I have spent the last several years trying to make a living, to become a profit center for the state of California, instead of a cost of doing business.  I have learned that once you no longer have a vote in the Legislature, people forget your name, and your opinions count for little.  I voice those opinions, nevertheless, from time to time, in the hopes that someone might listen to them.

So, I want to voice my opinion on Governor.  Now that the convention is over, and everyone has heard the candidates.  The newspapers have analyzed the speeches, and the blogs have clashed their cymbals.  I come to this point with the knowledge that I have not always been right about my choices.  Bill Simon had to defeat Richard Riordan for the primary nomination, to avoid a complete meltdown of the Republican Party in 2002, but he was a terrible candidate for Governor.  Afraid to take a position, constantly alienating people at all turns because of his weakness, and severe personal issues that arose just before the election doomed his chances.  I endorsed Simon despite these weaknesses, and we lost that Governor’s race to the incompetent Gray Davis.

I endorsed Schwarzenegger as well in the recall.  I know McClintock was running, but there was no way Tom would win that race.  I endorsed Schwarzenegger with my eyes opened, knowing his Governorship could become problematic, but I felt that since conservatives started the recall, we should win it, and Tom wasn’t going to win it.  I also knew that a lot of conservatives felt like me, but would be too afraid to say so.  I took the step, paid the price, but did it to protect the Conservative movement in California.  The movement was then, and is now, more important to me that my personal reputation, or my personal career.  I paid the price for that endorsement, and Schwarzenegger betrayed the movement.  He has paid the price for his betrayal, as the current budget problems demonstrate, but the movement survived, and even now, candidates for Governor still sound like Ronald Reagan.

So, you may ask, why did I endorse Steve Poizner?  Simple–I know Tom Campbell very well, served with him in the Legislature for quite some time.  Tom is a nice guy, and very smart, but he is contemptuous of conservatives, and very arrogant about it.  He will do severe damage to the party and to the movement if he is the nominee, and he will be too arrogant to understand why.

By the same token, I have no idea who Meg Whitman is.  We had the same problem with Schwarzenegger, we didn’t know who he was.  He sounded good when he held up brooms and said he was going to blow up boxes.  But he didn’t sweep out corruption, he hired it into his administration, and he didn’t blow up boxes he just made them bigger.  Whitman suffers from the same lack of believability.  Don’t tell me what you are going to do, show me what you have done.

That leads me to Poizner.  When I first met Steve, he was running for the Assembly in the Bay Area.  I helped him, but I didn’t like his positions or his attitudes.  I didn’t think he would be good for the party.  He lost that election, angered conservatives, and made lots of mistakes.  The next time I saw Steve, I was at a CRA convention in Bakersfield.  That was when my mind changed about him.  CRA conventions are difficult things for candidates.  Some of the members are rude, some committed, vocal conservatives.  If they don’t like you there, you will know soon enough.  Candidates who show up to the convention best be ready for rough sledding.  The CRA is a tough audience.

Poizner is not a CRA kind of candidate.  But I watched him.  He stayed the whole weekend, patiently endured the good, the bad and the ugly that conservative activists can dish out, and he came through.  A guy who I would have thought would have been run out of that place on a rail, survived and got the nomination.  He came out of that convention with the respect of conservatives, because he respected the conservative activists that were there.  I was impressed.

Sure, I don’t like all of his positions.  Sure, he has made mistakes in the past (by the way, so have I, I was a Democrat until 5 years before I was elected to the Legislature).  Sure, he is not a Ray Haynes or Tom McClintock sort of conservative, but he listens to us, he respects us, and he will make us an important part of his administration.  That means a lot to me.  It took four years for Pete Wilson to learn that conservatives were a valuable asset.  Schwarzenegger still hasn’t learned, and is paying the price.  Campbell will never learn, and we can’t afford on-the-job training for Whitman.  Poizner has learned, and acted on the things he has learned, and he is a better Republican, and a better politician for it.

Poizner can win, and he is the best choice available for conservatives, because I know conservatives will have a voice in his administration.  He will not be perfect, and will not always listen to us, but he comes to the office with a respect for conservatives in the party, and treats them as a valuable part of the team.  That is an important thing, and a necessary first step for the conservative revolution that will come to California.

That is my opinion, anyway, for what is worth.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 28th, 2009 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.