Brown takes big lead in California governor race

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Source: MSNBC

SAN FRANCISCO — California Democrat Jerry Brown has opened a 10-point lead on Republican Meg Whitman as women, Latinos and other groups line up behind his bid to return to the state governorship, a Field Poll showed on Thursday.

Brown, the idiosyncratic veteran politician facing off against Whitman, a billionaire former eBay chief executive, has also shored up support among swing constituencies of nonpartisan voters and Los Angeles-area Californians.

He now leads 49 percent to 39 percent among likely voters, with 12 percent undecided before the election next Tuesday, the poll found. In September, Field found the candidates tied at 41 percent, while other organizations have since found Brown edging ahead.

California voters are up in arms about double-digit unemployment, a state budget gap expected to re-emerge soon because of overly optimistic assumptions in the recently passed spending plan, and legislative gridlock in the most populous U.S. state.

Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39884622/ns/politics/

[alcibiades_mystery]

1. Brown just waited with a little smile

While Whitman blew through tens of millions trying to make her case.

He got up in September and wiped the floor with her.

It really was a thing of beauty, like a chess champion letting a little upstart preen and spew, then coming in and taking the opponent down with ease.

Brown's a master of California politics. Whitman has exposed herself as the wasteful know-nothing she's always been.

[Adsos Letter]

8. And Brown's campaign ads have been excellent and effective

using her own words against her. :thumbsup:

[shanti]

31. exactly

i've always thought jerry was brilliant. nutmeg was in way over her head. all that money was spent, but i doubt it was all her own. the rules have changed. there is a lot riding on the california governorship and the repukes want to keep feeding at the trough. well, fuck 'em.

[LuckyLib]

2. As unconventional and strange as Jerry Brown is, he is also brilliant. Clearly the

smartest man in politics in the state. And one of the most savvy governors. Other states could do worse, and do. The level of idiocy of Rick Perry . . . need I say more?

[ananda]

4. The level of idiocy in Texas . . .

I need not say more ...

[Beetwasher]

11. And Disciplined, He Obviously Had A Plan And Stuck With It

Others might have panicked seeing Whitman throwing all that dough around and pulling ahead in the polls. Brown waited and pounced on his own timing instead of reacting. He stuck with his plan.

[Kingofalldems]

3. Kick and Rec for California.

[Very_Boring_Name]

5. Meg Whitman ran the most scripted campaign I've ever seen

I completely realized this while watching the debate where they talked about the "whore" remark. After Jerry Brown apologized, she had this whole paragraph ready that you could tell just by the way she read it that she had memorized it in advance. I'm glad people saw through the script and saw what a horrible candidate she is.

[Tikki]

7. Hi VBN...Welcome to DU

:hi:

I voted for Governor Brown way back when and have watched a succession of Governors
come and go...wishing at each election Governor Brown would run for election, again.
To me this is a wish come true...

Now if my district could rid of our do-nothing 12 term republican congressman...sigh



Tikki

[CountAllVotes]

12. Welcome to the DU Very_Boring_Name!!

:hi: & Welcome to the Democratic Underground!

I too am glad that Californians have seen through these lies by Whitman and I'll be glad when this election is over with!

:kick:

[bemildred]

6. Jerry has won more elections then Meg has voted in.

Remember all that whining about how he was not being "competitive" last Summer?

And he has done a signal service to his state by making all that Republican political money vanish into smoke.

[No Elephants]

9. Go, Jerry!

[timtom]

10. Thank God!

I do not see why Whitman would ever have expected more than 26% of the votes. (Isn't that about the going rate for complete morons, such as the Bush supporters?)

I've always like Jerry Brown. I fell in love with California when his dad was Governor.

[county worker]

13. We need to pass prop 25 and 19 and vote down 23 and 26.

[Duke Newcombe]

14. As a Californian, Thank God!!!

I have to put up with sharing a nations with newly minted TEA Party idiots with their hands on the reigns of power after Tuesday...at least in my state there will be some sane leadership.

When I was a kid, there were Browns as governors. Pat was one of the best governors in the history of the state. The state was really "The Golden State" back then. I welcome Jerry's brilliance and steady hand at the helm here.

[RiverStone]

15. Another poll confirms Brown's hefty lead

Source: MercuryNews.com 10/28/10

SACRAMENTO -- Democrat Jerry Brown holds a double-digit lead over Republican Meg Whitman in their contest for California governor less than a week before Election Day, according to a Field Poll released Thursday.

The survey found the former two-term governor leading the former eBay chief executive 49 percent to 39 percent among likely voters. It is the third poll released in the past week showing Brown leading a race considered too close to call a month ago.

"I don't remember anything in recent memory, going back 50 years, a candidate riding this low in the polls overtaking and winning," this close to an election, said Jaime Regalado, executive director of the Pat Brown Institute of Public Affairs at California State University, Los Angeles.

That doesn't bode well for Whitman, a billionaire who has spent nearly $142 million of her own money in her first bid for political office. She has spent the past two weeks traveling California in a bid to woo the independent voters she needs to win in a state where Democrats hold a 13-point registration advantage.

Read more: http://www.mercurynews.com/elections/ci_16460112

---

:fistbump:

Go Jerry!!!

[Frances]

16. My husband and I filled out our absentee ballots today

We'll turn them in on election day. Of course, we voted Brown, Boxer, and other Dems.

[gateley]

17. I LOVE that Whitman spent all that money! Republicans probably can't believe that

money isn't the answer to everything!

[shanti]

32. yes

but i'm sure that money wasn't all her own...SCOTUS took care of that!

[Kind of Blue]

18. YAY!

KnR

[Iliyah]

19. Why is it

that Dem Brown has a heft lead and Repug Paul has a landside?????

Whats up with that? Good news for Brown. I never doubted his win nor Boxer, and I truly believe Conway will pull it out.

[DisgustipatedinCA]

20. There are slight differences between the CA and KY electorate n/t

.

[happygoluckytoyou]

21. more teeth?

[Tempest]

25. Less inbreeding. n/t

[Kind of Blue]

23. I think the Mercury News is being realistic

and it "enthusiastically recommend" Brown http://www.mercurynews.com/elections/ci_16312265

But considering the Kentucky primaries, Paul's win was a landslide among his GOP rivals and I think Conway won by a few points over his Dem rivals. From what I understand, more Dems voted in the primaries than Republicans. So I'm right with you that Conway can do this.

A friend in a DU forum says that the newspapers there are not neutral on that head stomping thug and have totally come out against it, but people (I think she means Republican people) are generally quiet. I hope they're reflecting on what kind of leadership Paul represents and the lack of control he has over his people. Scary.

[Taverner]

33. Because CA is very different than KY

No South bashing here, but even your most die hard Progressive Dem Son of the South will agree to that...

[happygoluckytoyou]

22. HOPE HARRY CAN DO THE SAME!! even the GOP in nevada is kicking their candidate

i guess they realize that what is "good for bright white morals when you need a WEDGE ISSUE"

isn't the same as having a zealot driving the bus

[Blacksheep214]

24. Hurry up election!

I am so tired of hearing Whitmans voice I can barely stand it! :nuke:

[yurbud]

26. I think Arnold ruined it for zero experience rich dilettantes

[HCE SuiGeneris]

27. See you later, Schmeg.

And good f'n riddance, you bloviated power tripper.

[defendandprotect]

28. Jerry Brown is terrific -- fingers crossed!!

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

29. This CANNOT be true!

Pete Wilson (R) says that the Whitman campaign has the momentum now.

Alas, poor Jerry!

:cry:

[Retrograde]

30. Can't wait for the temper tantrum on Wednesday

I think people have just gotten tired of Meg-a-Millions attitude that she can just buy anything she wants. I hope these polls are right, and she goes down in flames - the only person I think more worthy of that fate is Fiorina.

[pinniped]

34. Quick, throw another $20,000,000.00 at something.

.

[CRH]

35. California could do a lot worse, ...

Brown took over the state from Reagan who true to form brought California to new levels of fiscal irresponsibility. It was a depressed time of recession and high unemployment, and before passage of Prop 13 he was able to accrue a budget surplus of five billion. Much of that five billion was then used to mitigate the shortfalls resulting from the property tax roll back.

In his years seeking the nomination for president he strayed further from mainstream politics and was often punished for stating the obvious flaws of politics at the national level. He was successfully marginalized much as Kucinich is today.

From a speech from his final campaign for the presidency in 1991.

~~Link~~ http://www.4president.org/speeches/jerrybrown1992announcement.htm

~~snip~~

The crisis which led to our bloody Civil War was triggered by the secession of one third of the states. Today, one half of our people have stopped voting and "seceded" from the political democracy.

Politics is at the heart of democracy. When the political system loses respect and trust, then the decline of democracy will surely follow. And when democracy declines, the survival of America is put in jeopardy.

This crisis has been triggered by the collapse of our two party system. In reality, there is only one party: It's the Incumbent Party. There are, of course, two major political organizations with different names, but at their core they are the same. They share the same world view and they serve the power of the same private interests which, in return, finance the campaigns of both. When there are no substantial differences, there is no choice to be made. And without choices, there is no democracy, and when there is no democracy there is no freedom; only a system which entertains us with illusions.

~~snip~~

If we continue to allow our children's rightful heritage to be plundered by politicians and greedy interests, if we do not halt the auctioning off of this nation's assets to foreigners to underwrite our debts, if we force succeeding generations to sell with their future to pay for our excesses--then we will certainly have betrayed our heritage.

The future of America's children and their children is nothing less than our moral test.

~~snip~~ end excerpts

A moral test that hitherto, we have failed.

The full speech is worth reading, and has proven to be as prophetic as his twenty years too early statement, that California should buy a satellite to be used for emergency communications. It was surely thought by the press and republicans, that Governor Moonbeam had gone loonie tunes. Twenty years later skeptics were silenced, when information and communications linked by satellites came to be known as the internet.

Forward thinkers are often punished with ridicule, by the blinders of convention.