Who the Heck will be the Next Governor of California?

So you may have heard some talk around the water cooler by now that in November of this year California voters will elect their 39th Governor. The 2010 California gubernatorial election will be held on November 2nd while the primary elections will be held on June 8, 2010.

Since constitutional office holders in California are prohibited from serving more than two terms in the same position the incumbent (meaning the guy who has the job currently) Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger is ineligible to run for reelection. (You might remember him from Terminator or my personal favorite Kindergarten Cop “It is not a tommmma!”).

The primary election will determine which candidates from each party will run in the final election in November (the candidate from each party receiving the most votes will move on to the final election). Why is a primary necessary? Among other reasons, you never want to have two candidates from the same party running in a final election because they would “split the vote.” Vote splitting also occurs when popular third party candidates (i.e. Independent Party, Green Party, Libertarian Party etc.) enter the race because they will steal votes from outliers of the two main parties (Democrats and Republicans). So it is in the best interest of the part to select the most popular candidates to go against each other in final elections. Get it? Got it? Good!

Currently in the gubernatorial race (the race for the office of the governor) there are three top candidates; two Republicans and one Democrat. So I thought I would break down these candidates with some facts (in no particular order) about each to get us all up to speed in preparation for the June 8th primary.

OK, here we go, in alphabetical order.

Edmund Gerald "Jerry" Brown, Jr. (Democrat)

1. First off, Jerry Brown is a “white” guy, not to be confused (as a friend of mine had) with Willie Brown the former Mayor of San Francisco.
2. Jerry has already served two terms as the Governor of California (he was the 34th Governor from 1975 to 1983). Now, you may be wondering how he is he allowed to run again? He is eligible to hold the office again because the current two-term limit was not in effect when he first occupied the position – in other words, since the law was not in place at the time it does not apply to him. He would, of course, be held to the two-term limit this time around if he were to be elected. (FYI - He by far as the coolest official gubernatorial portrait displayed at the Capital, and seen here. Trust me, the rest of these portraits are serious and seriously lame).
3. He is also the son of former California Governor Pat Brown, who held the office from 1959 to 1967.
4. He currently (since 2007) holds the office of California Attorney General, whose basic duty is to ensure the laws of the state are uniformly and adequately enforced. The Attorney General is also the head of the state Department of Justice, acts as the chief counsel in state litigation, and oversees law enforcement agencies such as the District Attorney’s Office.
5. Before he was governor he was the Secretary of State from 1971-1975.
6. He unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nominations for President of the United States in 1976, 1980, and 1992, and was an unsuccessful Democratic nominee for the United States Senate in 1982.
7. After his “unsuccessful” attempts at Washington D.C he was elected the Mayor of Oakland serving from 1998-2006. When Brown took office in 1998, he pledged a 20% reduction in crime. By 2003 Oakland exceeded that ambitious goal, with decreases of over 30% in serious crimes (Part I crimes as defined by FBI).
8. He was born in San Francisco in 1938 (making him 72 years old in April).
9. He earned his B.A. from Berkley and his law degree from Yale Law School.
10. His 2005 wedding (this was his first marriage, he was a bachelor while Governor and Mayor) to Anne Gust was officiated by Senator Diana Feinstein. Later that day they held a religious ceremony in the same Roman Catholic Church where his parents were married.

Stephen Leo "Steve" Poizner (Republican)

1. Steve currently serves as the California State Insurance Commissioner (elected to this position in 2006). His duties as Insurance Commissioner are to oversee and direct all functions of the Department of Insurance; license, regulate, and examine insurance companies and their doing within the state; answer public questions and complaints regarding the insurance industry and enforces the laws of the California Insurance Code and adopts regulations to implement the laws.
2. Steve' background is in business; he worked in Silicon Valley as a high tech entrepreneur and founded both SnapTrack, Inc. (which pioneered technology that put GPS receivers into cell phone, which he sold for $1 billion dollars in 2000) and Strategic Mapping (a software company).
3. In 2001, during the George W. Bush administration, Steve served a year as a White House Fellow in the National Security Council as Director of Critical Infrastructure Protection, beginning only one week before the 9/11 attacks (what a way to start a new job!) He was involved in developing Homeland Security programs relating to cybersecurity and emergency response communication protocols.
4. Steve was born in Houston, Texas in 1957 (making him 53 years old).
5. He received his B.A. from the University of Texas (Longhorns) and his MBA from Stanford Business School.
6. In 2001, Steve co-founded EdVoice, an educational non-profit organization dedicated to improving public schools and serving the interests of K-12 children in California.
7. In 2003 Steve co-founded the California Charter Schools Association.
8. In 2004, he ran unsuccessfully for the California State Assembly.
9. George W. Bush appointed Steve to serve on the Honorary Delegation to accompany him to Jerusalem for the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the State of Israel in May 2008.
10. He has a black belt in Shotokan karate (bad-ass).


Margaret Cushing "Meg" Whitman (Republican)

1. Meg was the President and Chief Executive Officer of eBay from March 1998 to March 2008.
2. Financial Times named her one of the 50 faces that shaped the decade and Fortune Magazine repeatedly named her one of the top 5 most powerful women for her success at eBay.
3. She received her B.A. from Princeton University and her MBA from Harvard Business School (funny, never heard of these schools...)
4. She originally wanted to be a doctor, then changed her mind, then ended up marring a doctor, namely Griffith Harsh IV, a neurosurgeon at Stanford University Medical Center.
5. She was born in Long Island, New York in 1956 (making her also 53 years old).
6. Before ebay she worked for Playskool as a General Manager, overseeing global management and marketing of two of the world's best-known toy brands, Playskool and Mr. Potato Head (you know you had one of these).
7. Meg supported Mitt Romney’s 2008 Presidential campaign, until he dropped out of the race when she joined the McCain Campaign as a national co-chair.
8. She has stated that if elected Governor of California she would suspend Assembly Bill 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 signed into law by Governor Schwarzenegger (this bill basically mandated a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by roughly 25% by the year 2020) in order to study potential economic implications.
9. Meg supported Proposition 8 the reversal of In re Marriage Cases (2008) which gave homosexual couples the right to be married in California, though she did support recognizing those same-sex marriages which occurred after the ban.
10. She is a billionaire and her gubernatorial campaign is largely self-funded as she has contributed about $40 million of her own dollars to the cause.