A Sneaky Political Insider’s Take on the Gubernatorial Debate

Due to an incredible occurrence of fortune, your’s truly was able to join the highly exclusive crowd at New Majority’s gubernatorial debate between Whitman and Poizner. 

I had gotten on the event staff, so I was able to witness firsthand the drama that unfolded. 

Mingling in the foyer pre-event, I spotted the familliar faces of DA Tony Racfdghkgweagjbfjg, Assemblyman Jeff Miller, Darth Vader wannabe Michael Schroeder, Assemblywoman Diane Harkey, and other mid-level political big-shots snaking around the crowd of wealthy conservatives.  

I also heard that Jon Flieshman was live-tweeting the event, but he must have been watching it on TV or hiding in a closet because he was MIA.  

As for campaign staff, I didn’t see any of Whitman’s fabled armies of paid staffers like I did at CRA, but I did recognize several sly Poizner guys whom I recognized, that were constantly up to something or other. 

Once everyone filed into the Samueli Theatre, Conan Nolan came out and told everyone to play nice, but it wasn’t untill half an hour in that they began the debate.  Accidentally, the woman introducing Steve Poizner called him “Steve Whitman” and everyone got a laugh out of that one. 

Immediatley they began the debate, and I offer my general perception of what occurred.  Poizner went negative right off the bat, criticizing Whitman for something or other on her record. 

The guy was good at using those political buzzwords, and said “draconian” about 3275875684378677878990 times.  He hailed ‘broad, sweeping overhaul” of the state, but forgot to mention how he was going to do so. 

Whitman offered a pretty specific budget balancing strategy; she was more hesitant to lower taxes, rather cutting expenditures instead. 

Steve tried to get her on that and went Laffer-curve on her and said that lowering taxes is the obvious solution.  He then went on about he totally slimmed down the Dept. of Insurance during his righteous service as Insurance Commissioner. 

Both candidates avoided how they were going to fix education, but agreed that they had to do something about the cumbersome chain of command currently in place. 

When questioned on illegal immigration, Whitman wanted to build fences on the Mexican border, completely leaving out ports or other borders (in my opinion quite racist).  Poizner mentioned strengthening borders, but focused on addressing the incentives that encourage illegal immigration.  

I was very dissappointed that both candidates called the legalization of marijuana  a “crazy idea”, a typical neocon attitude. 

A new idea that I liked was Poizner’s suggestion of a 72 hour waiting period before a bill is voted on, so you could have a chance to read it.  Also he was enthusiastic about a part time legislature, but then he tried to pull a lame jab at Meg by saying she listens to NPR. 

In the end, I think Poizner came off as a jerk, especially when he blasted Meg’s attack ads and then proceded to go negative at almost every opportunity. 

In my opinion, Whitman was the better of the two, she was more specific and seemed like she had a plan, but it was not a sweep at all.  If it was a basketball game she would have only won by a few points. 

I left the event still undecided as to whom I want to be Governor…