Well played, Gov. Moonbeam!

[Sue U]

Jerry Brown's campaign really hit the mark with these two ads, the first featuring Meg Whitman's (accidental, probably!) endorsement of him and the second -- well, can we call her The Meginator?





Brown may be a million-year-old fossil, but he (or at least his campaign staff) has a great sense of humor!

[Guinevere]

OMG -- I especially adore the second one. To be fair, those same little clips probably have come out of the mouths of 90% of the politicians in this country, but how they are used in the ad is *genius.*

[Sue U]

Yeah, but check out the clip here from last night's Daily Show, showing Arizona crypt-keeper John "Hey You Kids, Get Off My Lawn" McCain complaining about how "Washington is broken" -- for the last 23 years!

What is truly dumb is that politicians have been trotting out the "Washington is broken" meme at least since the Tyler administration (when McCain was first elected, I believe), and the idiot segment of the electorate still laps it up as some great truth.

[Lord Jim]

The Democrats in California having something going for them that Dems in other parts of the country don't, that should help them bridge the turnout gap....

The state initiative to legalize marijuana should bring out some voters that otherwise would stay home, and most of those will likely be more inclined to vote for Democratic candidates....

I think this is the main reason that "Likely Voter" surveys in California have tended to show the Demo candidates for Governor and Senate running stronger than in many other states....

I believe Fiorina still has a chance to knock of Boxer, (though she's run a pretty lackluster campaign; Boxer has extremely high negatives) but things are not looking good for Whitman.

[Guinevere]

RCP has Brown at +9.5 right now, and Boxer at +6.6 and climbing. I think you're still going to be stuck in Democrat land, LJ.

[dales]

I already voted and did NOT vote for Witman and voted YES on Prop. 19.

[loCAtek]

... things are not looking good for Whitman.

That's if you believe the LA Times poll, but Meg made a good point in an interview to Diana Sawyer (which hasn't gotten a lot of media attention, hmmm). The LA Times polled about ~1000 people, made up of their own readers, after they already came out in favor of Jerry Brown.

[Big RR]

Actually, IMHO, things don't look good for any of them; I was in CA last week and all I saw in both the Brown/Whitman and Forina/Boxer races were ads on why people should not vote for their opponents--how untrustworthy they were, etc. Not one damn word on why people should vote for the candidate paying for the ad. It's not just in CA, that seems to be par for the course--attack ad after attack ad; pretty annoying.

[Crackpot]

yep pols have completely lost the plot and believe their own hyperbole.

[Lord Jim]

Boxer at +6.6 and climbing.

The latest polls have it back to a 4-5 point margin, and Babs has rarely broken 50%.....that one is still a race.

[Gob]

I'm sorry, I only speak English and Welsh...

[dales]

That's one more language than I speak.

[The Hen]

I LOVE the second ad, absolutely love it. A clever idea that may just get pinched for Oz sometime in the future .....

[Lord Jim]

Yeah it's clever and it's amusing, but it's unfair in a couple of ways....

First, because as Guin correctly pointed out:

those same little clips probably have come out of the mouths of 90% of the politicians in this country

I would argue 99% in this election cycle....

But it's also unfair because it tries to make Arnold look like a fraud....

And I think Arnold has gotten a really bum rap....

I think he did a pretty good job, given the circumstances he had to confront in this state...no Governor is going to look good in a state with 12% unemployment....Did he naively overstate what he could accomplish, and underestimate the intrinsic problems within the state legislature, and under estimate the power of the public sector employee unions?

You betcha....

And that last line should give one pause:

"California should be run like a business....we tried that"....(well, no we really didn't)

So the alternative should be.......?????

We should run California like a commune?

What's the other option?

[Big RR]

Perhaps run California like a state, recognizing it has interests and responsibilities to its citizens that businesses do not have, and setting policies based on those?

[rubato]

Meg Whitman is turning out to be a lightweight both morally and mentally compared to Jerry Brown.


Jerry pioneered the 'smaller and more frugal' government and practiced it better than any Republican has in the past 30 years.


yrs,
rubato

[rubato]

Perhaps run California like a state, recognizing it has interests and responsibilities to its citizens that businesses do not have, and setting policies based on those?

Exactly.

"Run government like a business" is a slogan only for the very most stupid people.

Businesses are amoral institutions run purely to advantage the executives and to a lesser degree the shareholders with no morality or responsibility except what is required by ... ready for it? ... effective government regulation. Businesses are allowed to collapse and impoverish all of their shareholders (Enron employee 401ks ?) while government cannot exercise that option; in fact government with ultimately have to provide support for all of those who lost their retirements.


yrs,
rubato

[oldr_n_wsr]

Actually, IMHO, things don't look good for any of them; I was in CA last week and all I saw in both the Brown/Whitman and Forina/Boxer races were ads on why people should not vote for their opponents--how untrustworthy they were, etc. Not one damn word on why people should vote for the candidate paying for the ad. It's not just in CA, that seems to be par for the course--attack ad after attack ad; pretty annoying.

Those are pretty much the only ads I've seen. And reading the newspaper doesn't clear up the candidates positions on things very much either.
I miss a local paper we used to have here on Long Island called Suffolk Life. It used to send all the candidates questionaires to fill out with questions taylored to the post they were seeking. usually 50 to 100 quesstions long. Then they would publish the answers and the reader would answer teh questions also and find out which candidate your views were closest too. I loved that, while not a complete picture it certainly gave you more insight into which candidate "thought similarly" to yourself.

[Big RR]

Yep, packaging a candidate like any other product, and preventing him/her from saying anything (s)he could be called upon to discuss and/or criticized for is par for the course in modern politics; likewise, attacking one's opponent has filled the void in what the candidates can say. Is it any wonder that we have so many idiotic politicians elected to office who cannot take a position or hold to any pronciples.

IMHO, I think this is part of the appeal of movements like the Tea Party; politicians still bash everyone else (people seem to love that), but they also take real positions that they hold fast to. And the people, not used to discussing or debating positions, see this as a sign of strength, however idiotic, or poorly presented, the positions are. IMHO, it's this attitude that allowed W to garner as many votes as he did, even when he wasn't all that popular.

[Guinevere]

The teapartiers lowered the bar the minute they started hating everything and everyone. Unfortunately, once any campaign goes negative, it is very very difficult to stay on the positive side. I have to give Deval Patrick props for really focussing on the positive in his campaign, and I think he's going to pull out a victory against a very tough republican candidate.

As for the unfairness of the Brown commercial, the only thing that's "unfair" about it is that his folks had the brilliance to do it first.