Shake, Abel, Shake

First, the good. Maldonado’s shake-up serves as a helpful reminder that there is an Abel Maldonado campaign for governor. I had a vague notion that there might be such a campaign going on, but this was confirmation. 

The shake-up also serves as what law enforcement professionals involved in the retrieval of kidnap victims refer to as “proof of life.” You need to know that the kidnap victim is alive before negotiating over ransom after all. Maldonado might have been wise to release the news of his shake-up with a photo of himself holding that days’ newspaper. 

Then there’s the bad. Maldonado has jettisoned a whole host of expensive GOP consultants who had shown a proven ability to lose campaigns in California. Since Maldonado is going to lose this campaign, it sure would be nice to have consultants who know how to do that. 

And since spending money on consultants is what politics is all about, at least in California, Maldonado now will have to find other consultants who can lose and take his money. A search like this is harder than you might think. 

Or he could try something different. Come up with California-specific plans on the issues that really matter to people – housing and education. And run both to Brown’s right and left by relentlessly pointing out the governor’s failure to address the state’s long-term issues have left us paying more for less in services. 

If Maldonado loses in this way, it would at least be a useful, productive loss that could force Brown to stop playing small ball. 

If he ran a campaign like this, he wouldn’t have to fire media-connected consultants to prove that his campaign actually exists.

(Joe Mathews is Connecting California Columnist and Editor, Zócalo Public Square, Fellow at the Center for Social Cohesion at Arizona State University and co-author of California Crackup: How Reform Broke the Golden State and How We Can Fix It [UC Press, 2010]. This column was posted first at FoxandHoundsDaily.com.

-cw

Vol 11 Issue 75

Pub: Sept 17, 2013