Brown win in Mass. gives hope to Cali GOP

19 Jan, 2010 by CalWatchdog Staff

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California Republicans’ hearts are beating so fast they’re slipping Nitro pills like candy under their tongues.

If a Republican can win in Massachusetts (Massachusetts??????? Massachusetts!!!!!), an elephant can win anywhere, including in the Pyrite State.

The last time a Republican won the governorship here was in 1994, with Pete Wilson. (Arnold, who won in 2003 and 2006, really is a Democrat.)

The last time a Republican won a U.S. Senate seat was in 1998, also with Wilson. My old colleagues at The Orange County Register will tell you that, every time I heard Wilson’s name, I put my head through a wall — so much did I dislike Gov. Tax Increaser. But I have to admit that he knew how to win elections.

So, if you exclude Wilson, the last governorship or U.S. Senate seat won by a Republican was Gov. Deukmejian back in 1986, 24 years ago. Reagan was president, Michael Jackson was moonwalking, the economy was booming, the Soviets were stuck in Afghanistan, and I still thought Republicans in power would bring us smaller government.

Yet, California isn’t Massachusetts. The GOP winner there, Scott Brown, didn’t have to face Senator-for-Life Teddy Kennedy, who last year joined Mary Jo Kopechne in eternity.

By contrast, Republicans here face two tested old warhorses, Sen. Barbara Boxer and, likely for governor, Jerry Brown. Boxer runs nasty campaigns. So whoever faces her should not mind being doused in mud.

Jerry Brown is quirky, which cost him a Senate seat in 1982 (losing to … Wilson, of course). But his quirkiness includes backing tax cuts after Prop. 13 won in 1978. In his 1992 presidential bid, he proposed a flat tax. I suspect he’ll meet any Republican proposal for tax cuts with cuts of his own. That is, he won’t follow Sis Kathleen, who could have beaten Tax Increaser Wilson in 1996 — but foolishly backed tax increases of her own (after I twice told her, in meetings at The Register, that if she backed tax cuts she would win).

And who knows what will happen in the next nine months?

– John Seiler