Candidates fiddle while the state burns

These are the times that try voters’ souls.

Just when millions of Californians began tuning in to the upcoming elections, the candidates running for office appeared last week to have wandered onto a different planet, where they speak in tongues and reality is situational.

As the Legislature and Arnold Schwarzenegger came to terms on a budget that will dump pain into his successor’s lap, little was heard about it from either candidate for governor. They were talking, through aides and statements, about illegal immigrant housekeepers and insulting language, not the state’s feeble state. And the candidates running for the U.S. Senate were not much different.

Jerry Brown, the Democratic nominee for governor, and Meg Whitman, his Republican counterpart, closed out the week trying to put out brushfires they had themselves ignited and having only minimal success doing so.

The latest issue to strike the race blossomed Thursday, when The Times published an account of a private conversation between Brown and some aides that was picked up by a voice mail machine on which Brown had just left a message and—he thought—disconnected the call.

In the conversation, Brown expressed frustration at the fact that law enforcement unions were siding with Whitman because of her decision to exempt public safety officials from key parts of her pension reform proposals. Brown, whom Whitman has painted throughout the campaign as a captive of the unions, insisted that he would not cut the same deal Whitman did, no matter the consequences.

Had that part of the conversation alone become public, it might have made Brown look principled. But instead the tape captured a lengthier strategy session. Someone was heard suggesting that Whitman’s actions could be used to cast her as a “whore.” It was not immediately clear who uttered the comment; the Brown campaign said it was not the candidate. The candidate was not heard disabusing the speaker, in any case.

Whitman’s campaign responded in full umbrage, calling the word choice “an insult to both Meg Whitman and to the women of California.”

“This is an appalling and unforgivable smear against Meg Whitman,” her spokeswoman, Sarah Pompei, said.

And yet the same Whitman campaign last June tried to dismiss as inconsequential reports that the candidate, during her tenure as chief of EBay, had cursed at and pushed a young woman underling.

Back then, Pompei said that “a verbal dispute in a high-pressure working environment isn’t out of the ordinary.” Whitman said voters had more important things to worry about and that “we shouldn’t get sidetracked by a fascination of the chattering class on things like this.” Only later would Whitman acknowledge that the dispute was, as the reports had said, physical.

The Whitman forces have company in changing their tune.

The Brown campaign said in its mild apology for the “whore” remark that the conversation was private and “at times our language was salty. We apologize to Ms. Whitman and anyone who may have been offended.” The candidate himself said nothing, at least initially.

But when Whitman was accused of shoving her EBay underling, the Brown campaign was far more exercised.

“Was it an anomaly or the kind of thing that happens all the time?” a Brown campaign statement asked. “Californians deserve a governor who tells the truth and takes responsibility for their actions, not one who is constantly searching for a better excuse.”

The Senate campaign’s version of this came Friday when the federal government released its monthly unemployment report, showing that the country had lost 95,000 jobs in September. Republican Senate candidate Carly Fiorina condemned her Democratic rival for the job losses.

“The news today that 95,000 Americans lost their jobs last month confirms yet again that Barbara Boxer’s plan to create jobs by deficit spending and expanding government isn’t working as she promised,” Fiorina said in a statement. “Without real private-sector job creation generated by small businesses, our economy’s recovery has slowed to a crawl—yet Barbara Boxer continues to ignore the facts, tout the ‘success’ of the stimulus plan she championed and propose nothing but the same tax-and-spend policies that have not worked.”

In fact, the jobs report showed private employers adding 64,000 jobs in September. The loss of 95,000 stemmed from big cuts in government jobs—the same sorts of cuts in government jobs that would result from Fiorina’s own campaign proposals.

Without specifying how she would do it, Fiorina has said she would cap federal spending at 20% of gross domestic product, down significantly from last year’s 24.7%. Fiorina would also freeze hiring of non-security government employees and terminate programs shown to be “ineffective,” presumably consigning their employees to the job cuts she decried on Friday.

Boxer, too, was not innocent. After spending the campaign saying Fiorina should not be elected because she sent American jobs overseas while leading Hewlett-Packard, Boxer tried to brush away Fiorina’s criticism that Boxer had accepted campaign contributions from companies that did the same thing.

Boxer said the contributions were not “an issue at all” and were just Fiorina’s “way of diverting attention from her record.”

Back on the planet where the rest of California resides, the Legislature on Friday approved a budget a mere 100 days into the state’s fiscal year. The lawmakers closed a $19-billion deficit with rosy assumptions of revenue, thus-far-nonexistent federal funds, accounting maneuvers and borrowing that will push debt onto the next governor.

Neither of the candidates who could be the next governor commented specifically about the deal, in keeping with a campaign spent avoiding such things. The exception came in the duo’s first debate, at UC Davis, when a student asked the candidates whether they would promise to roll back recent cuts to state universities and colleges.

“Not my first year, with a $19-billion deficit,” Brown blurted out, visibly taken aback. “We have to get real here.”

But neither he nor Whitman has said how.

cathleen.decker@latimes.com

Each Sunday, The Week examines implications of major stories. It is archived at latimes.com/theweek