Our last Republican to hold statewide office was Governor Pete Wilson who left the office in 1999. I’m not counting the last, failed action-star who just left the office and was about as Republican as Nancy Pelosi. Schwarzenegger supported both Cap and Trade, and Obamacare. The Republican brand has died in California. Many folks have been doing the post mortem. In the last election cycle, despite the Republican resurgence throughout the country, not a blip of hope was on the screen here.
How bad was it during the last election cycle? When the electorate chooses Barbara “general, call me senator” Boxer over a former HP chief Carly Fiorina, it’s bad. They chose an anti-death penalty Attorney General, Kamala Harris who even refused to apply a death penalty to cop killers. California chose Ms. Harris over Steve Cooley, a republican who was a successful DA from Los Angeles. Additionally, Ms. Harris had the lowest conviction rate of any big city district attorney.No Republican won any constitutional office in the state in 2010. It was a wipeout.
“There’s been a broad repudiation of traditional conservative Republicans in California,” said Tony Quinn, a former GOP analyst and co-editor of the California Target Book, which tracks state politics. “There are almost no areas in the state that can be considered safely Republican anymore.”
To add insult to injury, since 2004 GOP registration shrank by 317,000 at the same time Democrats picked up 563,000. That’s a whopping democrat advantage of over three quarters of a million voters.
Where’s our leadership? Here’s where -attending mock funerals for the party. There was one recently held for the GOP where Duf Sundheim, a former state GOP chair declared, “Republicans, as a brand, are dead.” Can we please resolve now not to elect GOP chairmen named; Duf, or Biff or Buff or any other caricature names of the idle white and rich?
Ok, we get it. It’s now time for our wake up call. We need to shift gears and get this beat up truck down the track. I haven’t heard much in the way of new or inspiring ideas from any of the state GOP party apparatchik.
Here are some positive ideas:
Focus on economic issues.
Face reality. As much as they’re important to many of us, social issues are a loser in California. Although the GOP won on the defense of marriage initiative; they just barely won. It’s not a winner issue for the GOP particularly if they want to attract new and younger voters going forward. That’s just the facts.
We need to focus in on putting statewide ballot propositions before the voters that are sponsored by Republicans working in coalitions and improve the GOP brand. Ideas that show we are the leaders.
Seven simple propositions the GOP should run with:
1) Reigning in pensions. Pensions are out of control and are killing us. We need to have a state ballot initiative that forces our government pensions to be just like those in private companies. We have to have a way to make sure that the employee contributions are both larger and the state share smaller. Also that the state obligation is funded properly each year so that no public debt is accrued even in an economic downturn.
2) Repeal collective bargaining for public employees. We may not win, but we’ll certainly get big public support. There’s just 12% union membership nationally, but 17.5% in California, thanks to unionized civil servants. Most people struggling today with both unemployment and underemployment and job uncertainty don’t want to pay for golden parachutes to these coddled state workers. You know the wind is at our back when the New York Times agrees with you.
3) Pay go. A constitutional amendment that there will be no new spending bills without a way to pay for them in the bill. That should slow things down, as any new taxes requires a vote of the people in California. The new amendment should also take into consideration bills that have cost of living increases; that too must be calculated into the funding requirement.
4) No increase in debt. Establish a debt ceiling, over which we can not sell more bonds. Our budget is increasing each year, while our income is declining. We then sell more and more bonds to balance the budget. We should not be able to sell more bonds each year, we should be focusing on decreasing the debt and expenses. A constitutional amendment would solve that problem.
5) Protect our voter passed propositions. Give legal standing to proposition proponents. We need to amend our constitution to make clear that ballot sponsors have legal standing to defend the propositions that the voters pass when the Attorney General (AG) won’t (ie. Defense of Marriage prop). Previously, Governor Gray Davis refused to defend another voter passed initiative that said we won’t give benefits to illegal aliens. Yes, that passed in California in 1994. It was Proposition 187, a federal judge struck it down and both our AG and governor would not appeal it. That’s outrageous and should be grounds for contempt or removal from office. They were both sworn to uphold our constitution, but failed to do so.
6) Impeach the AG and Governor. We need a constitutional amendment that removes the AG and governor whenever they fail to vigorously defend a citizen passed proposition! That’s basic.
7) No social benefits for illegal aliens. Unbelievably, an identical measure passed in California in 1994 despite the wailing of the liberal media. A federal judge later struck it down on tenuous grounds, but it was never appealed. Gov Gray Davis prevented its appeal.
A new proposition should be fashioned to pass constitutional muster. Most Californians would again pass limits on social service benefits to illegals. With the state economy in a free fall, most Californians don’t want to pay the billions in social benefits for illegal aliens. Sixty-five percent of all births in L.A. General hospital are already to illegal aliens.
Passionately promoting statewide ballot propositions that have broad public appeal, while simultaneously building coalitions, is the only wave that republicans will ever ride to get back into office. Unfortunately, just having pro-business, intelligent and tele-genetic candidates is apparently not enough. We’ve been there, tried that. We need fresh ideas and the horsepower to follow through with them.
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