A Marketplace Warrior Gets the Nod

Am I the only one who thinks it’s weird that the subjects of immigration and welfare reform never came up at the gubernatorial forum sponsored by the Los Angeles Times? Credit Democrat Al Checchi for at least bothering to mention that the gap between rich and poor in this state is growing. But no one cared to evaluate the effects of the sweeping welfare reform, which has had disastrous consequences for California’s poor and immigrant population.

Democratic Rep. Jane Harman was the most offensive of the four, trading on the fact that she is the only female candidate when she was an enthusiastic proponent of the welfare reform passed by Congress last year, which mainly targeted poor women and their children. Welfare reform, lest we forget, forces mothers to leave their children after they are 6 months old to take dead-end jobs, even though it is well-documented that adequate child care, another subject untouched in the debate, is often not available.

Indeed, when Checchi dared state that we need to spend more, not less, money on helping those left out of the modern economy, Harman attacked him as a “tax and spend” candidate. This from a congresswoman who has led her colleagues in money raised from defense contractors and has supported the $70-billion B-2 stealth bomber and virtually every other boondoggle they have come up with.

Harman, who boasted of her support for the “three strikes” law, is one of those New Democrats who can make even Dan Lungren seem reasonable. If she’d nodded any more emphatically in agreement with Lungren, her head would have fallen off. They only really disagreed on abortion, and even then Lungren was backing off so fast from his once-fervent position that by election day he will probably be sounding pro-choice.

Lungren insisted that the governor can do very little about abortion, which, if true, should cause all those pro-lifers to stay home on election day. He brought no passion to the issue and blamed it rather lamely on his being a Catholic and committed to the sanctity of life.

What nonsense. Where is his respect for the sanctity of life on the question of capital punishment, to which the pope is opposed? Or those drastic welfare cuts that the Catholic bishops oppose as violating the sanctity of life? Just once, will someone ask reactionaries hiding behind the Catholic Church how they can be so concerned about the welfare of the fetus and so indifferent to, nay contemptuous of, the well-being of the child born in poverty?

Gray Davis is a particular disappointment in his fervor to come on as the toughest law and order character around. From the way he enthuses about locking people up, the most docile pothead in Berkeley had better watch out. Checchi deserves high marks for daring to suggest that the tens of thousands of nonviolent folks in prison for drug-related offenses ought to have a shot at rehabilitation, which now is rarely available.

I went into the forum favoring Davis and came out leaning toward Checchi. He was the only one who talked about the changing demographics of California as a world-class opportunity, which will only be realized if we invest in educating the children of immigrants.

Davis is a fine fellow whom I have observed in government for the full 23 years he has served. He ran the state for six years under Jerry Brown, and there’s no one more competent to take over right now, as he does whenever Pete Wilson leaves town.

Davis is honest and wonderfully unassuming, but I have this nagging doubt about his resolve to stand up to the political right. But it is only a nagging doubt; as Davis points out, he was at Jerry Brown’s elbow when Brown made very fine and even controversial judicial appointments.

Davis also deserves a great deal of credit, as he quite properly claimed, for ending the dominance of white males as leaders of the state’s bureaucracy. The appointment of women and minorities to the judiciary and top positions in the government set a national standard, and that is achievement enough for people to vote for Davis with a clear conscience.

But, I can’t help it. There is something about Checchi that I like. Perhaps it’s his ability to so easily destroy the argument that people with a social conscience never met a payroll. This is one of those legendary road warriors from the multinational marketplace who stands up straight and true to state that the government must intervene to balance and, indeed, improve the judgments of the marketplace. Maybe an enlightened capitalist is the best we can do in these troubled times.