Two events this week could be harbingers for the kind of year Democrats face in California. The latest Field Poll finds that 95 percent of Californians believe we are in “bad times,” and 60 percent say their own well being has worsened over the past 12 months – since Barack Obama became president. This is not exactly “change we can believe in.”
The second event, of course, is the Massachusetts Miracle, Sen-elect Scott Brown’s triumph for Ted Kennedy’s old Senate seat. It has fallen like a brick on a teacup, and it has important implications for California. Could the Republicans do here what they did in Massachusetts?
To answer that, it pays to look at Massachusetts and the Brown campaign. This is the most Democratic big state in the country; more Democratic than California. The last time a Republican won a US Senate race was 37 years ago. If it could happen there, it can happen here.
But the Republicans had a remarkable candidate in Scott Brown; he was a moderate member of their legislature, pro-choice, and he ran exclusively on economic issues – the very thing the Field Poll says Californians want addressed. He campaigned hardest in working class towns like Worcester.
Places like Worcester are Democratic, but they are not liberal. When the Democrats drink of the cub of liberal elitism and forget the working folks – as many feel the Obama Administration has done – they are open to crossing party lines.
In California, the Worcester type voters are often Latinos and Asian, entrepreneurial small business owners. They put their faith in Obama in 2008 and are disappointed in 2010. But what do they find when they look at the Republicans – a party of immigrant bashers and elitist right wingers who tell what they are against not what they are for.
Neither GOP gubernatorial candidate, Meg Whitman nor Steve Poizner has spelled out a platform to make people’s lives better. All Poizner has tried to do is prove he is the most right wing guy in town by pandering to the “base.” Whitman started her campaign by calling for firing state workers in a time of already high unemployment.
Carly Fiorina and Tom Campbell in the Senate race want to talk about fiscal/economic issues and avoid the right wing stuff, but the likelihood is that they will kill each other off in the primary and assure the nomination of social conservative Chuck DeVore, a sure loser who will join the long list of too conservative statewide GOP candidates like Tony Strickland, Dick Mountjoy and Tom McClintock.
Jerry Brown and Barbara Boxer might not sleep soundly tonight. But they need not worry too much because California Republicans have not proven themselves ready for a Massachusetts Miracle – not yet.