Carla Marinucci takes a look at how the four major statewide candidates would create jobs and, although she provides a good discussion of the details, her article seems to miss the bigger picture.

Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina's approach to job creation is quite different from that of Jerry Brown and Barbara Boxer. These differences have a number of aspects, but can be boiled down to this:

Brown/Boxer believe that the government has a clear role to play in creating jobs by providing by investing in both working people and in creating the 21st century infrastructure they need to prosper - whereas Whitman/Fiorina believe mass unemployment and further concentration of wealth in the hands of the small elite that already dominate the economy will provide "growth," even at the expense of our basic social and physical infrastructure.

Here's how Marinucci describes the Whitman/Fiorina approach:

Republicans Whitman and Fiorina, two former CEOs, decry what they say has been California's unfriendly business climate and call AB32 a job killer. They emphasize tax cuts and regulatory reforms to help small and large businesses and argue that they have direct experience creating jobs.

Both Whitman and Fiorina are calling for voodoo economics tax cuts - slashing capital gains and other taxes for the wealthy in the belief, in spite of the evidence, that this will create jobs. In fact, all it will do is fuel the collapse that is starting to occur, especially since Whitman and Fiorina both oppose new government spending and have pledged to make deeper cuts to core government services.

They both also pledge mass layoffs, a tool they employed at their own companies to try and produce more profit. In Fiorina's case it failed; in Whitman's case the success is more uneven. Either way, in a state with over 12% unemployment, mass layoffs - whether of public or private workers - is an extremely bad and reckless idea.

Further, both Whitman and Fiorina believe we should actively undermine efforts to position California for the 21st century economy. Whitman doesn't want to fund the high speed rail project and like Fiorina believes that action on climate change, which creates and sustains a green jobs economy, is bad - both preferring to instead prop up the failed 20th century economy and the oil companies that are vehemently opposed to new innovation.

In contrast, Brown and Boxer both prefer to invest in working Californians and in the infrastructure and policies needed to spur a 21st century economy. As Marinucci describes it:

Democrats Brown and Boxer argue for green-tech and clean-energy jobs that they say represent California's best hope for employment for decades to come.

They say their government experience is a plus. Brown said he put Californians to work in his two terms as governor as the state led the way in alternative energy. Boxer touts her efforts to secure funding and jobs for major projects such as BART extensions, and her co-authorship of legislation to give small businesses more access to credit, capital and tax advantages.

There's more to it than just that, of course. Boxer voted for the stimulus and to extend unemployment benefits, both of which have helped many Californians avoid the worst during this long recession - whereas Fiorina has said she opposes both and would have done nothing at all to help the unemployed and the suffering, instead focusing her efforts on making the rich richer.

Jerry Brown's jobs plan is fundamentally oriented around positioning California for the 21st century, pledging to accelerate development of clean technologies from solar panels to high speed rail, while ensuring our schools have the support and resources they need.

The choice this November could not possibly be clearer. Whitman and Fiorina are determined to channel even more wealth and power to their CEO friends, at the expense of the jobs and prosperity the rest of us desperately need. Brown and Boxer are proposing to continue investing in us and in our infrastructure so that California is well-positioned for the 21st century.

US Senator Barbara Boxer brought her "Jobs for California" tour to Monterey this morning, where she fired up the crowd with a very strong and robust defense of her record in the Senate, her role in bringing jobs back to California, her plans to improve and speed up economic recovery - and some damning attacks on her opponent, Carly Fiorina.

Boxer has been touring the state touting the jobs created by the stimulus act, which Fiorina opposed. Yesterday she was in San Francisco at the Doyle Drive project which is getting under way this year thanks to $100 million in stimulus money. Fiorina has been attacking the stimulus, which has been conservatively estimated to have saved or create 150,000 jobs in California.

Fiorina's entire campaign plan, in fact, appears to be geared around calling for higher unemployment. Fiorina's spokeswoman Julie Soderlund said the jobs created by the stimulus weren't worth it, and at today's Monterey event about five Fiorina supporters showed up with signs reading "Government Jobs aren't Real Jobs."

Boxer's speech this morning, which was both lively and fiery, took direct issue with Fiorina's arguments. Boxer challenged Fiorina to come with her to Fresno later in the day where she would be meeting with police officers whose jobs were saved by the stimulus, or go with her to the project building the fourth bore of the Caldecott Tunnel, where private sector jobs are being created with public funds.

Boxer also slammed Fiorina's own record on jobs. Fiorina has opposed ALL jobs bills that have come before the Senate, including extension of unemployment benefits. And of course, Fiorina laid off 30,000 workers at H-P, a company she ran into the ground and was fired from in 2005. Fiorina memorably called offshoring "right-sourcing" and said "there is no job that is America's God-given right anymore" - an indication that she is totally uninterested in actually creating jobs here in California.

In contrast, Boxer made her own job creation solution clear. She said her plan has three key elements: 1) rejecting Prop 23 and protecting California's ability to lead the recovery through green jobs, 2) using transportation projects from highways to high speed rail to put people back to work, and 3) stop the corporate offshoring of American jobs.

Boxer strongly opposed Prop 23, which would repeal AB 32, calling it a "job killer." As to the deficit, Boxer drew loud cheers when she said that Bush's tax cuts for the rich and his two wars were responsible for undermining the work she and President Clinton had done to produce a surplus in the 1990s.

In fact, that last argument could be Boxer's secret weapon. Boxer was there in the Senate in 1993 when she helped pass President Clinton's jobs and deficit reduction bills. By 2000 there was a record $230 billion surplus, which Bush promptly destroyed through his reckless tax cuts and destructive wars.

The 1990s economy wasn't perfect - far from it. In fact, Carly Fiorina was perhaps one of its highest-profile products, and one of its most obvious failures. But there's no doubt that Boxer helped produce a budget surplus and real economic growth and job creation in the 1990s.

Judging by her tour of California this week, Boxer is more than ready for the task.

Photo: Lynne Frey, Monterey County Democrats

They're baaaaaack. The National Organization for Marriage (NOM), one of the leading anti-gay groups in the country and a key opponent of same-sex marriage, is again pushing out a bizarre video ad that distorts the truth.

In the fall of 2008 NOM produced an ad filled with fear about same sex marriage to motivate their base to support Prop 8. The ad, "The Gathering Storm", told the lie that marriage equality somehow threatened individual freedoms.

NOM is back again with a new ad attacking Barbara Boxer for her support of marriage equality, and claiming that Tom Campbell supports it too. The ad also focuses on other political issues, showing that NOM is trying to branch out and become a multi-issue right-wing organization.

The ad, which is part of a $500,000 ad buy, makes a big mistake when it comes to Tom Campbell. As this KNBC video shows from just 2 weeks ago, he doesn't believe marriage rights for same-sex couples are included in the U.S. Constitution, opposing the federal trial of Prop 8.

As NOM rolls out its new ad campaign, California progressives need to hold them accountable and push back against their bull. That's why the Courage Campaign is going to produce and air a response ad of our own. We need your help to fund it.

Click here to help us quickly get our response ad on the air -- and let NOM know we're not going to let them keep peddling their crap to Californians.

Below is the email we sent to our members today on this subject.   Read More »

Senator Barbara Boxer emailed our 700,000+ members today asking them to stand with us to fight for women's health and stop the Stupak Amendment. Sen. Boxer has become a very strong, compelling voice against this odious amendment, which would make it very difficult for women to access their right to reproductive choice. It's going to take a strong show of force by the California progressive community to ensure that this is taken out of the final bill. Please join us by signing the petition.

Below is the email Senator Boxer sent to our members.   Read More »

At a press conference just before California's February 5th presidential primary, firebrand Congresswoman Maxine Waters said she endorsed Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama because, "It's clear there are two different campaigns, one is about hope and inspiration and the other is a campaign about concrete proposals and solving problems, and I think Sen. Clinton's experience emerged very clearly."   Read More »

Cross posted at Calitics.

In the continuing battle over Blackwater and America's soul, Senator John Kerry called for hearings today into the renewal of Blackwater's State Department contract. Why? In Kerry's words:

To learn that Blackwater's no-bid security contract for Iraq was renewed even as a grand jury investigates the company and the IRS considers its own review of the company's books, raises serious concerns that merit Senate hearings. How was this decision made? What was the process that concluded there were no alternatives? What was the extent of Blackwater's lobbying effort?, said Senator Kerry. "Five years into this war, there's been too much abuse of the contracting process in Iraq and too little oversight, and nowhere do the questions loom larger than in Blackwater's role and the Administration's apparent imperviousness to skepticism where this corporation is concerned.

Coincidentally, this news comes on the same day that news broke that Blackwater vehicle prototypes might be on the Defense Department's shopping list. This is two more fronts in the battle over Blackwater's legitimacy. On the one hand, Blackwater continues to seek out new niches to keep itself afloat after we finally leave Iraq, and on the other hand, Democratic leadership continues to step to block Blackwater. Kerry's hearings will likely take place in the Middle East Subcommittee in the Foreign Relations Committee. Also serving there is Senator Barbara Boxer. Now Senator Boxer has earned the benefit of the doubt over her years in the Senate, but this is a huge issue that goes well beyond this aspect of Blackwater or the State Department. This is a statement about how we as a nation are going to treat organizations like Blackwater.

I have a lot of faith in Barbara Boxer to do the right thing, but that doesn't mean it isn't vital that we watch and make sure she helps drive the point home here. There's simply never any excuse for Blackwater to be paid with our tax dollars. Until we can lay down a federal level smackdown (Rep. Schakowsky's Stop Outsourcing Security Act is another great opportunity) on this sort of thing, it's just gonna be more rounds of whack-a-mole around the country. It's good to see more leadership in DC on this issue, but now we've gotta get the follow-through.

FISA is grabbing national attention today as the debate rages on the floor of the Senate, and on the heels of Senator Feinstein's response to Robert's post, Senator John Edwards is calling for citizen pressure on Senators Boxer and Feinstein. The heat is on and Edwards isn't mincing words on this one- "It's wrong for your government to spy on you." No kidding.

Senator Feinstein's parsing position that would give away the keys to the store and validate immunity for Bush on this issue is a classic example of Democrats conceding the issue without a fight. When Bismarck declared politics to be the art of the possible, it's hard to imagine he meant the art of what is immediately possible. Time and again, this administration has demonstrated that it is not only foolish but reckless to operate in "good faith" when the Constitution is involved, and moving constitutional judicial proceedings behind closed doors doesn't inspire much good faith in me.

Anyways, the leadership from John Edwards on this issue is much appreciated and a big boost to proponents of basic freedom. It appears that Senator Clinton will not support the Dodd filibuster by returning to Washington and Obama has, so far as I know, not moved to add support either. That's disappointing but not entirely unexpected as the battle continues over every single Senator.

Keep up the pressuring phone calls to make sure that Senator Feinstein knows we're serious about this one.

Check out the Edwards email on the flip.   Read More »