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In state's time of need, the governor fails to lead - by Dan Weintraub
Gov. Gray Davis just might be the weakest chief executive in recent history. He is a genius at reflecting the will of the people. Unfortunately, the people's will right now is to demand unlimited services from government while refusing to pay for them with higher taxes. And Davis is incapable of charting a different course.
At a time when California desperately needs a governor with the guts and the skill to talk tough to the people, we have a man whose political antenna works only one way. He can receive but cannot transmit.
One reason for his failure to communicate is his apparent lack of conviction. Davis rarely shows evidence of believing in anything beyond such abstract notions as an on-time budget, or compromise for its own sake. He's never demonstrated an ability to describe a vision for the state and then doggedly pursue a strategy to achieve it.
As a career politician, Davis sees everything as an insider's play. In a visit to The Bee's editorial board the other day, he was asked how he planned to build public support for his revised budget plan. His reply: He'd talk to every interest group that passed through Sacramento in the weeks ahead.
"To the extent I can go to chambers and environmental groups and various citizen groups, I want to get the word out," he said. "But I want to try and reach groups that have some linkage to the process here."
That's fine, but the heavy lifting, long neglected, is with the broader public. It is precisely their disengagement that allows the interest groups to run over Davis in the Capitol. But most people are either too busy or too jaded to have grasped the magnitude of the fiscal problem the state is facing. And Davis, by ignoring the issue during his re-election campaign, only made it worse.
One option: Barnstorm the state, giving speech after speech in big cities and small towns, laying out the problem in blunt terms and appealing for public support to help him fix it. A little bit of paid advertising wouldn't hurt, either.
The message: Unlike the federal government, California cannot print money. We are going to have to cut services, raise taxes, or, most likely, both. It is painful but also necessary because we cannot continue to spend today while promising to pay for it tomorrow.
It's already a forgone conclusion that we will be paying the next five years for services rendered last year and this. Now Davis is asking the Legislature to approve a phony fix in June ("on time") while putting off the tough decisions until August, when all his leverage will be gone. Why? Because, the governor says, nobody wants to make those tough calls today.
The truth is, even though Davis is obsessed by the inside game, he is not very good at that, either. He has almost no respect in the Capitol, where he has few friends and no deep relationships. It's widely known that he can be rolled with the slightest pressure.
In January, Davis actually proposed a balanced plan that was fiscally responsible. Everyone hated it, of course. So he abandoned it with hardly a fight.
Last week, in a display that can only be described as pathetic, he whined to The Bee's editors for printing news stories about the endless Capitol protests waged against his plan. He blamed coverage of the rallies for his failure to win the votes he needed.
"Every
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