Governor's race (Los Angeles, San Diego, Sacramento: apartment, attorney, construction)

[Majin]

Who are you guys supporting?

Very hard for me to pull the trigger on Jerry Brown considering what he did to Sacramento freeways and selling off all the right-aways to make it impossible to go back and fix later. If he canceled all the freeways and then redirected billions into public transportation I would be been perfectly ok with that. But instead we get 3 American river crossings and gridlock traffic. What a tool

On the other hand, Meg Whitman is a Republican and shes is ugly so that's out of the question.

Looks like my options are Jerry Brown or not voting.

[Phil Minor]

I think there are valid reasons for not voting for Jerry Brown. But your mis-characterization of his record so off, it worth clarifying the record to give a better overall impression of Jerry Brown's strengths and weaknesses.

Former Jerry Brown was an idea man. He tended to bring in people with exciting ideas, but often not a lot of experience. The lack of experience meant that his administration had trouble executing well on the ideas that it tried to put in place.

Jerry Brown's Secretary of Transportation was Adriana Gianturco (deridingly referred to as the Giant Turkey). In 1978, when not a lot of people in this country were pushing for Bullet Trains, Adriana Gianturco and Brown's administration was pushing for the construction of a bullet train in California.

Richard Trainor: The California Bullet Train, Then and Now

Jerry Brown's father, Pat Brown was responsible for pushing huge infrastructure projects to support a rapidly growing state. Under Pat Brown, the California Aqueduct and California Water Projects that damned the Feather River and shipped the water southward, extending agriculture in the Southern San Joaquin Valley, he completed the California Master Plan for education (funded the building of UC Santa Cruz, and UCSD). The freeway network under Pat Brown exploded.

Jerry Brown was influenced E. F. Schumacher's "Small is Beautiful". Schumacher is why Gov. Brown rejects living in the new Governor's Mansion that had been constructed for him in Carmichael, instead living in an apartment across the street from the Capitol and why he drove to work in his famous Plymouth instead of using a state provided Limo.

Small Is Beautiful - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Where Gianturco got into trouble was for pushing carpool lanes. Specifically for pushing for carpool lanes on the Santa Monica Freeway in Los Angeles. The Santa Monica Freeway connects West LA with downtown Los Angeles. Its generally the busiest or one of the busiest freeways in the country.

Carpool lanes in general weren't popular at that time because the received wisdom at that time was the hydraulic theory of traffic. The best way to reduce traffic jams was thought to build more freeway capacity, generally that meant either more freeways or just widening freeways a lot. Philosophically, Jerry Brown believed that the 1970's was the era of limitations, that we had to do more with less and that meant carpool lanes, busways and other means of having freeway lanes increase capacity more than just increase size. He gut may have made him ahead of others, but it also meant that he doesn't fit neatly into narrow notions of big government/little government.

The problem on the Santa Monica Freeway was that there were geographic limitations that meant expanding the Santa Monica Freeway wasn't practical. Gianturco pushed for the then outrageous idea of replacing existing traffic lanes with carpool lanes. That caused an uproar meaning all of her ideas after that were politically dead on arrival (including bullet trains).

Los Angeles Drivers Try New Ways on Old Roads - NYTimes.com

To this day, Caltrans won't add carpool lanes or busways if that means taking away an existing lane of traffic. But the political difficulty of getting new freeway lanes built (pretty much killed the expansion of the busway idea in California (which is too bad because the El Monte Busway carries more people than the Gold Line in LA and these busways can be built out for a lot less)

El Monte Busway - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

When put in charge of Caltrans, Adriana Gianturco had little previous experience. She was brought in for here ideas, not her operating experience. But because she was so politically tone deaf, she probably set back her ideas a good 20 to 25 years. Caltrans to this day is extremely reluctant to take away freeway lanes to build carpool lanes. Today, transit advocates don't even discuss busways as a cheap and quick way to rapidly expand transit capacity. She advocated bullet trains in 1978 and in 2010, there are still no bullet trains in California.

Up until Jerry Brown came into office, Democrats tended to be for big government infrastructure projects (of the type his Dad got built when Pat Brown was Governor). Jerry Brown re-orientated the political alignment of the Democratic Party more in the "Small is beautiful" fashion.

Sometimes that has meant his administration was way ahead of everyone else. Brown brought in Sim van der Ryn as State Architect. He was a pioneer in sustainable building. Sim van der Ryn designed the Bateson building downtown. It was intended to be one of the first Green Buildings in the state.

Sim Van der Ryn - Pioneer of green architecture - CNN.com
The green frontier | The San Diego Union-Tribune
Bateson Building - Sim van der Ryn - Great Buildings Online

But the building itself was operationally somewhat of a failure. In order to keep energy costs down, air and water were recirculated into the rocks below the building. The ground was supposed to act as a cheap heat sink, that was cooler than the surrounding air during the summertime and warmer than the surrounding air in the wintertime. Unfortunately the water leaked onto the rocks creating mold problems that had workers complaining about the Bateson building as a sick building. To fix the health problems, a lot of the forward thinking ideas in the building aren't implemented. Again, another forward thinking idea completely undercut by really poor execution.

The other issue with Jerry Brown was his own idealogical flexibility. Brown liked good new ideas, but if he ran into resistance, he tended to pivot on a dime.

Before prop 13 passed, Jerry Brown argued that it prop 13 would be awful for government in California. After prop 13 passed, Jerry Brown anointed himself a born again tax cutter. With such zeal he took to the task, Howard Jarvis (one of the authors of prop 13) voted for Jerry Brown as Governor in 1978. In 1978, most people in Los Angeles thought Brown had actually backed prop 13 instead of opposing it.

Is it 1978 Again? | Fox & Hounds Daily

I think there are good reasons to not vote for Jerry Brown. But I don't think its fair to label him some sort of fanatical freeway building ideologue. (that was more his father Pat Brown)

Brown's penchant for picking ideas people instead of operations people often means that Brown's forward thinking ideas completely crash and burn by awful execution. Brown also has tremendous ideological flexibility. What he espoused as Governor in California was different from what he espoused as Presidential candidate, as Radio host on Kpfa in Berkeley and what he espoused as Mayor of Oakland or more recently as Attorney General. (for instance his position on the death penalty has been all over the place). This means that what he promises while running for Governor probably will have little to do with what he does when he actually becomes governor. His positions are fickle and tends to change them rather than defending them. This is why both his opponents and sometimes his defenders have called him flaky with some degree of accuracy.

California was growing as much when Jerry Brown was in office as when Pat Brown was in office. When Pat Brown was in office, there was a commitment to building lots of high quality infrastructure. When Jerry Brown was in office that didn't happen. Not only did he cut freeway spending, he didn't build high speed rail either. Even though college enrollments were going up, UC Merced had to wait to Pete Wilson being in office.

Even if Jerry Brown is in office with substantial democratic majorities in the state senate and assembly, his small is beautiful impulses will probably keep infrastructure spending below what his strongest backers expect. Even though infrastructure in the state probably is underfunded, even though the state had substantial latino population that will tend toward becoming a permanent underclass if access to education isn't increased, Brown probably won't make that happen. Brown is good at coming up with new ideas. He isn't so good at executing on making existing ideas happen well.

[ElectroPlumber]

Nut-Meg is not a good spice for California.

[NewToCA]

I'm on the fence, I need to see the discussions unfold as they get closer to the election, and press each other on the issues.

[Majin]

Originally Posted by ElectroPlumber

Nut-Meg is not a good spice for California.

I get kick out of reading your location everytime you post rep+++

[ElectroPlumber]

Originally Posted by Majin

I get kick out of reading your location everytime you post rep+++

Tongue-in-cheek locals get the joke. Thanks.

[NorCal Dude]

I'm staying home. These candidates suck. I am going with the George Carlin on this:

You vote the idiots into office, your fault, you have no right to complain.

I on the other hand, did not vote these people into office, did not help create this mess, and as such, have every right to complain!

[nmnita]

Originally Posted by Majin

Who are you guys supporting?

Very hard for me to pull the trigger on Jerry Brown considering what he did to Sacramento freeways and selling off all the right-aways to make it impossible to go back and fix later. If he canceled all the freeways and then redirected billions into public transportation I would be been perfectly ok with that. But instead we get 3 American river crossings and gridlock traffic. What a tool

On the other hand, Meg Whitman is a Republican and shes is ugly so that's out of the question.

Looks like my options are Jerry Brown or not voting.

I cheated cause I voted and I don't live in California..shame on me..

I love your comment about Meg being a Republican and ugly..I can understand voting for someone or not because of their party, but why are we so hung up on looks? I agree, we do let this enter into the picture, but why?

Nita

[nmnita]

Originally Posted by ElectroPlumber

Nut-Meg is not a good spice for California.

absolutely priceless!! As I sit here staring at 10 in of snow and can't even leave the house, you have made my Sunday morning at least barable...

NIta

[RedJacket]

Reporting from Sacramento - What should an aspiring candidate for governor do if she has never run a campaign before and wants to nearly double her lead in polls as her party's primary election approaches?

Here is Meg Whitman's answer: Spend $358,439 a day, $14,935 an hour, $249 a minute.

Whitman spent $249 a minute for her lead in the polls - latimes.com