takeaways have emerged. First, a further turn to the left on social issues may not translate into more votes. Second, a tilt back to the right probably won’t do much either.

Importantly, while the substance of identity politics failed Democrats, the symbolism also foundered. Wendy Davis’s strongly gendered campaign for Texas governor was a painful flop even by the low standards of this year’s elections. She lost to Republican Greg Abbott, 59-39. That was even worse than Republican Neel Kashkari’s 59-41 loss to Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown here in California.

A Washington Post post-mortem was headlined, “Wendy Davis’ campaign was even worse than you thought.” It reported on an internal campaign memo which warned way back in January of a “lurch to the left. … There is not a model where a candidate who appears this liberal and culturally out of touch gets elected statewide anywhere in the south — much less in Texas.”

Unsuccessful candidacies

In one notable instance, a California Republican whose identity implicated social issues lost — but not for that reason. After a high-profile and costly race, Carl DeMaio had to concede defeat to incumbent Rep. Scott Peters in their fight for the state’s 52 Congressional District.

As U-T San Diego reported, “DeMaio positioned himself as a ‘new generation Republican,’ potentially breaking new ground as a gay Republican in Congress. Peters ran on his bipartisan record and had substantial support from the business community.”

Two years ago, DeMaio, a former San Diego councilman who helped push pension reform, lost another close election for mayor to Democrat Bob Filner, who later was forced to resign due to personal scandals.

Although it has never been easy to unseat an incumbent in a state where the dominant party has a strong advantage, DeMaio’s experience paralleled that of a second gay Republican candidate. Richard Tisei, running for the 6th District in Massachusetts, lost out to Seth Moulton, a Marine veteran of the Iraq War who had defeated incumbent Democrat Rep. John Tierney during the district’s primary race.

In Tisei’s case as well as DeMaio’s, voters in a deep-blue state didn’t jump at the chance to vote for a credible, competent and openly gay Republican.

But in DeMaio’s case, importantly, the margin of defeat was very narrow, indicating that few Republican voters were deterred by the political implications of DeMaio’s sexual orientiation.

Although allegations of sexual misconduct by DeMaio toward staffers did cloud the campaign waters in the home stretch, Gregory Angelo, executive director of the Log Cabin Republicans, told the Atlantic magazine that he didn’t believe anti-gay attitudes caused DeMaio to fall short.

Pot issue

At the same time, at least one social issue — the legal status of marijuana — continued its movement toward the mainstream in a way that Republicans could capitalize on.

In recent remarks before members of the press, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., said his view from the Golden State counseled a liberalized, and pro-liberty, attitude toward pot. For more than two decades representing coastal Orange County, one of America’s most conservative areas, he just won-reelection, 64-36.

“The members of the Republican Party just should become more practical if nothing else,” he said. “The American people are shifting on this issue.” He warned the change would “make a difference in the election of some very close races.”

This article was originally published by CalWatchdog.com.

Kashkari’s Attention-Getting Ad has a Point

Neel Kashkari’s campaign for governor sought to gain attention with its first statewide television commercial and succeeded. The ad titled Betrayal depicts a boy drowning before being pulled to safety by Kashkari. The boy is symbolic of the school children Kashkari asserts have been abandoned by Governor Jerry Brown when he appealed the Vergara vs. California case.

The judge declared in Vergara that conditions in California schools for minority students “shock the conscience” in concluding that “grossly ineffective teachers” protected by the state’s teacher tenure laws deny minority students constitutional protections for an equal education.

Kashkari’s attention-getting ad is intended to get the media and, through the media, the people talking about this issue. With the one sided advantage the governor has in financial resources Kashkari is relying on an edgy campaign commercial to get his word out.

Brown argued that the appeal to a higher court was necessary if the teacher tenure laws are to be changed. Previously, I wrotethat an appellate ruling would be helpful in validating the lower court’s decision.

However, Brown’s reasoning for the appeal ignored the main question ruled upon by the Superior Court. He did not take a stand on the issue. He did not say that his goal with the appeal is to confirm that the current standards must change; that the students are being denied a quality education. He was silent on the issue.

By not speaking up for the students who brought the Vergara case it clearly appears that Brown is playing up to the teachers’ unions, as Kashkari charges. The unions adamantly want to wipe Vergara away.

I suppose there is something to say about the attention getting aspect of the ad – a boy drowning until pulled to safety by Kashkari. Attention to a child in jeopardy worked in the famous political commercial put out by Lyndon Johnson’s presidential campaign in 1964. A little girl picking flowers disappeared from the screen replaced by the mushroom cloud of an atomic explosion. That commercial actually ran only once but we are still talking about it 50 years later.

Kashkari, undoubtedly, was willing to use a dramatic image to get people talking.

Kashkari speaks of the problem examined in the Vergara case as a civil rights issue. If that is so, the dramatic ad to point out the issue can be compared to the demonstrations that were criticized during the civil rights era. They brought attention. But, the key for Kashkari is that people examine the core point he is making – that Brown is unwilling to stand up and proclaim that minority children are suffering under the current teacher protection laws supported by the unions — and not the ad’s image.

As Martin Luther King noted in his civil rights struggles of a half-century ago, while critics deplored demonstrations they failed to express similar concerns for the conditions that brought about the demonstrations. He wanted his critics to deal with the underlying causes.

Kashkari hopes his commercial will bring attention to the underlying problem and those who resist change.

This article was originally published on Fox and Hounds Daily.

Kashkari draws a media crowd

Neel Kashkari, Gov. Jerry Brown’s Republican challenger, has been playing a long game.

That hasn’t been immediately evident from the frenetic activity surrounding his final month of campaigning. Using a string of concept-driven political stunts, ranging from free prizes to a masquerade as a homeless man, Kashkari has established a reputation for putting elbow grease into his run for governor.

Yet into the active effort and strident rhetoric Kashkari has added a relatively tongue-in-cheek approach to the uphill run before him. Unusual for a Republican trying to make a name in other states — but not so out of place in California — the combination of smarts, sarcasm and street hustle has inspired the media, if not Democrats, to take a closer look.

A new brand

Interest has swirled around whether Kashkari plausibly can portray a character that many have referenced but few have embodied — a “different kind of Republican,” as The Economist put it. Over the summer, some conservative stalwarts began to notice Kashkari’s recipe for change involved scrambling old battle lines, not simply moving to the progressive left or the pro-corporate center.

In a column hailing Kashkari, George Will depicted him as the heir to Barry Goldwater, who in 1964 famously lost in a landslide to President Lyndon Johnson — yet inspired a conservative movement that elected Ronald Reagan president in 1980. “If California becomes a purple state and Democrats can no longer assume its 20 percent of 270 electoral votes, Republicans nationwide will be indebted to the immigrants’ son who plucked up Goldwater’s banner of conservatism with a Western libertarian flavor.”

Goldwater turned his electoral blowout into an opportunity to shift the national Republican Party. Kashkari’s underdog status has afforded a similar opportunity — and the political press has picked up on the strategy. Rather than offering the media a retread of tales of California Republicans’ past, Kashkari has presented a surprising spectacle. Wealthy political novices from business backgrounds, such as Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman, have tried to unseat top-tier Democrats before. They failed — leading national political journalists to question why the state GOP was willing to tolerate such a bad investment.Neel-Kashkari-Down-and-Out-300x165

Kashkari, who is not personally short on cash, has raised a far more modest campaign chest. But his small budget has become a buzz-building advantage. Not only has it fueled the kind of stunt-driven campaigning that grabs headlines, it has given state Republicans a feeling that neither donors nor the party have thrown good money after bad. And it has changed the media narrative, differentiating Kashkari from the political losers who have come before him.

The shift hasn’t necessarily played well with Kashkari’s natural allies across the country — Republicans close to Wall Street. After hitting the stump for him in early summer, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie couldn’t find time to share the state with Kashkari in the election season’s final weeks. Rather than a personal slight, however, the decision was strictly business: Christie was dispatched by the Republican Governors Association to help put well-positioned candidates over the top.

West coast credentials

The absence of monied East Coast support isn’t really a disadvantage for Kashkari. Earlier in his primary campaign, he had to shake his political association with the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP — the massive 2008 bailout program he was instrumental in designing and implementing under President George W. Bush. Kashkari seems to have determined that the West Coast — not Wall Street or his home state of Ohio — is the most hospitable territory for his brand of Republicanism.

Indeed, the swell of attention surrounding his approach has led some observers to suggest Kashkari could emerge from even a losing campaign as a powerful force in California Republican politics. Asked by the Santa Monica Mirror if he would consider a race for Senate in the years to come, Kashkari was blunt. “In all honesty, I’ve never ruled out any of those opportunities,” he said. Although, he added, he was “100 percent focused on November,” Mirror columnist Tom Elias placed his bet “on Kashkari starting right in on his next effort.”

And whereas he’s running against an incumbent this year, the next California U.S. Senate race is for the seat of Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer in 2016. Last month the Chronicle reported:

“Sen. Barbara Boxer says she has yet to make up her mind about seeking a fifth term in 2016, but there’s no shortage of signs that the Democrat may be opting out.

“It’s not just that she has less than $200,000 in her campaign account, compared with $3.5 million at this stage before her last election fight. Some comments from those who know the 73-year-old senator are also telling.

“‘She is not running for re-election,’ said one longtime Democratic fundraiser with deep ties to Boxer, who spoke only on background.”

Of course, she still might run. But if she retires, the open field, combined with Kashkari’s experience with this year’s campaign, could give him a big leg up in 2016.

This piece was originally published on CalWatchdog.com

Neel Kashkari: Returning CA to Path of Prosperity

When I started thinking about running for governor more than a year ago, it was in large part because I was frustrated by the Democrats’ ascension to one-party rule in Sacramento. Their big-government policies have continually failed millions of middle-class families across the state; that was no surprise. Since then, we’ve also seen a culture of corruption revealed in Sacramento that underscores the urgency of electing new leaders to guide our state.

The truth is, California is in desperate need of fresh, bold leadership that is unafraid of taking our state in a new direction. California has the potential to be the best place to live, but the fact of the matter is that we have been in a downward spiral for years. If you were to listen to Governor Jerry Brown, however, you would think that things have never been better in the Golden State. But his claims of a “California comeback” ring hollow for families, businesses and communities up and down the state.

In fact, Governor Brown has completely lost sight of California’s priorities. At a time when the state ranks 47th in jobs, 46th in education and 1st in poverty, his focus continues to be on his legacy: A $68 billion high-speed rail project that Californians don’t want and can’t afford.

jerry brown tax increase

California is perennially listed as one of the worst places to do business – Chief Executive Magazine awarded us the dubious honor again just a few weeks ago – yet Sacramento politicians turn a blind eye to these troubling statistics and continue to pass laws and regulations that make it more and more difficult for small businesses to grow. It sometimes feels as though a California company talks about moving to, or expanding in, Texas every other day. Businesses should be flocking to the Golden State – not from it.

California has some of the highest taxes in the nation, yet the tax-and-spend culture in Sacramento continues to thrive. Politicians can’t wait to get their hands on taxpayer dollars to waste on frivolous government programs. I recently called on Governor Brown to repeal the sales tax increase portion of Proposition 30 in order to bring relief to middle-class Californians who are working tirelessly to make ends meet – but that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

We know our state’s taxes are too high, they’re poorly designed and we’re not getting our money’s worth for the taxes we pay. And the ones who are struggling most as a result? Millions of middle-class families – and it’s time we held Governor Brown accountable.

The good news is that we know how to turn this around. We know how to unleash the private sector and to improve our schools. All across the nation, Republican leaders have implemented bold reforms that have produced remarkable results. We know that this can work – but it does require a willingness to challenge the status quo.

My first order of business as governor will be to cancel the high-speed rail project and instead invest it in water storage to help prepare for our state’s next, inevitable drought. I want to create incentives for companies that open manufacturing facilities and create jobs here. By safely tapping into our state’s natural resources, we can create thousands of jobs. Regulatory reform can make a huge difference in making our state friendlier to job creators.

Reforming our education system starts by giving control back to parents and teachers. Our kids aren’t all one size, so our policies shouldn’t be either. Giving schools and parents much more control over their budgets and how they educate their students provides them the opportunity to innovate in ways that can lift student achievement. Likewise, making higher education more accessible opens up doors to social mobility that can help close the inequality gap that’s grown ever larger in recent years.

As Election Day approaches, I am more convinced than ever that Republicans can take back Sacramento. Californians are fed up with the same tired rhetoric from career politicians who have run this state into the ground. The task won’t be easy, but I am up for the challenge. With voters’ support, we can win in November and return California to the path of prosperity.

Neel Kashkari, Republican candidate for governor, previously served in the U.S. Treasury Department during former President George W. Bush

Editor’s note: A column by state Assemblyman Tim Donnelly, Republican candidate for governor, will be published Saturday on CAPoliticalReview.com