A little over a year ago (long before the election last year), I made the prediction that crime and tax rates would increase, and that Republicans should start simply campaigning on those two issues as quickly as possible. Since Republicans are in the minority and don’t have the governor’s office, the cacophony of events tend the drown out what small voice they have, and when crime and taxes started making headlines, having been consistent on the issues before there was a problem would pay off in rich political benefits. Good policy always makes for good politics.
Recently, Abel Maldonado started making an issue of crime. Whatever you may think of him, he should be lauded for this foresight. The Dems know it is going to be an issue, which is why they started attacking him as a racist. They want to strangle this political baby in the crib. My advice to Abel, do not fear. Show pictures of other criminals (of various ethnic backgrounds), released by Jerry Brown who have committed crimes (like the guy who killed four people in Northridge), but keep after the issue. It is only going to get worse (and, as further advice to Abel, figure out how to get right on the tax issue, even though you voted for one of the largest tax increases in the history of the state. If you can combine the two, you might become Governor).
The crime issue is grabbing hold. The Dems keep letting bad guys go, and people are starting to figure out that the issue is not that crazy federal judge, it is the fact that the Dems refuse to build prisons. We have not built a prison in this state since 1996, no wonder California’s prisons are overcrowded. As these criminals are set free, they are doing what they were trained to do, commit crimes. Burglaries are skyrocketing, auto thefts are going through the roof. 20 years of the application of sound principles in fighting crime, instituted by Governors Deukmejian and Wilson, and which resulted in the sharpest drop in crime in the history of the state, are being thrown in the trash bin, and the good people of California are paying the price. It is not the county’s fault, it is not even the prison system’s fault, it is the fault of the Governor and the Legislative Democrats, who refuse to acknowledge that putting bad guys in prison and leaving them there is the only rational means of dealing with crime. You can’t rehabilitate bad people. They will either rehabilitate themselves, because they figure out being a criminal is a dead end occupation, or they will die in prison. That’s it.
Of course, there is another policy option to dealing with the current fight with the federal judiciary rather than build prisons, one I think would be interesting. If I were Governor Brown, and worried about my re-election for fear of being found soft on crime, and I couldn’t get the Legislative Democrats to build more prisons, I would tell the federal judiciary to go pound sand. It would lead to a rather interesting 10th Amendment/states’ rights confrontation. On a practical level, the only solution for the feds to enforce the federal court order would be to send in federal troops. It is one thing to send in federal troops to allow a young African American child to go to school. It is quite another to send in federal troops to let an old child molester out of prison. The visuals on the difference would not be lost on the public, and when that criminal committed his next crime (as he undoubtedly would), the entire political metric would change.
It is a fight worth having. Crime is increasing dramatically. Taxes are increasing, dramatically. The IRS is out of control. The issues are easy to understand. Politically, over the next year, it is going to be like shooting fish in a barrel. Don’t worry about the business climate. To most voters, as long as they have a job, they are not worried about whether their neighbor has a job or not. They are worried about their neighbor being a criminal, though, and they are worried about their own bank account. The campaign really needs to begin today, not next year.
Crime and taxes, crime and taxes, crime and taxes. People will know it is the Dems fault.