Would it be the same insult-slinging, filterless personality Americans have grown accustomed to seeing on T.V., who protesters waited for hours just to throw eggs at and block his limo from entering the hotel complex thereby forcing him to enter through a back way?

Or would the business tycoon and GOP presidential frontrunner be more subdued to look more presidential — as media reports have recently suggested — while speaking to a politically experienced and partisan audience?

Wastes no time

His introductory video took shots at right-leaning media personalities, like Fox News’ Megyn Kelly, Washington Post columnist George Will and Republican strategist and talking head Karl Rove, who have at times doubted, challenged or decried a Trump candidacy. The video ended with a freeze frame of his hand (which has surprisingly been a storyline during the campaign) looming large above a crowd. 

The beginning of his speech chronicled his efforts to get inside, which was “not the easiest entrance” he’d ever made, having to go “under a fence and through a fence.” (A later account added mud and dirt.)

Here’s the hole in the fence Trump used to evade protestors adjacent to the 101.

“Oh boy, I felt like I was crossing the border,” Trump said. 

And with that, he launched into an extemporaneous, 20 or so minute speech that was short on policy — he mentioned building a wall across the U.S./Mexico border (“We want people to come in our country, but they have to come in legally,” Trump said) and bashed multiple trade deals — but was long on bravado and digs at other candidates.

Content

Trump spoke largely about how he’s “winning” the race for the nomination, how he’ll soon “win” the nomination and how he’ll make America “win.”

“America doesn’t win anymore,” Trump said, noting that as of today his campaign has 1,001 delegates locked down of the 1,237 delegates needed to win the nomination.

“I’m killing it, everybody,” Trump said. 

Trump spoke of a need for party unification. He spoke highly of the “incredible” Ben Carson, a former candidate who has since endorsed Trump.

Trump often complimented CAGOP Chairman Jim Brulte, who “did such a great job.”

He bragged about how he would compete and campaign in states that he said other Republican candidates write off, like New York (his home state) and Michigan. 

“No Republican would campaign in Michigan,” Trump said, overlooking the 2012 GOP nominee, Mitt Romney — the son of a former Republican governor of the Michigan — who vowed last cycle to campaign in the Great Lake State until the end.  

He spoke favorably of another former candidate, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, who this week was announced as Sen. Ted Cruz’s running mate (assuming he gets the nomination). 

“I like Carly,” Trump said, before adding that Carly brings no delegates with her to the Texan’s ticket (she technically won one delegate in Iowa).

On Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich, the other two remaining GOP candidates, Trump said they were acting like “spoiled children” for continuing to stay in the race. Cruz has only 565 delegates and Kasich has only 153. 

Trump also doubled down on his favorite critique of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, also a former candidate.

“Low energy,” Trump said. “Very low energy.”

Trump referred to Kasich eating as “disgusting.” Kasich eating at campaign stops has been another surprising side theme of the primary.  

“Did you ever see him do a news conference without eating,” Trump asked.

Trump decried the trend of candidates savaging each other in the primary, only to ultimately fall in line and support the other when one drops.

“Ted Cruz, he’s a wonderful guy,” Trump said. “But I don’t want his endorsement.”

Highlights of Twitter’s coverage of Trump’s entrance and the protests

https://twitter.com/hunterschwarz/status/726140981658193921 https://twitter.com/ccadelago/status/726136663554957312 https://twitter.com/ccadelago/status/726149867010056192 https://twitter.com/LATSeema/status/726122131860262912 https://twitter.com/LATSeema/status/726122723806601217 https://twitter.com/LATSeema/status/726128380215590913 https://twitter.com/eastbaycitizen/status/726096358612963328

“The Tuesday special election in San Diego, triggered by the resignation of Democratic Mayor Bob Filner, caps a tumultuous stretch in the seaside defense-contracting-and-tourism hub that was once a stronghold of California Republicanism. Rocked in the past few years by a public-pensions meltdown that drove one mayor from office and again last year by Filner’s lurid sexual harassment scandal, San Diego politics is now buffeted by a different kind of force: overwhelming outside spending.

“At a moment in politics when Democrats are usually the ones complaining about heavy-handed electioneering from powerfully funded groups on the right, the race in San Diego is a vivid counterpoint — an illustration of the shock-and-awe impact national liberal groups can have when they engage outside federal elections.

“By the end of January, Washington-based labor unions had donated more than $1.2 million to outside groups supporting Democrat David Alvarez, a 33-year-old freshman city councilman who would be San Diego’s first Hispanic mayor. The $1.2 million figure matches the entire independent expenditure budget for GOP outside groups in the race … .”

“Faulconer has far outdistanced Alvarez in fundraising for his campaign account, taking in nearly $2.2 million to the Democrat’s $734,000. But union-backed independent expenditure groups have spent more than both those figures combined: the most imposing organization, the AFL-CIO and AFSCME-backed Working Families for a Better San Diego, has raised about $3.6 million to boost Alvarez.”

Among young, GOP woes go far beyond being outspent

So why hasn’t the national Republican Party jumped in to try to give the GOP its only big-city mayor? Because it might do more harm than good.

“In the face of heavy spending from the labor-backed Democratic coalition, there has been minimal national conservative engagement in the race. In part, that’s a matter of necessity: the national GOP brand could be toxic for Faulconer in a diverse, increasingly liberal-leaning city. A Republican National Committee official said that there’s field staff on the ground for the 2014 cycle, but there’s not a comparable financial investment from GOP-oriented groups. …

“To veterans of San Diego politics, the city’s leftward drift is a striking case study in what heavy-duty partisan investment can do in lower-profile elections — and a testament to the GOP’s desperate straits with the young people, minority voters and cultural liberals who are heavily represented in big cities.”

That last point can’t be made enough. It reminds me of the 2004 debate between Thomas Frank and George Will, but in reverse.

That was the year Frank’s book “What’s the Matter with Kansas?” came out. Its premise was that social conservatives were so manipulated by hot-button Republican campaign tactics that they voted against their own economic interests.

On TV and in print, Will responded by questioning the notion that Democrats would bring more prosperity to the average Kansan than Republicans. But he also made the point that in a post-Cold War era, the stakes in voting were much less grave, and that people who were doing OK economically might not vote their pocketbooks:

“Hence many people, emancipated from material concerns, can pour political passions into other — some would say higher — concerns. These include the condition of the culture, as measured by such indexes as the content of popular culture, the agendas of public education and the prevalence of abortion.

“So, what’s the matter with Kansas? Not much, other than it is has not measured up — down, actually — to the left’s hope for a more materialistic politics.”

The Dems who don’t vote their pocketbooks

Now, a decade later, we have the opposite phenomenon in California. An overwhelming case can be made that Democratic hegemony has been bad for the average Californian since 1999, and that poverty and unemployment would be reduced if there wasn’t such Dem opposition to helping the private sector prosper. But among the majority of Democratic voters who have jobs, their relative personal success inoculates them from this GOP argument. And GOPers have no counter to undo the perceptions about their party, especially among the young.

To paraphrase Will:

Hence many people, emancipated from material concerns, can pour political passions into other — some would say higher — concerns. These include the condition of the culture, as measured by such indexes as the expansion of gay rights, the availability of contraception and abortion, and the concerns of environmentalists.

The younger cohort of such people may be lost to Republicans forever, even if they register independent — unless the GOP figures out a new tune, and soon.

As for San Diego, I still think Faulconer squeaks through to victory in the special election despite the influx of outside union cash. But when he’s up for re-election in 2016 after completing what’s left of Filner’s term, watch out. The demographics of general elections don’t bode well for Republicans in San Diego — and just about everywhere else in California.

Feb. 9, 2013

By Wayne Lusvardi

Former New York Times journalist Froma Harrop wrote on Real Clear Politics that it’s “tough times for California bashers” because of the recent turnaround of the state.

Harrop argued that those who have bashed California — she sites Steven Greenhut in Reason magazine, George Will of ABC News and Charlotte Allen of the Weekly Standard — are at a loss to explain California’s recent successes:

* A newly balanced budget;

* Public investments in job producing renewable energy;

* An unemployment rate headed downward;

* Replenished funds for public schools;

* New jobs from the state’s cap-and-trade law;

* A bullet train for an “advanced civilization”;

* An upgraded credit rating from Standard and Poor’s.

It’s true that Brown’s budget projects a relatively tiny 0.6 percent budget surplus for 2013, $0.85 billion.  But the Los Angeles Times reported that California has an unaddressed $1.9 billion structural budget deficit.  And the $6.8 billion in new tax revenues from Proposition 30 won’t even offset the projected $7.6 billion in estimated losses to California of federal revenues from the U.S. fiscal cliff. 

Water and power are regional, not local

Harrop claims that the reason the surrounding states have such cheaper energy prices is that Northwest electricity mainly comes from hydropower.

Actually, the water pumped to California through the Colorado River Aqueduct comes from cheap hydropower at a cost of 2 cents per kilowatt-hour from the Hoover Dam and Parker Dam power plants. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation runs Parker Dam, but the power plant was built and paid for by the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.  Imported hydropower, mainly from the Pacific Northwest, amounted to about 30 percent of California’s total hydroelectric power in 2007.

It’s true that California’s unemployment rate has declined from a high of 12.4 percent in 2010 to 9.8 percent at the end of 2012. This is still double the 5.3 percent unemployment rate in 2007. And it’s much higher than the 7.9 percent U.S. unemployment rate.

California is slowly recovering from the Mortgage Meltdown and Bank Crisis of 2008.  Its recent success, however, hasn’t come from the public sector. Most of California’s success has been in the private sector with the rebound of Silicon Valley’s economy, increased exports and tourism, a belated increase in oil and gas fracking due to bureaucratic permitting, and a release from environmental lawsuits by the courts for Delta water for Central Valley farming.

Train stop

Harrop’s enthusiasm for the California High-Speed Rail Authority also is misplaced. The only funding available is $9.8 billion in state funds from Proposition 1A in 2008; and $3.5 billion in federal funds. Not just the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives, but the Democratic-controlled U.S. Senate voted to cut off funds for the CHSRA. So no more federal funds likely are to be sent to a project the rest of the country considers a boondoggle. And the federal government, of course, has troubles of its own with its endemic $1 trillion-plus annual budgets.

Even many liberals have critiqued the project. The L.A. Weekly wrote:

“USC professor and transportation planner Lisa Schweitzer recalls that in 2008, when then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, then–Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez and their appointees on the rail authority board insisted the cost would be just $34 billion, ‘the coffee shot out of our noses’ at USC.

“Schweitzer’s graduate class at USC’s School of Policy, Planning and Development later completed an independent estimate, coming up with a figure of $90 billion to $105 billion, which closely aligns with the figure the authority released Nov. 1.”

The current estimated cost for a train the Economist magazine said would be “cheaper, slower” is $68 billion. “Slower,” of course, means the train won’t be “high-speed,” which was the sales pitch given to voters who barely approved the project in 2008.

Will the recovery continue?

The big question now is whether or not the economic recovery continues under the cloud of higher taxes from Proposition 30 and Proposition 39; as well as higher federal taxes enacted last month and the new Obamacare taxes that took effect this year.

By the time Brown’s May Revision to his budget comes out in three months, the praise Harrop and others are making about California’s recovery may have vanished like a February mist.

By John Seiler

In a column, George Will waxes nostalgic about the Golden State of the 1960s, whose theme song was the Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations.”

We’re long past that and need a new theme song for the rapidly decomposing Pyrite State. Here it is, from another great California band, Metallica. Turn up the volume.