In one of the strangest elections in my memory, California will be going to the polls next Tuesday with less consensus then I can ever remember. Before, it was just the Republicans who split into a dozen pieces, but now, the Democrats also seem to be eagerly going down the same path.
The Republicans have Donald Trump, who leaves many of them with a totally uneasy sense that he’s really an unknown quantity, capable of just about anything. As the race narrows, and focuses more on Trump’s business life and ethics (or lack of them), choosing between party loyalty and revulsion is going to become progressively more difficult. The latest event is the unwinding of the Trump University, which appears to be more scam than university, but it’s only one of the many Trump scandals that are going to be coming out between now and November like a water torture.
Just about the time the Democrats can practically taste victory, they are splintering all over the place. My view is the longer Bernie Sanders stays in the race, the tougher it’s going to be for Hillary Clinton. Strangely, many of the Democrats I know like what Sanders says, but don’t believe that he can be elected president, but they’re going to vote for him anyway as a protest against something or other.
That leaves Clinton — competent, experienced, best prepared, with a closet full of her own scandals and her biggest negative — she’s a boring candidate. Unfortunately, she is running in a year when competence, experience and know how don’t seem to count for much. Clinton’s problem is that she’s old news. They have been shooting at her for 30-40 years, and after a while, some of the attack sticks. It doesn’t matter if it’s not true because no one can remember that far back. Heck, if people question Clinton’s truthfulness compared to Trump, she’s Mother Teresa, but truth and reality don’t seem to matter that much in this election cycle.
Money has also become a bigger issue in this election cycle. It’s hard to know what delusional thinking went through the minds of justices of the U.S. Supreme Court when they decided the Citizens United case, but when they decided that money was speech, it meant that candidates have to be very rich or talk very loud. Trump is the progeny of Citizens United.
You can see the impact of Citizens United here in California, particularly in the state races. It was front page in the LA Times on Tuesday, talking about the Independent Expenditure Committees, who are spending large amounts of money, anonymously, hiding behind bland-sounding fronts, usually to knock out someone they fear. In our local Senate election, the oil lobby is spending a small fortune to knock out Henry Stern, who they’re afraid of, and putting their bucks on Janice Kamenir-Reznik, who the industry figures they can live with. The candidates’ election committees and the independent expenditure committees are not supposed to coordinate — in fact, it’s illegal to do so. What happens, however, is that the positive stuff is mailed with the candidates’ names on it and all the hit pieces come from some anonymous Independent Expenditure Committees, as you’ve seen in the local Senate race. Sadly, it’s usually quite effective.
Another thing that you’re seeing is additional slate mailers going to all the voters in the district. I just received one called “Parents for Progress Slate Mailer,” which doesn’t tell you much. They’ve endorsed nine candidates for various offices and in the small print it says, “Appearance is paid for and authorized by each candidate designated by an *.” In this case, every name has an “*,” which means every one of the nine candidates paid to be placed on the slate mailer.
See you at the polls.
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P.S. The operational problems with the sale of Verizon to Frontier have finally reached the ears of the state legislative, and the California Utilities and Commerce Committee held a hearing last week. Frontier said the problems were due principally to corrupted data and apologized. We’ll keep you posted if the inquiry goes anywhere.