Money talks in California
The victory of Prop 14 worked thematically with the GOP primary wins for the two Betsy Rich twins of the party, Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman. And the theme is this: Money talks. Money buys and now Money rules completely the State of California.
Both Fiorina and Whitman essentially used the gold-plated steamroller to overcome their primary opposition. Fiorina spent so much for her U.S Senate race that runner-up former U.S. House Member Tom Campbell pulled his TV ads and basically cried uncle. When Whitman was threatened in the polls in her race for governor against state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, she just spent more, and more and more and more until the seat was her’s by title. In one of the most expensive primary races even in U.S. history, Whitman spent $81 million, some $500,000 per day in her campaign. And all that money wasn’t all just for buttons and yard signs. She chartered her own jets, she spent freely on Washington consultants (no doubt happy she decided to run) — like Mike Murphy at $90,000 a month according to the Boston Globe — and also on a “crew of videographers and the former White House photographer to chronicle her stops” along with “an entire TV feed at the host hotel during the state convention.”
Fiorina and Whitman are the kind of candidates we’ll be seeing a lot more of in California in the future after Prop 14 passed 54-46. They’re essentially the same as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, bored rich people with money to burn. And now that they don’t have to run in a closed party primary, they don’t have to waste time trying to get the endorsements of groups like the California Republican Assembly or labor unions for that matter, in order to win. Just more and more TV ads, enough to make for a mini-series worth of programming. The old days when Orange County conservatives had great sway in the state party are long since gone now, candidates like State Sen. Chuck DeVore finished third in the Senate primary despite being a Tea Party favorite. The parties now become virtually meaningless when everyone runs against everyone in a “blanket primary” and all that’s needed is big bank account.
It was Californian, former State Treasurer Jesse Unruh, who once said “Money is the mother’s milk of politics.” The reason being, of course, that in California money buys media. In state that’s too large and has too many markets and whose voters are too diverse and too mobile for kind of citizens politics of the upper Midwest or retail politics of small state or even the machine vote structures of a big Eastern or Midwest city, if one doesn’t not have money, one cannot compete. The DeVores and Campbells of the state, the veteran and established pols will be replaced by the Whitmans, Fiorinas, Schwarzeneggers and Al Checchi’s of the world that have the cash to create an image for themselves to run on. Never mind what their ideas are or what they say on the campaign trail or how they plan to govern. None of that will matter in the onslaught of 30 second ads. It certainly didn’t this time around.
From the first link you cited above:
“Already, Democrats Brown and Boxer are working to dismiss the two Republicans as “heartless” corporate chieftains used to laying off workers rather than protecting the little guy.”
Is there anything you can do to try to help the Democrats? Is there any way you can denigrate the Republicans? Is there any way you can portray Fiorina and Whitman as “heartless corporate chieftains”?
Sean Scallon. Find a conservative, fling mud at a conservative. Business as usual. Change a Liberal can believe in.
[...] Money talks in California Money talks. Money buys and now Money rules completely the State of California. [...]
Prop 14 is a disaster for third parties in CA. The ballot qualified AIP in CA (despite the recent hijacking by the sour grapes Keyes crowd) has always been the crown jewel of the national Constitution Party. Passage of Prop 14 makes the struggle for control of the AIP between the CP loyal faction and the Keyes faction virtually meaningless.
I didn’t follow Carly’s campaign but I
heard Meg’s commercials on the SF
classical radio station and they were
great ! She’s a libertarian conservative
and I’ll take her any day over that hack
Jerry Brown. The Left is enraged about
her and she’s pro-choice on abortion.
Believes in public funding which is
exactly what is needed. Tom Campbell
in the Senate race was just another Pete
McCloskey clone and his stand on gun
rights was terrible. Devore sounded like
a born again Ayn Rand until military,
so-called security, abortion and all the
usual baggage of conservative statism.
I’m tired of statist idiots complaining
about money. Nothing wrong with money
AND no one forces you to vote for anyone.
Nowadays you need LOTS of money
to fight the statist-collectivist status
quo.
Whitman and Fiornia conservatives? Chuckle, chuckle, chuckle.
Speaking of conservatives, Prop. 14 is a disaster because controlling the party apparatus or at least having great influence over it means nothing now. Money buys a lot of things and what it does buy is is the ability for RINOs to ignore conservatives within the party. Unfortunately they waited until it was too late or really didn’t understand what was happening here. No doubt the Son of Schwarzenegger is out there, some Silicon Valley CEO, will run for some statewide office by cashing out his stock options and will be the next California Republican leader treat people in his own party like dirt. It reminds one of the Upstate Republican conservatives of New York in the 1960s and 70s who were chained to Nelson Rockefeller due to his largess to the party. Same situation.
This rule by money politics has been going on for some time in the Golden State with ballot referendum process. What was designed to break control of the special interests in the state legislature has been captured by the very same interests thanks to the miracle of television. Corporations spend billions for ads and they get want they want, just like they did with Prop 14. Now it’s going to spread to political office.
Good for Carly and Meg! The best economic stimulus package possible for the state of California is to watch these two corporate harlots spend hundreds of millions of dollars to lose in the general election! Meg will probably lose by 15% and Carly by 10%! Go get em’ girls!