California Follies

Email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser.


August 15, 2012 By Jonathan V. Last



COLD OPEN


We'll get to Paul Ryan in a minute. But I'd like to set up our discussion with the following: It strikes me that California could be pivotal in the election this time around. Not because Mitt Romney has a chance to win the state, of course. But because California has become the kind of nightmarish, cautionary tale that parents use to scare their children.

A few data points:
George Will wrote a nice little summary about California's "high-speed" rail disaster. The state accepted $3.3 billion in federal funding so that it could embark on a $33 billion rail project that is now costing out at a projected $100 billion. All while—this is the punch line—the state runs a budget deficit of several billion dollars.

Meanwhile, the state is also pushing a $24 billion environmentally friendly project to restore the habitat of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.

In his continuing coverage of California’s follies, Walter Russell Mead recently noticed that the state had voted to create free life-insurance policies for state workers. And they’re currently working on a bill to supplement Social Security benefits for private sector workers. Even while the public-sector pension program keeps showing terribly anemic (and ultimately unsustainable) returns on its investments.

California's state prisons are so overcrowded that the Supreme Court has ordered it to release inmates—who are then shunted to county prisons. Which are now overcrowded. The net effect being that California cannot financially afford to enforce its own laws.

Meanwhile, Governor Jerry Brown has put an initiative on the November ballot giving voters the choice of either giving him more of their money through a tax hike or cutting $6 billion in services.

How bad is it in California? Even NPR—NPR!—jokes that it’s America's "first failed state." It's bad for lots of reasons—some foundational and systemic, some the result of chance. But in large part it's bad as a result of the choices of California's political class. Governor Brown's tenure is typical: a long supply of free candy for favored groups punctuated with giant hunks of mass spending, all at the expense of basic services.

It's the California Way.



LOOKING BACK


"To become the greatness president, Huckabee will first have to win the nomination of his own party, and that can't happen, by his own reckoning, unless the GOP comes out of its fog. In our interview, I asked Huckabee about the party's confusion. 'It's confused as to what happened last year and the shellacking we took at the polls.' He says the war was only one factor, and the real reason was that 'we lost touch with basic issues of governing.' He cites 'inattention' to public corruption and 'utter incompetence as to … the simplest things government should do, such as getting bottles of water to people stranded on bridges on Interstate 10 in the aftermath of a hurricane [Katrina] and a flood.' He points to a tendency to prefer 'posturing' to governing, and he sees the failure to constrain spending as evidence of a party failing to live up to its own beliefs about governance."

—Terry Eastland, "The Other Man from Hope," from our August 13, 2007, issue.

Remember you get full access to THE WEEKLY STANDARD archive when you subscribe.
 


A First Reaction to the Ryan Pick

Kristol thinks of Kennedy.

 




The Counterpunch

Ryan, Romney, and Medicare.
 

 



THE READING LIST


What happens when you try to deposit a junk-mail fake check—and the bank actually accepts it.

How not to get hacked: A mini-primer on computer security.

The story of Bock's Car, Fat Boy, Kokura's Luck, and the bombing of Nagasaki.

INSTANT CLASSIC


"In 2012 Obama campaign manager Jim Messina, chief strategist David Axelrod, White House senior adviser David Plouffe, and super PAC strategists Bill Burton and Paul Begala are out to disillusion white voters without college degrees in the Rust Belt and Mountain West, who will elect Mitt Romney president if they vote Republican by the 30-point margin they gave the GOP in 2010, but who could also give President Obama a second term if they do not turn out in great numbers, or if their support drops to the 18-point margin they gave John McCain in 2008.

"We are therefore witnessing a well-rehearsed and coordinated and almost balletic exercise in voter suppression, as Obama and his helpers spend hundreds of millions of dollars convincing middle America that Romney is a rich elitist who made a fortune in rapacious finance capitalism, and whose concern for the bottom line trumps transparency, compassion, and community. The objective of this campaign is to tie Romney down, Gulliver-like, with connections to the most lurid aspects of Bain Capital and the global economy, thereby hobbling his ability to make his case and dragooning white voters into apathy."

—Matthew Continetti, Washington Free Beacon, August 9, 2012.

LOOKING AHEAD


We're gearing up for the conventions, and we’ll have more coverage of the presidential race in upcoming issues of THE WEEKLY STANDARD.

THE LAST WORD


So why does the California Way matter for Mitt Romney? It matters because it doesn't work. It can't work. Californians are seeing their social model crumble in front of them. And the rest of America is watching, too.

Romney could illustrate his broader case for reform by talking about the problems in troubled states such as California—explaining what's happening, why it happened, and what can be done to change course. He started down that road slightly last week when he compared California to Spain, Italy, and Greece. But California could be more than a quick applause line.

And here's where Paul Ryan comes in.

My sense is that over the course of the last month, the Romney campaign has reassessed its strategic position. Since 2011, their theory of the election has been that it's a referendum on Obama's economy and the unemployment rate. That's not a crazy theory, but neither was it foolproof. And the polling evidence to this point suggested that it was not working.

Romney's selection of Ryan suggests that he may have decided to change the election from a referendum on the incumbent to a contest of ideas. Ryan is the most forward-thinking member of the Republican caucus. He's the one who has put forth an actual plan to keep the rest of America from becoming California through entitlement and budget reform. And by happy coincidence he's the party's single most persuasive advocate for these policies, too.

In other words, Romney's choice of Ryan suggests that he's ready to stop making California an applause line and start using it as an object lesson in what happens when government acts as an expansive, gluttonous patron.

Enjoy this week—because it'll be either the turning point of this campaign or the high point. Let's hope it's the former. Regardless, drink it all in. And as always, you can follow me on Twitter @JVLast and email me with tips, thoughts, etc., at editor@weeklystandard.com.

Best,
Jonathan V. Last

 Share

P.S. To unsubscribe, click here. I won't take it personally.


MORE FROM THE WEEKLY STANDARD


LeBron Leads U.S. Basketball to Gold

Fred Barnes says they’re better than the Dream Team. Read more…

 




Ryan's Moment

Paul Ryan comes to Norfolk. Read more…

 




The Most Dangerous Man in the World

The Islamic Republic of Iran's Ali Khamenei. Read more…

 





 
Online Store

Squeeze the head to the left to relieve stress. Yes you can! Only at our store.

 


 
Subscribe Today

Get the magazine that The Economist has called "a wry observer of the American scene."

 


Read probing editorials and unconventional analysis from political writers with a
dose of political humor at weeklystandard.com.



 Share

To unsubscribe, click here.