For my sins, I had to watch the whole blessed thing Thursday evening, the debate, the California gubernatorial-candidate debate, put on by the CBS affiliate in San Francisco, which Channel 2 down here thought so highly of, thought it would be such must-see TV for an electorate madly following this electric campaign, that you had to go searching for its YouTube channel to watch it.
But watch it I did, which I’m sure you did not, not the whole blessed thing, at least. Because who would? You instead watched the clips, looking for the gotcha moments.
Former Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, the supposed leader in this supposedly fascinating and no doubt crucially important race to become the governor has cornered the market on concern about gotcha moments. Can you even believe that Becerra asked Annie Rose Ramos of KTLA the other day before she started her interview with him: “By the way, this is a profile piece, not a gotcha piece, right?”
You’re asking voters to make you the boss of the Bear Republic and you’re worried the questions from a local television news reporter are going to be too tough for you to handle?
“Cowboy up, cupcake,” in the inimitable words of Katie Porter. (Though she directed that riposte to the only actual pretend vaquero in the race, Chad Bianco, the kind of sheriff who does indeed sport a 10-gallon hat.)
Speaking of the former Orange County member of Congress, Porter’s high-spirited performance was easily the biggest surprise of the night for me. I had not been anything like on Team Katie ever since we saw her yelling at a reporter and yelling at a staff member.
Since I wasn’t looking to like her, that’s how I know that my notion as the debate meandered on was objectively true: She was the only pol on the stage who seemed light on her feet, relaxed, funny. Slimmer, tanned, she took advantage of being the one woman candidate. Asked at the end of the event who she would vote for if her name didn’t happen to end up on the November ballot, she said: “I would vote for any one of the Democratic … dudes.” When the men squabbled, she leaned on her lectern, rolling her eyes.
She also joined in on the general Becerra-bashing enjoyed by Democrats and Republicans alike as candidates piled on Becerra, the new leader in the race — I realize Steve Hilton is technically 1 percentage point ahead of the former state attorney general, but Hilton is never, ever going to be governor of California — because that’s what you do in politics.
But, guys, knock him because he won’t pull on his big-boy pants and answer questions from a reporter, not because he’s “associated” with a criminal indictment in which a former aide allegedly stole from Becerra’s campaign funds.
Becerra is the victim in the case, but according to Hilton: “You shouldn’t be in this race. You should be preparing your criminal defense.” Add Hilton: You just have to relish the way he pronounces Becerra’s first name: “Hah-vee-yay.” And you just have to wonder what advantage he thinks he gains by noting he once worked at 10 Downing Street. What slice of California voters do you imagine even know what that address means? One in 10?
And speaking of my main man Mayor Matt Mahan, why am I the only one who thinks Mahan’s right about everything important? What’s not spot-on in noting that Tom Stayer’s plans would double state spending whereas Hilton is nothing more than Donald Trump’s “handpicked puppet”? Nothing is wrong with those facts. But California voters don’t want smart moderation, it seems.
Maybe Gov. Porter, or perhaps Gov. Becerra, can name him Housing & Homelessness czar, and maybe post-Newsom California Dems can get stuff done.
Larry Wilson is on the Southern California News Group editorial board. lwilson@scng.com.