California Assemblyman Tim Donnelly is a Republican running for governor in California. Here is a web ad that is hard to describe, so give it a watch:
A few thoughts:
1. I have been hearing since I lived in California in the 1980s that its high taxes and regulation were harming the state. Now, on the one hand, yes, California is (in comparison to many other states) a high tax, high regulation state and there have been businesses that have moved out of California because of that fact (also because of the high cost of land–which is driven by demand, I would note). On the other hand (and this is a pretty big hand), California is one our most prosperous states and has a massive, and highly successful economy. The notion that states like South Dakota (the only other state mentioned in the ad, I think) are in some ways economically better off than California is absurd.
2. The reference to South* North Dakota is really weird, as Connelly notes that McDonalds in South North Dakota are paying $15/hour and paying signing bonuses. One presumes that this is part of the labor shortage in that part of the world due the oil shale boom. Unemployment is extremely low in the Dakotas at the moment (source). The truly weird part is when he goes on the state that McDonalds should pay $20/hour in CA, and that he can somehow make that happen. Not only is it a fantastical promise, it is an especially odd one coming from a small government Republican.
3. What’s with his partner (speaking almost solely in Spanish) going off about she doesn’t like hunting right after Connelly carries about Governor Jerry Brown supposedly taking the first steps towards banning hunting. It is a strange contradiction within the commercial itself.
Ah well. I somehow suspect that he will not do all that well at the polls—I was just struck by the oddness of the whole thing (and I didn’t even mention the references to his sexy wife and his cojones).
Politics is a weird business, to be sure.
h/t: ThinkProgress.
*Correction.
