So this is, for the most part, a follow-up to some topics raised in my previous posts. First off, yesterday I watched the third and final televised Brown/Whitman gubernatorial debate. Of the three debates, I enjoyed this one the most, although I spent most of the time yelling at the television, the way I imagine normal people yell at televisions during, like, sports. There was this beautiful moment near the beginning when Tom Brokaw invoked John F. Kennedy and asked the candidates what they think the people should have to do for their country, and Whitman proceeded to completely not answer the question and then sort of answer it a little bit at the end, followed by Brown sort of answering the question (yes, yes, "live within our means" -- we've seen the commercials, Jer. We get it) and then going off about, I don't know, experience, I'd assume. Whitman has always been disgustingly on-message, and Brown was doing the same thing last night; trying to bring his answers back to his main points. Eventually, he seemed to give up on that, and went back to his usual style of just saying whatever pops into his head, and it made him seem so much better, so much more honest (whether or not he really is.)
A few other issues I had included:
--Everything anyone said about the budget. I mean, that has to go through the legislature. Like schools being left to school boards, budgets aren't completely under the governor's jurisdiction. Brown did try last night to clear up a few things concerning limitations of powers, but candidates really have to be careful with that. I'm assuming Whitman doesn't know better. And her budget ideas, her "detailed plan" -- what is it? She's never described it. And she seemed skeptical of spending extra millions on the Bay Bridge to keep it seismically safe. Honestly, I don't care how much is spent on that bridge if it's earthquake-proof.
--Can somebody please do something about Prop 13? So that would mean more taxes. I like taxes. It connects people to their government.
--Oh, that fantastic moment when Whitman, the so-called "jobs candidate" (who sent jobs overseas, but I digress) said in one breath that she plans to get California back to work, and then, in the very next breath, said she was going to cut state workers' jobs. And their pensions. I don't think she realizes that state workers are kind of the workers she has the closest responsibility of. And all of her, oh, I'll help small businesses with less regulation -- well, that's stupid because deregulation was how the nationwide recession was started, and it's stupid because she is speaking directly from her experience as an employer and investor who would have benefited for her proposed tax cuts, and it's stupid because she's also beholden to out-of-state oil companies HENCE her support of Prop 23.
--Every time Whitman brought out one of those "well I talked to a (worker/man/woman/business owner) in (some small town) and they told me..." stories. Come one. You can't connect to the common man and spend one hundred and twenty million dollars on a campaign. You just can't. And if you think you can, well, have fun checking into Tammany Hall, because you just got political.
--When Whitman kept commenting disparagingly about Brown being a politician. Generally, experience is an asset in a profession. Also, if she was referring to politician as being political in the sense of giving half-answers and trying to please everyone with a good deal of partisan mudslinging-- oh my god, she does all of that regularly! Finally, if elected, she'll be a politician too. You can only play the newbie card once.
And, here's what bothered me the most, and since I can tie it back to other things I wrote, I feel no shame in focusing on this really small event which has gotten far too much media coverage:
Whore is not a bad word.
Okay, so I heard the story break about Brown's phone message with the Police Union while some unidentified staffer in the background could be heard calling Whitman a whore. And then Whitman kept saying how that's a disgrace against all women in California, or something to that effect. Brokaw raised the issue at the debate; when Brown apologized for his staffer's conduct but conceded that it's not at all comparable with the n-word, which Whitman had previously insinuated, Whitman made a low "noooo" noise and shook her head in a weird, weird vie for attention, and then kept saying how it was going to anger all the women in the state. Seriously? I'm a woman in this state, and I was definitely not offended. This kind of outrage is just playing the gender card, which further breaches the equality and legitimacy of women and men in politics. It's not like this staffer was actually accusing Whitman of prostitution; he's working in a campaign against her, of course he doesn't like her, and it is very common behind closed doors in politics and in business and in high school to say simple, kinda-mean words about people not because you actually mean it but just because you don't like them. If the staffer had been caught calling a male candidate a dickhead or an asshole, there wouldn't be this kind of outrage-- yeah, it's immature, but it's considered perfectly normal.
And then, in Delaware, there's Christine O'Donnell and her "i am not a witch" commercials. Not sure why I find this so disturbing, other than that it has nothing to do with policy or anything relevant to an actual election, but only to a small media store which has caught public attention. Which I would say is kind of being a media whore. But the biggest whores of all are still Westboro Baptist Church. I finally finished reading the transcripts of the opening argument, and Chief Justice Roberts asked Phelps, the lawyer/Westboro Baptist defending her father's church in Snyder v. Phelps, if the group chose to picket Snyder's son's funeral because they knew it would garner the most public attention. She begrudgingly agreed with that statement. If that's not whoring out a cause -- albeit a creepy and hateful and disgusting one-- then I honestly don't know what is.
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