First Meg mailer

John Seiler:

I just got my first mailer of the November campaign season. It’s from Meg’s Millions. I’d scan it but my scanner is on the fritz, and taxes are so high I can’t get it fixed right now.

On the front it reprints part of an L.A. Times news story headlined, “3 HIGHLY PAID BELL OFFICIALS FORCED TO RESIGN.” Below that is a pile of $100 dollar bills (picture from Meg’s vaults?). At the bottom is this type: “MISMANAGEMENT, OVERPAYMENT & FAILURES.”

On the right, it reads:

Before the taxpayer scandal in Bell, California
there was JERRY BROWN’S Oakland.

Inside is:

FAILURE IN OAKLAND
UNDER JERRY BROWN

Followed by some horror stories from Oakland:

* Brown’s City Manager awards herself $60,000 in bonsues; cashes in $183,000 in vacation, sick pay, and management leave.

* Number of city workers earning more than $200,000 increased by 740 percent from 2003-2006 under Brown.

Etc.

On the back:

CALIFORNIANS
CAN’T AFFORD
MORE BLOATED PENSIONS
AND SALARIES WITH
NO ACCOUNTABILITY.

WE CAN’T AFFORD JERRY BROWN.

In small, almost unreadable print, in the upper left-hand corner, “Paid for by Meg Whitman for Governor 2010.”

That’s all the mention we get of her.

I wonder if this is a good idea. Right now, Jerry owns the Bell issue because, as Attorney General, he’s investigating the malfeasance there. Jim Boren writes:

What a gift the city of Bell pay scandal has been for Democrat Jerry Brown. Instead of actually buying campaign advertisements for his gubernatorial race, the attorney general can investigate the excessive salaries in that tiny city and tell California voters it’s outrageous what public officials were being paid.

It’s doubtful that Brown could find a Californian who didn’t already know that, but it sure beats spending his campaign cash. Let Republican opponent Meg Whitman unload her political warchest attacking his motives in the Bell investigation. Brown is doing the people’s work in Bell. He’s even set up a hotline so tipsters can call in complaints about Bell’s operations.

It sure beats having to come up with a workable plan to close the $19 billion budget gap. A sensible proposal can only lose votes because it will entail pain for Californians given the size of the deficit. That makes political handlers nervous. But Brown is all over the Bell scandal.

It seems to me that, instead of bringing up an issue Jerry owns, Meg should bring up an issue that she rightfully should own: jobs. Sure, she talks about it.

But what she should do is switch her position on Prop. 23, which would mostly repeal AB32, the jobs-killing “global warming” initiative; that is, she should back Prop. 23 to the hilt.

And instead of her too-clever tax-cut plan — I can’t even remember what it is, even though I follow politics closely — she should come up with something simple: Cut the income tax in half — for everybody. “Whatever you’re paying this year, you’ll pay half when I’m governor next year,” she should promise. “If the Legislature won’t pass that tax cut in January, in February I’ll call a special election and put it on the ballot.”

Politicians win with simple messages. “Change you can believe in” — Obama 2008. Stand up to the Soviets and cut taxes — Reagan 1980. Stop immigration — Pete Wilson 1996. “Terminate” California’s problems — Arnold 2003.

What about deficits from a tax cut? She should reply, “The economy will boom so much it’ll make up for the lost revenues. One things is for sure: We can’t keep assaulting taxpayers and expect the economy to grow.”

Meg’s campaign is too expensive and too complex.

To paraphrase Casey Stengal, “Can’t any Republican here play this game?”