I wanna start by saying no one is paying me for this post. I’ve commented on a few posts from Xavier Becerra’s team, in regards to the Indivisible California mess, and I’ve been invited to an event from Tom Steyer’s team that explicitly says attending is not an endorsement, though I don’t think I’m attending anyway. That’s the extent of my connection with any of the top Dem candidate campaigns.
This endorsement is solely based on my own opinion, and no one is paying me for it.
First of all, I’m sure your asking why? Why would I endorse now, after EVERYTHING I’ve said? There are still 3 weeks till the election and I said I’d wait till two weeks.
The polls are incredibly inconclusive. One of them will have Becerra at 18 and Steyer at 12, the next will have Steyer at 15 and Becerra at 8. What I’m gathering is they are the top two Dems and relatively even, if we coalesces around both of them, we should be fine.
And I don’t see Steyer supporters switching to Becerra or Becerra supporters switching to Steyer. At this point, it’s about world view, and people are pretty locked in.
Actually no, I want you to read this whole post, so I’m gonna start with who I’m NOT endorsing:
Tony Thurmond is one of my faves. I really enjoyed meeting him at a Dem club picnic last year. I tried to interview him, but they made me jump through hoops and in the end never gave me the interview. He can’t win.
I live in LA, I vaguely remember when Antonio Villaraigosa was mayor, but I DO remember being thrilled when he wasn’t anymore. He’s the oldest candidate at 73, and he has no chance of winning either.
Matt Mahan is paid for by Peter Thiel and Rick Caruso. He’s taking credit for the work previous mayors have done in San Jose and acting like he has enough experience to be governor of the 4th largest GDP in the world when he hasn’t even finished a single term as mayor.
I do like some of the things Katie Porter has said. I really appreciated what she said about social media during the CBS debate. She seems to be the only candidate that thinks the value of social media for a teen changes person to person.
I also really liked how she carried herself during that debate. It was a shit show, and it was in large part due to the moderators. The fact that she said that everyone else was acting like they were her teens at the dinner table made sense.
But, she did the same thing last night at the CNN debate. And it strikes me as someone who has a one size fits all reaction to frustrating situations. I don’t want her to treat Utah Governor Spencer Cox the same way she treats Donald Trump.
Governor Cox is a Republican, but he’s pragmatic in a way Trump really really isn’t and he’s willing to talk with Democrats, no matter how progressive their ideas are. He shouldn’t be talked to like a kindergartner whereas, sometimes, maybe Trump should.
That’s not the only reason I’m not supporting Porter, there are many others, including that she doesn’t have a chance, but that’s the one I’m thinking about after yesterday.
I was in a candidate meeting with several other progressive content creators and Tom Steyer and Matt Mahan a few weeks ago set up by a creator network I’m part of. You’ve seen exactly what I heard from Mahan, because, he’s very much, what you see is what you get.
Steyer’s different, and that concerns me. During and after this meeting, I was SO impressed with him. He really does know his stuff and had an answer for everything. But not in a “I’m better than you” way, in a “I’ve spent a long time navigating around this issue myself” way.
He was pragmatic and nuanced and really seemed to understand where his powers as governor would stop.
One of my favorite examples was what he said about healthcare. He said he supports the single payer framework, and that around the world, it costs half of what Californians pay for healthcare.
BUT, he said, moving to a single payer system requires support and accommodation from the federal government, so this can’t even begin to happen for at least 3 years.
Bet you didn’t see that coming, especially after last night’s debate.
Cause when I hear him talk to everyday Californians who don’t have the privilege of a small Q&A, that’s not what he’s saying at all. AND both he and Porter are accusing Becerra of not supporting single payer when he refuses to give a yes or no answer cause it’s more complicated than that.
But Steyer thinks it’s more complicated too, he just won’t say it publicly.
And that’s where he lost me.
Well, that and being chummy with the Republican candidates after the April 22 Nexstar debate, before the cameras cut. I mean, hugging Chad Bianco? Really?
Let me be clear. I don’t think Steyer is MAGA. I do think he believes healthcare is a human right and immigrants, both documented and undocumented are important to the fabric of California and he’s been sponsoring California environmental propositions since 2010. He walks his talk, but he can keep doing that without being in the governors mansion.
I am endorsing Xavier Becerra.
Becerra is pragmatic. He has years of experience at all levels of government from California State Assembly to State AG to US Health and Human Services Secretary. His work speaks for itself.
We know he will go toe to toe with Trump cause he did it before when he was AG. We know he will create a plan to bring healthcare costs down, because he did it before as HHS Sec.
He was the chair of the House Democratic Caucus in Congress and the highest ranking Latino member at the time. He was a member of the Progressive Caucus and voted as such. He was one of only 67 members of congress to oppose the Defense of Marriage Act in the 90s and when he was being considered for HHS secretary, Indiana Senator Mike Braun called him “Ring leader of the far left’s resistance movement.”
That’s good enough for me.
So I hope you’ll join me in supporting Xavier Becerra. And if not, please vote for Steyer so we don’t split the vote, cause HOLY SHIT the Republican candidates are an abomination, and regardless of which Democrat you want to vote for, I hope we can all agree on that.
