Opinion: Neel Kashkari’s so down and out, even his dogs are voting for Jerry Brown

Neel Kashkari is down and out in Beverly Hills. Also among the conservative gentry of Sacramento.

Pretty much everywhere Republicans are found.

Kashkari is the California GOP’s official challenger to Gov. Jerry Brown, the party’s bona fide nominee. Judging from the way some of the party’s luminaries are treating him, however, you’d think he was from Planet Claire.

Political chatterboxes are focusing on ideological traitor Ashley Swearengin, who is running for state controller. After delivering the keynote at the state GOP confab in Sacramento, the Fresno Republican left the door open to voting for Brown: “I’m looking at the two candidates like other Californians are.”

At this writing, and when Swearengin uttered her utterance, Brown was a Democrat.

Not to be left out of Perfidypalooza 2014, longtime fiscal gadfly Pete Peterson stabbed Kashkari -- who is, after all, the GOP candidate at the top of the ballot -- as if he were the progressive income tax.

“This does NOT help the party, and it distracts from the efforts made to convey a positive theme,” a furious Ron Nehring, former state Republican chairman and candidate for lieutenant governor, emailed party officials. “The coverage is not of a party expanding its reach. It’s about a party that isn’t unified because its candidates can’t get it together and get on the same page.”

Well, yeah.

I’ve never voted Republican or been tempted to do so, so writing this feels strange, but I don’t think the disarray of the California Republican Party is a good thing. One of the biggest problems in American democracy is that we only have two viable political parties. Going from two to one is not an improvement.

What did Kashkari do to earn such disrespect?

First and foremost, he’s going to lose, and lose big. Anyone who does him a favor now won’t be able to redeem it any time soon.

Some insiders say Swearengin was annoyed at Kashkari for his recent weeklong stint as a sorta homeless guy in her city, not because he did it, but because he didn’t tell her in advance. If true, this makes me wonder: Who is she, his mom? Can’t a young gubernatorial hopeful slum on the cruel streets of Fresno without checking in with the mayor? Also, as a Central Valley mayor, she’s pro-Central Valley bullet train; Kashkari, not a Central Valley mayor, is against it.

Peterson is more coy. The Los Angeles Times’ Michael Finnegan and Seema Mehta say Peterson argues that “a secretary of state needs to run state elections in a nonpartisan fashion.”

Too bad he didn’t hold the post in Florida in 2000, or in Ohio in 2004.

Take it from this lefty: The dissing of Kashkari has become downright unseemly. Finnegan and Mehta: “Party leaders omitted Kashkari from a flier promoting the [state GOP] convention. It featured photos of Swearengin, [U.S. Sen. Rand] Paul and U.S. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield). McCarthy was the headline speaker Saturday night; Kashkari was relegated to lower-profile proceedings Sunday morning.”

What has Kashkari done to deserve such shabby treatment? Nothing. But the classy way he’s handling the jerks in his own party, like a happy warrior, makes me think he may have a bright future -- though probably not as governor.

Perhaps not as a Republican, either.

Twitter: @tedrall