Sixty-eight-year-old Tom Steyer brought his newly energized campaign for governor to Santa Barbara last week to our Museum of Natural History.
The museum’s Fleischman Auditorium seemed fully occupied, and the entrance was roped off to prevent any standees inside. Unlike the Bob Dole rally at Fess Parker’s rotunda in 1996, there was no Santa Barbara County Fire Marshal on hand to shut the rally down should as much as one person in excess of maximum occupancy make the premises “unsafe.”
Inside, Steyer was alone on the stage and moving very little. It could have been Thomas Friedman talking about political economics or Bret Stephens boring the pants off attendees at the annual Westmont College Breakfast series. No bunting; no U.S. flags adorning the stage and elsewhere; no political signs bobbing up and down.
Was this a rally… really?
On “Immigration”
Until lately, Steyer’s poll numbers were mired in middling single-digits. He has sprayed money more liberally on the political process since 2020 than most corporate ag farmers spray fertilizer on their crops. At least Big Farm harvests a crop at the end of it all. So far, Tom Steyer has come up empty. As for noise and applause, most of it took place at his introduction and at the end. Some of the blue-meat punch lines failed to garner more than a smattering of applause. A couple times, Steyer looked as embarrassed as Jay Leno when one of his jokes falls flat, and he had to rush to the next joke. At no time did anything Steyer said elicit shouts and screams of approval.
Just before he reached Santa Barbara, the Steyer campaign released his political tour de force, which he hopes will separate him from the other radical socialists running to succeed Gavin Newsom (and prevent Steve Hilton and Chad Bianco from depriving Democrats of a line on the ballot in November). He introduced this plank in his platform by saying, “Republicans say America needs less or no immigration. I say,” – his voice rises to an infrequent shrill – “America needs far more immigration than Trump will permit… and Steve Hilton is Trump’s lackey in California.”
Very recent polls indicate there is a distinct chasm between Republicans, Independents, and Democrats on legal immigration. When the subject is presented as illegal immigration, support for amnesty and deportation is top-heavy against the Democrats. California is a bluer state than the nation as a whole, which is why Steyer is blurring the issue as simply immigration in hopes voters will see the issue in the best possible light for Democrats.
Bottom line is that immigration is seen as illegal immigration and that legal immigration, when understood in depth, is a detriment to many native-born Americans, and is also not a winning issue.
Mr. Tough Guy
Steyer is a guy who made his fortune investing in private prisons, I.C.E. detention centers, oil, gas and coal companies. And now he wants voters to believe he’s walking back all these sins, asking the most radical Democrats for their forgiveness and claiming that his having earned $2.4 billion was all a big mistake.
Steyer is a free man giving up religion to reclaim his status as Judas. In order to run to the left of the rest of the gubernatorial jungle-primary candidates, the retired founder of hedge fund Farallon Capital Management spoke of his intentions to nullify all federal immigration laws (the entire portfolio of rules and regulations is beyond reforming), arrest and incarcerate federal immigration law enforcement officers, and if you’re not yet totally amazed, return deported individuals back to the U.S. To which Elon Musk tweeted: “WOW!”
Channeling Detective Friday
While accusing President Trump of acting like a King or Emperor, Steyer will effectively abolish I.C.E. within the boundaries of California, jail its agents for performing duties that he has outlawed for the state, ignore any federal court injunction or ruling that says he can’t do what he’s doing, and extend his powers as governor to go to foreign countries, gather up people who’ve been deported, and return them to their rightful place in American society.
Tom Steyer goes so far as to paint I.C.E. and the Trump administration as criminal enterprises subject to investigation by the California Attorney General and jailing them as they would members of the Mob. “As governor, I’ll go after I.C.E. the way Eliot Ness and Joe Friday went after the Mafia.” (There’s goes the Italian vote.)
Selling Insurrection
This is nothing less than insurrection masquerading as a political campaign. Democrat Congressman Adam Smith of Washington state fears that his party is moving in a fundamental sense away from support for our nation. Many of Steyer’s remarks focused on foreign policy criticism of Donald Trump, but if “surging” support for outright subversion of the federal system – as contained in Tom Steyer’s declaration of war against the people who stand in the left’s way of instituting its “replacement theory,” at least in his jurisdiction – is a sign of things to come, the entire Democrat Party is withdrawing its imprimatur on the American way of life and how we do things.
Vladimir Lenin brought insurrection to the masses in fiery speeches. Tom Steyer speaks of insurrection in tones mimicking Dwight Eisenhower or Calvin Coolidge. He looks like someone’s wealthy grandfather. But his rhetoric and programs come with a veiled switchblade.
Beware of the grandpa approaching you wearing rolled up designer shirt sleeves.
He’s armed.
Community Calendar:
Got a Santa Barbara event for our community calendar? Fenkner@sbcurrent.com
Steyer created multiple problems he now claims he’s running to fix. He’s a dangerous hypocrite seeking only power who already has spent $12M attempting to attract voters. He might try the ‘CA Hospice Approach’: I’ll buy you a flat screen for your ID (your ballot). He’s like a snake oil salesman full of fake promises.
What Steyer knows and is banking on: there are many stupid CA voters and also ignorant voters, regardless of political party registration, who vote the name they have heard most often or the name who promises them benefits at my and your expense.
I’d sure like to see how he’s going to pull these plans of his off. He legally can’t do any of the things you stated. But he has stated that he’s going to bring school testing scores back up to number one and also lower our electricity cost 25%. Never any details just big promises. I think the comment above is right. he’s counting on out and out stupidity and ignorance (which there is plenty of in California), along with commercial bombardment in order to win this nomination. God help us if he does.