Real and Memorex Politicians

California is in a horrible mess. This should not come as a newsflash. Their deficit, by one count earlier in the year, was greater than the GDP of the Dominican Republic. We've also got an election for governor in 2010 with candidates lining up to try to get our votes.

The GOP has three candidates, at least exploratory candidates; Steve Poizner, who is currently the Insurance Commissioner; former state senator and congressman Tom Campbell and Meg Whitman, who was the CEO of E-Bay. The democrats also have a gaggle of possible candidates. But over the last couple of days the GOP candidates had a series of exchanges which I hope most GOP voters will look at closely.

Tomorrow's special election presents voters with six alternatives to help bring us out of the budget mess. Someone proposed that the candidates debate these issues. Today, before the Sacramento Press Club - Poizner and Campbell debated. From the reports it was a pretty good exchange. Meg Whitman decided not to show up. In my mind, Ms. Whitman will need to demonstrate a lot more capabilities than her performance for this event. Poizner said he was voting against the propositions but refused to offer any idea of how he would balance the budget. In my mind, that performance is as bad as Whitman's. A duck is not the kind of leader we need at this point. One can disagree with Campbell's approach, but at least he is taking the job of being a candidate for office seriously.

The democrats in the race probably have less diversity of opinion on the measures, so it is not surprising to not see a similar exchange. But I think voters in the upcoming cycle will be looking for a lot less stage management than we have had in recent years. If you want to pretend to be governor you could be a talk show host or an actor. If you want to be governor you should be willing to have your ideas tested.