Personally, I'd like to see both of them swinging by their necks from electrical poles like pinatas that have long been emptied of treats. They are both useless, and neither seems to know it.
Jerry Brown is the best thing to happen to Meg Whitman. Next to him, she appears competent ... until she opens her mouth and starts talking about the doomed California economy and her plan to save it by eliminating over 40,000 good paying jobs. Remember, payroll taxes give the state 55% of its operating revenue. Cutting those jobs will hurt, but Whitman has a plan to replace those jobs. She hasn't said that, of course, but one would figure she's got to, right? Opening more Burger Kings would do that. Awesome!
Brown, on the other hand, has been around a lot. He's establishment. He's been loved and hated, and he, like Whitman, is quick to claim California is dying. His plan? Like Whitman's, it's virtually unstated.
Brown and Whitman have failed to articulate that the entire country is in an economic downturn that could quite possibly make the Depression look like a warm-up. California's economy will not fully recover until the country is back on the right track. It is economic ecology -- all tied together. We Californians may like to think we are some sort of oasis, but the truth is we are just as much vultures as the other states. We have been feeding off the corpse of greed-based capitalism for so long that now that the marrow's been sucked dry we don't know where to turn.
Can the economy be saved? Of course. The economy is not a force of nature. It is manipulated. It is, when you get right down to it, an enormous fakery, a sham religion believed in by the masses. California can take small steps to help itself (legalizing marijuana is the first step), but it won't fully recover until the country is back on its feet. When will that happen? Hard to say, as so many different factors must come into place. Consumer confidence must grow. Jobs must be created and maintained. Our "leaders" must work together and stop pretending that a black man is the worst thing that could happen to a country. Endless war must be ended. We must listen to what the rest of the world is saying, and we must admit that our future is tied into the world's future. It's a global economy. It's not a national economy. Global.
Watching Meg and Jerry go at it via insane television and radio ads is amusing at best. Unfortunately, it seems that both are on track to make things worse. I fear one of them will be elected before some assassin or force of nature takes them both out. Whitman will act without thinking. Brown won't act at all.
It's far too long before the election. Best to shut off the TV.
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