Should the California GOP focus more on the Lieutenant Gov race than Gov race?

[Хahar 🤔]

Despite his impressive vote totals, Gavin Newsom is not popular among liberals, at least in the Bay Area. In a contested primary election against a strong liberal candidate like Kamala Harris, he would probably lose. However, the Caliornia Democratic Party is generally sufficiently well-run (the Controller near-debacle aside) for such a contest to never take place, and the sort of people who dislike Newsom would not vote for a Republican instead. There is discontent with Newsom, and we would see more of it if he held a more important office than Lieutenant Governor, but the Republican Party cannot possibly capitalize on it.

The bigger issue for the Republican Party in California is that it has no viable candidates. Republican candidates for office in California fall into two categories: non-politicians and elected officials. Non-politicians are generally seen as moderates; they are willing to run for office because they have no existing office that they need to give up in order to run, but they invariably face the twin issues of lack of enthusiasm from the conservative base and hostility on the part of the general public to Republican policies. If they are rich self-funders, like Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina in 2010, they attract negative attention for that; if they are not, like Elizabeth Emken in 2012, they attract no attention at all and lose a landslide in obscurity. Elected officials, on the other hand, are generally state legislators (Republican members of the House are unwilling to give up their seats to launch futile efforts at statewide office) from places like Orange County, which means they have far-right positions that please the base but horrify the rest of the electorate. None of them ever win.

The only recent Republican candidate in California who was actually a good candidate was Steve Cooley, the Los Angeles County district attorney who ran for Attorney General in 2010. Cooley was a visible figure from a traditionally Democratic area running against an outspoken left-winger in a Republican year, and yet even he lost by 75,000 votes. I find it hard to see how any Republican could win in California for the foreseeable future when he couldn't.

In this century, the only Republicans to be elected to statewide office in California were Arnold Schwarzenegger and Steve Poizner; both owed their elections to the strange circumstances of the 2003 recall and its aftermath, and both left office in ignominious fashion, unable to hold the support even of their fellow Republicans. The problem that Republicans have isn't one of strategy; it's much larger than that. Barring a massive demographic shift in the opposite direction of current trends, Republicans are trapped in a permanent minority. That won't change for at least as long as the national party doesn't see it as a problem.

[Хahar 🤔]

Kashkari could open the door for better performance among Californian Asians, as well as more moderate gays, libertarian-esque voters, and other groups. Obviously he's not going to win this year, but his positions are well suited for California and can be the beginning of better performances for the GOP in the future.

Neel Kashkari is a banker who used his position at Goldman Sachs to secure a job at the Treasury Department, where he was in charge of disbursing bailout funds until he left to use his Goldman Sachs money to fund his run for governor. He is not a candidate with any appeal to any group, which is why he'll be demolished in November. I would be shocked if he improved on or even held relatively steady compared to Whitman's 2010 vote in any state in the country.

[Хahar 🤔]

Kashkari could open the door for better performance among Californian Asians, as well as more moderate gays, libertarian-esque voters, and other groups. Obviously he's not going to win this year, but his positions are well suited for California and can be the beginning of better performances for the GOP in the future.

Neel Kashkari is a banker who used his position at Goldman Sachs to secure a job at the Treasury Department, where he was in charge of disbursing bailout funds until he left to use his Goldman Sachs money to fund his run for governor. He is not a candidate with any appeal to any group, which is why he'll be demolished in November. I would be shocked if he improved on or even held relatively steady compared to Whitman's 2010 vote in any state in the country.

Yes, an inside banker behind TARP is not exactly going to appeal as a "man of the people", but he's still a better candidate for the California GOP than Donnelly. The California GOP is of course a joke. In 2010, they decided that they really needed to have the past and future female CEOs of HP nailed down with their Senate and governor nominees.

Kashkari might do better than Donnelly would have, but at very least Donnelly would have inspired the Republican base. Kashkari is pro-SSM; I know things have changed quite a bit, but this is still a state where a majority of voters just six years ago voted for Prop 8, and it's unbelievable that a majority of Republicans wouldn't still feel that way. Probably more damningly, he's pro-choice, and that's an issue on which Republicans haven't budged in decades and won't change opinion on anytime soon. When Republicans aren't going to win either way, why are they nominating a candidate so unrepresentative of their views?