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Brown Beats Whitman for California Governor While Outspent 3-1
2010-11-03 04:08:42.630 GMT
(See ELECT <GO> for more national election news,
EXT4 <GO> for state and local coverage.)
By Christopher Palmeri and Michael B. Marois
Nov. 3 (Bloomberg) -- Jerry Brown defeated the biggest
self-funded candidate in U.S. history to become California's
governor again, three decades after he first took the job.
Brown, a 72-year-old Democrat, was leading Republican rival
Meg Whitman 49 percent to 46 percent, with 14 percent of
precincts reporting, according to the Associated Press.
Brown returns to manage the state with the most people, an
economy bigger than Russia's, the third-highest unemployment in
the U.S. and, according to Moody's Investors Service, the
possibility of a $5 billion mid-year deficit.
"He's not going to need too many orientation sessions,
trouble is where does he go?" said Jack Pitney, a professor of
political science at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont,
California, before the election. "The state is in a terrible
fiscal mess that will require either large spending cuts or a
tax increase."
Whitman, a billionaire and former chief executive of EBay
Inc., poured at least $141.6 million of her own fortune into the
campaign, a U.S. record for self-funding by a candidate. She
raised another $31.3 million for a total of $172.9 million,
according to state filings. That was more than three times the
total for Brown, a career politician now serving as attorney
general, who raised $44.3 million.
Independent groups such as the California Nurses
Association put another $23 million into the race, most of that
in support of Brown, according to the California Fair Political
Practices Commission, the state's campaign-finance monitor.
Whitman said during the campaign that Brown would owe favors to
special interests if elected.
Pension Costs
Brown campaigned as a moderate with the resume necessary to
tackle issues such as the state's rising pension costs and
perennially late budgets, according to Mark Baldassare,
president of the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of
California in San Francisco.
"There's consensus the budget is a very serious problem,"
Baldassare said in a telephone interview Oct. 26. "This is a
guy who has decades of experience."
Jerry Brown was born in San Francisco, the son of Edmund G.
"Pat" Brown, California's governor from 1959 to 1967. The
younger Brown served two terms as governor from 1975 to 1983, a
period in which he earned the nickname "Governor Moonbeam" for
promoting policies such as a state-sponsored space program. He
was elected mayor of Oakland in 1998. Since 2007, he has been
the state's top law-enforcement officer.
"I believe I have the skill and knowledge to bring the
divergent elements together to fix our state," he said in a
June 1 interview in his Oakland campaign headquarters.
Democratic Advantage
Brown entered the race with the advantage that California
has more Democrats than Republicans. Of nearly 17 million
registered voters, state records show 7.5 million Democrats and
5.3 million Republicans.
Brown was also able to connect with independent voters who
make up 20 percent of the electorate, Baldassare said.
The two were neck-and-neck in polls until Whitman's former
housekeeper, Nicky Diaz Santillan, claimed in a Sept. 29 press
conference that the candidate knew she was in the country
illegally and fired her only after deciding to run for office.
Whitman denied the allegation.
Brown's support among Latino voters rose to 59 percent,
versus 23 percent for Whitman, according to a poll released Oct.
24 by the University of Southern California and the Los Angeles
Times. That was almost twice the 19-point Latino advantage Brown
had in September.
A Brown campaign gaffe, in which an aide was recorded
referring to Whitman as a "whore," had little impact on his
support among female voters after it was made public Oct. 7.
Among women, his lead extended to 21 percentage points from 9,
according to the USC/Times survey.
Immigration Issue
"The undocumented issue ties into a major one which is,
what are we going to do about immigration reform?" Bruce Cain,
who teaches politics at the University of California Berkeley,
said in a telephone interview before the election. "Jerry
appointed a lot of women in the 1970s to his administration.
Nobody believes he is going to appoint all men."
About 48 percent of voters said Brown "understands the
problems and concerns of people like me" versus 30 percent for
Whitman, according to the Oct. 24 USC/Times survey.
In a 2009 Facebook post, "25 Random Things About Me,"
Brown noted that he declined to have an inaugural ball after
first becoming governor in 1975 and celebrated with dinner at a
Chinese restaurant. He also said his favorite cereal is Flax
Plus Multibran. The posting was genuine, spokesman Sterling
Clifford said.
Mother Teresa
"I don't know many politicians who went to India and
washed the dead with Mother Teresa," actor Peter Coyote, whom
Brown appointed to a state arts commission in the 1970s, said in
an interview before the election. "Jerry Brown does that
stuff."
California legislators closed a $19 billion budget hole
Oct. 8 in part by cutting $7.5 billion in spending and delaying
$1.2 billion in corporate tax breaks. The state faces a similar
gap for the fiscal year that begins July 1, Treasurer Bill
Lockyer said in a Bloomberg Television interview Oct. 19.
During the campaign, Brown said he'll begin working with
legislators to find budget-balancing fixes immediately after
taking office in January. If compromises can't be reached, he'll
take decisions to voters in a referendum, he said.
"How far people want to change the government will only be
known when the people are fully engaged in the process," Brown
said in the interview.
Brown emphasized "clean energy" jobs as a way to boost
the economy, with a campaign platform that included a promise to
add 20,000 megawatts of solar, wind and other renewable energy
sources by 2020.
California had a $1.8 trillion economy in 2008, according
to the U.S. Commerce Department, which would rank it behind
Italy as the eighth-largest in the world. Its unemployment rate
in September was 12.4 percent, the third-highest after Nevada
and Michigan, while the national average was 9.6 percent.
For Related News and Information:
A detailed overview of state finances: MIFA <GO>
Today's top municipal finance stories: TOPM <GO>
Calendar of bond sales in California: CDRN CA <GO>
--With assistance from Alison Vekshin in San Francisco. Editors:
Pete Young, Ted Bunker.
To contact the reporters on this story:
Christopher Palmeri in Los Angeles at +1-323-782-4251 or
cpalmeri1@bloomberg.net;
Michael B. Marois in Sacramento at +1-916-492-6042 or
mmarois@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Mark Tannenbaum at +1-212-617-1962 or
mtannen@bloomberg.net
