McClintock No Whitman Fan

Steven Greenhut: Speaking at a Pacific Research Institute luncheon in Costa Mesa today, U.S. Rep. Tom McClintock made it clear that he’s not so excited about the candidacy of Republican gubernatorial nominee Meg Whitman. He said that while he agrees with Ronald Reagan’s saying that a candidate who is with you 70 percent of the time should be viewed as a 70-percent friend rather than a 30-percent enemy, but he says he only agrees with Whitman about 20 percent of the time. He agrees with Jerry Brown about 20 percent of the time and he agrees “with the Libertarians 80 percent of the time. I’m not making an endorsement but do the math.”

He believes that Republicans could pick up more than 70 seats in the House, but that that the huge Tea Party-driven sea change will end our state’s border — mainly because California Republicans don’t have any real principles. Whitman, for instance, has opposed Prop. 23 to suspend global warming rules, has sold out on pensions to the police unions and is not with limited-government folks on many other issues.

He says he often is asked whether it’s lonely in Washington. No, he says. The GOP leadership seems to get it now and is better poised not to squander the second chance the public is about to give the party. By contrast, he was very lonely in Sacramento, where Republicans seemed to believe their job in the minority was to help the majority party achieve its agenda. “Our job in the minority is to become a majority,” he said.

McClintock believes political debates have become so contentious because we’re at a rare moment where “two entirely incompatible philosophies are at loggerheads.” It’s freedom vs. socialism and ultimately one will crowd out the other.

He said the Tea Party movement — 60 percent of the members are Republicans, 20 percent are Independents and 20 percent are Democrats — is simply what “we used to call the Reagan coalition.” He said he has no loyalty to the GOP but to a set of principles and supports the GOP to the degree the party embraces those principles. He blasted the Bush administration’s abandonment of limited government.

McClintock was great in explaining why the stimulus doesn’t work. “The reason these policies have not worked is they cannot work,” he said. “Government cannot inject a single dollar into the economy that it has not taken out of the economy.”

It was great to hear him and I’m now at the Western Conservative Political Action Committee event, where I’ll hear him again tonight.