I will have to admit – I’m tired of posers. What we need are principled fiscal conservatives leading California’s Government. I would love to go for the old "outreach template" in the Governor’s race, but its never produced an effective leader.
It has been painful during these past few weeks to watch Meg Whitman drag the California Republican Party into the mess that is her voting record. Worse still, Whitman has offered contradicting versions of her past, and clearly misled members of the Republican Party during her convention speech this past February in Sacramento.
Last February, Whitman told delegates at the California Republican Convention that:
“As you may have read, I’ve been a registered “decline to state” voter since 1998.”
Unfortunately, we now know that statement directly contradicts the facts. What is also unfortunate is that the jury is still out on when she even registered to vote for the first time.
First – She told Republicans at the Republican Convention in February that she registered in 1998.
Second – She then seemed confused about how to answer basic questions about her record during an excruciating press conference at this year’s GOP Convention. That one I couldn’t believe. Poor preparation.
Third – She said she was wrong at February’s convention, and she actually registered in 2002.
Fourth – Her campaign then insisted that she registered in 1999, which she did, but she still didn’t vote one single time.
Fifth – She says she was wrong before and she clearly remembers voting in 1984. In this case, she says the proof that she voted is that there is no proof that she didn’t…
The bottom line here is that a candidate for Governor should be able to answer simple questions about their past. How will someone who can’t answer such basic questions defeat Jerry Brown, handle the unions in Sacramento, or resist Democratic efforts to increase taxes?
I’m sure that there will be more revelations about Meg’s voting record in the coming days, but the real question here is whether the Republican Party of California wants to continue to be associated with this story and this candidate. Especially considering she has only been a member of our party since 2007 and publicly endorsed Barbara Boxer in 2003.
October 8th, 2009 at 12:00 am
Mike interesting Post. You start your post by saying what we need is “What we need are principled fiscal conservatives leading California’s Government.”
Okay Im with you there.
But then you spend the rest of your post talking about how Meg mislead the party on her voting record. Your post seems more of a political slam piece rather than a thoughtful discussion on fiscal responsibility.
When the issue of Meg’s voting record became public I asked myself two questions, First Is voting the most important qualification to run for office? If the answer is yes, then we will all have to vote for Jerry Brown, because Im sure he has voted in all of the past elections.
The second is will the people of California care about her voting record. The answer Mike is that they wont. The people who care about it are political insiders like you and me. (and liberal members of the Media who will do their best to defeat any Republican.)
So back to what you stated was what you wanted in a governor. “A fiscal principled fiscal conservative.” Your concern was about how the candidates will handle tax increases or the labor unions. I seem to recall that Republicans who campaigned against tax increases and called themselves principle raised my taxes last year. (I bet those three Republican Assemblyman voted in every election.)
So, your tired of Posers, me too but I seem to recall from day one that Meg Whitman said she did not have a perfect voting record. But you failed to make the argument (which got me to read your post) that Meg Whitman is not fiscally responsible. As someone who has to run a business in this state let me try make the argument you failed to make.
One only has to look at Meg’s success at running Ebay to make to meet your criteria. She’s created thousands of jobs by using the best principle that our party preaches. That’s the principle of fair, open competition, the principle of unleashing the entrepreneurial spirit of this great state. (many small businesses operate under eBay umbrella.) (In fairness we have two candidates that meet that standard.)
Maybe Meg made a mistake, she should of said she was two busy helping people achieve economic success, As someone who runs a business, trust me when I tell you its more than a full time job. And if I screw up people lose their jobs. No instead she just said, ” I make a mistake.”
With the exception of my wife, I have yet to meet the perfect human.”