So with Senator Barbara Boxer not raising money for a 2016 reelection contest, the pundits are a-howling about which Democrat (and it will very likely be one) is going to replace her. Scott “Pride of Placentia” Lay quotes one pundit today — some guy named Willie Brown — as follows:
Things are really going to get complicated in 2015 for the super Democratic consulting firm headed by Ace Smith. The firm represents Gov. Jerry Brown, Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Kamala Harris, as well as former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee and a host of other people.
The issue will be which of their clients they persuade to run for the Senate seat held by Barbara Boxer if, as expected, she retires at the end of her current term.
And which of their clients they will start grooming to follow Brown when he winds up his fourth term.
Both races will require tens of millions of dollars, which means the work of getting that money together starts now.
My bet is that Smith and company will use the opening of the Boxer seat to clear the deck, with Harris running for the Senate and Newsom running for governor. The only complication would be if Jerry Brown decides he want to run for the Senate, because he would beat everyone.
Yeah, that’s about the way to handicap it, except that I don’t see any chance of Jerry Brown running. (But I could see his wife, Ann Gest Brown, doing so — with Brown doing the necessary arm-twisting, with the threat of more than three years left in his second term, to get her through.) There are plenty of people in state government whom I’d like to see advance — aside from Harris, that would include Betty Yee, John Chiang, Dave Jones — and, for the Governor’s role, I’d prefer our own Loretta Sanchez to any of the names Willie Brown mentions except Harris. (I’d also take a depressed Debra Bowen over a non-depressed almost anyone else.)
But when I asked myself who I would really like to see represent our state in Washington DC, I came up with a different name, a man who I think is the person our state needs to send to national prominence at this time to address the major issues of our time.
As you may have gathered from the photo, that man is Kareem Abdul-Jabbar — and I am not kidding even one tiny bit. If you suspect otherwise, here’s a link to his time magazine piece on policing and violence that you have got to read. One section of it is currently making the rounds of Facebook in the following form:
That’s simply the perspective that we need in government right now. The election (and, even more, the reelection) of a Black man as President has ripped open sores in our body politic, leading police in New York to argue that it is their right, unbridled by and unaccountable to government officials and the public, to declare something that looks a hell of a lot like martial law against communities who look a hell of a lot like imperial subjects. We need someone who is articulate, brave, charismatic, dogged, educated, fair, genteel, human, and intellectual — I could have kept going there — to represent a position that is considered peculiar — and almost foreign, despite it being the basis for our own Constitution — within our political discussions. Kareem can do all that and get elected and reelected overwhelmingly.
Here are some more excerpts from his piece in Time:
The recent brutal murder of two Brooklyn police officers, Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu, is a national tragedy that should inspire nationwide mourning. Both my grandfather and father were police officers, so I appreciate what a difficult and dangerous profession law enforcement is. We need to value and celebrate the many officers dedicated to protecting the public and nourishing our justice system. It’s a job most of us don’t have the courage to do.
At the same time, however, we need to understand that their deaths are in no way related to the massive protests against systemic abuses of the justice system as symbolized by the recent deaths—also national tragedies—of Eric Garner, Akai Gurley, and Michael Brown. Ismaaiyl Brinsley, the suicidal killer, wasn’t an impassioned activist expressing political frustration, he was a troubled man who had shot his girlfriend earlier that same day. He even Instagrammed warnings of his violent intentions. None of this is the behavior of a sane man or rational activist. The protests are no more to blame for his actions than The Catcher in the Rye was for the murder of John Lennon or the movie Taxi Driver for the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan. Crazy has its own twisted logic and it is in no way related to the rational cause-and-effect world the rest of us attempt to create.
Those who are trying to connect the murders of the officers with the thousands of articulate and peaceful protestors across America are being deliberately misleading in a cynical and selfish effort to turn public sentiment against the protestors. This is the same strategy used when trying to lump in the violence and looting with the legitimate protestors, who have disavowed that behavior. They hope to misdirect public attention and emotion in order to stop the protests and the progressive changes that have already resulted. Shaming and blaming is a lot easier than addressing legitimate claims.
It helps too that Kareem is a Muslim — a Muslim who is about as far away from malicious stereotypes of Muslims (and perhaps especially of Black American Muslim converts) as imaginable. For those who don’t know, Kareem converted to Islam while still at UCLA, at age 21, although he didn’t reveal it until the day after the 1973-1974 Lakers (the actual best team in history, even though Michael Jordan’s Bulls eventually did a little better in a talent-diluted NBA) won their first championship in LA. He did so, he said because he was [Wikipedia quote warning]:
latching on to something that was part of my heritage, because many of the slaves who were brought here were Muslims. My family was brought to America by a French planter named Alcindor, who came here from Trinidad in the 18th century. My people were Yoruba [90% of whom live in southwestern Nigeria], and their culture survived slavery… My father found out about that when I was a kid, and it gave me all I needed to know that, hey, I was somebody, even if nobody else knew about it. When I was a kid, no one would believe anything positive that you could say about black people. And that’s a terrible burden on black people, because they don’t have an accurate idea of their history, which has been either suppressed or distorted.
That’s a bracing perspective that deserves to be able to speak its name on the floor of the U.S. Senate. It’s also a bracing antidote to the hateful foreign policy still being goosed by for Vice-President Dick Cheney. California would be giving the nation, and the world, a gift by lifting a man of such a background — someone who can understand the best of Islamic and African culture and translate it to the West — to prominence in our political system. With due respect, the Senate already has a lot of people like Gavin Newsom.
Part of what I appreciate about Kareem is that he is a real scholar, with a deep understanding of urban American history. Putting aside his first two books, which were about himself, here’s his bibliography:
- Black Profiles in Courage: A Legacy of African-American Achievement, with Alan Steinberg (1996) ISBN 0-688-13097-6
- A Season on the Reservation: My Sojourn with the White Mountain Apaches, with Stephen Singular (2000) ISBN 0-688-17077-3
- Brothers in Arms: The Epic Story of the 761st Tank Battalion, WWII’s Forgotten Heroes with Anthony Walton (2004) ISBN 978-0-7679-0913-6
- On the Shoulders of Giants: My Journey Through the Harlem Renaissance with Raymond Obstfeld (2007) ISBN 978-1-4165-3488-4
- What Color Is My World? The Lost History of African American Inventors with Raymond Obstfeld (2012) ISBN 978-0-7636-4564-9
Anyone who thinks that the presence of co-authors in that list means that he doesn’t know his stuff personally has never heard him interviewed. And, of course, it’s about time that California was represented by an actor in the Senate rather than as Governor! (Yes, yes, I know, “George Murphy”….)
The Senate is supposed to be the province of wise men and women with perspective. Well, this year did not give us a bumper crop. Kareem, if elected at age 69, would immediately become a star of the U.S. Senate in a way that no other person named as a possible candidate — not even Kamala Harris — would do. And if he served only two terms, there would still be time for the politicians “standing in line behind him” to have their own chance, someday, to fill his literally and figuratively giant shoes.
What do you think, folks? Kareem for U.S. Senate? We not only could do worse, but we probably will.
I honestly and truly hate to admit this, but greg, you might actually be on to something
I was due.
I thought it was DiFi not seeking re-election.
Di-Fi wants to be there in office to swear in Hillary; then she may resign. That would relieve the logjam a bit.
Why so anti-Kamala? She’s not so bad on your top issue.
Im sure as heck not going to Support K Harris.
You have not been paying attention K Harris is one of the worst. DiFi is equally b bad.
That’s a whole nice crop of candidates ya got there. The worst part is that the repuglicans choices are just as bad.
But, seriously – Loretta Sanchez? Ha. Hahaha. Well, it sure would be entertaining.
Yes I would take KAJ over that gaggle any day.
P.S. When was the last time a Southern California Democrat was governor or senator?
I’d like to see a Latin@ Governor. You’d prefer one of the cousins, John Perez or Antonio Villaraigosa, to her? You seem to think that she’s a dolt, but I think she used the “girlie” front to disarm people. (You have some amazing immunity to it.)
Yes I’ve been inoculated against the “I’m just a cute little girl” virus. Galloway, of course, offers evidence of the most virulent strain.
I don’t care if there is a Latino governor at all.
I think I have found the answer to the question I posed, above. John Tunney was a state legislator from the Inland Empire (we didn’t call it that back then), although he was actually born, raised and prep schooled in New England. He was elected Senator in 1970.
The Northern Cal Dems have had a stranglehold on statewide office for forty years – even longer if you don’t count Tunney. Good luck with that Lolita!
Beat you by nine minutes on Tunney.
“Statewide office” is more than just Gov and US Sen, of course! So now Alex Padilla would count.
For Governor, I think it would technically be Gray Davis. After that, you have to go back to Culbert Olson, who directly preceded Earl Warren.
Between those two, you have Sen. John Tunney, of … Riverside Co.!
Gray Davis, like many Californians, never really seemed to be from anywhere. I don’t really count him as a Southern Californian, especially since he was born in New York and went to college at Stanford and law school in New York City.
He did attend the Harvard School as I recall, which is about as New England snooty-preppy as you can get this side of the Hudson.
BTW Greg, cannabis is not really my number one issue. But it is tied to alot of the substance of my main issue which is justice and equality and equity in the law. Cannabis prohibition is an affront to so many issues and is a keystone to many of our state and nations ills. From crime and punishment to medical efficacy to social justice to budgetary.
My focus on cannabis is a great deal focused on righting so many other wrongs attached to it. For example. Harris laughing at the idea of cannabis legalization and giving of the nod and wink to the LEO unions who profit off of the human trafficking surrounding the drug war. I will never forgive her for that. Even of she dopes a 180 in legislation er crimes against humanity cannot be forgotten.
*We love Kareem and Kobe both…..but not as our Senator to replace Feinstein or Boxer. The name that you are wondering what we think about…..Joe Dunn!
Surely this was meant in jest.
It takes $10m+ to secure a senate seat. Perhaps much more in California. To suggest that someone like Loretta Sanchez could raise that kind of cash is absurd.
As for preferring a severely mentally ill person “over anyone else”, well if this is not a joke you just demonstrated how foolish you are.
Well, Miles, first it comes down to winning the Democratic primary, which should not cost $10m+.
Then after that, whoever the Democratic nominee turns out to be, even if it IS Loretta, WILL see their $10m+.
I bet a primary run WILL push 10 mil or more. The statewide media market is enormous.
The Democrat winner can probably phone it in come November, but it ain’t-a gonna be Lolita whom nobody is gonna step aside for; it’ll be a Northern Cal state office holder.
Loretta is reported as leaning towards running, so I’m not sure why you’d think that this was a “jest.”
You seem to be confusing clinical depression with somethimg like paranoid schizophrenia. Bowen is not merely functional with her disability, but has been more than merely competent — in my opinion a brilliant public servant. She’s had a terrible time lately while undergoing the break-up of her marriage, which is often especially hard on depressives, but that will pass. Her current manifestation of the illness may be severe, but that doesn’t make it the sort of thing we mean when we use the phrase “severe mental illness,” unless you want to pin that label on the likes of Abe Lincoln.
We’re talking about a disability, like having to depend on a wheelchair, and your comment strikes me as the equivalent of thinking it foolish to favor electing someone in a wheelchair over someone who can walk. That’s what’s foolish — assuming that I don’t want to go with a word like “reprehensible.”
I’m a diagnosed clinical depressive myself and I have been in her present condition — as you describe it above — more than once within the past five years. I have an extremely good sense of what I’m talking about. And yes, I’d take her as my U.S. Senator over most others regardless, because I know the role that treatment, resources, and purpose can play in keeping oneself in decent psychological and emotional shape. If she misses some Senate votes, I would still prefer her as my Senator to someone who lacked her values and sense of probity. So I will thank you not to make assumptions about me, or to assume restrictions about her that may not manifest.
(We all know that she couldn’t raise the money to run anyway, so the discussion is academic.)
SPECIAL TO Liz Stephan-Cortez:
IN your previous comment, which is currently on “pending” (or “suspended”) status, you make some incendiary assertions regarding our former Secretary of State Debra Bowen’s actions, implying that they are based on insider information.
I don’t know you, or your relationship with Secretary Bowen, or your reliability as a source, or whether and how you could come by such information. I just looked up your name on Google and found nothing but references to what were your two comments here.
I’m not going to let OJB be used to break (or “break”) those sorts of incendiary and possibly malicious rumors that may or may not be true. In particular, I’m not going to let us be used as a source for other publications. If you can find credible citations to public sources describing the events you allege, then your comments will probably be restored. If you can’t, they certainly won’t. If you’re simply writing out of cruelty, you can go to hell.
I’ll plan to leave them in limbo until at least late on Friday. You can reach me here until then. Barring more of that stuff, I won’t block you for at least a week or so after that.