The California Governor’s race is really starting to become more and more interesting as election day comes closer. A few months ago, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom’s campaign was losing steam; aides were quitting, and Jerry Brown said Newsom would make a great Lieutenant Governor. Ouch. Barely a week after Newsom’s campaign hopes were resuscitated by a Bill Clinton endorsement, Meg Whitman publicly announces her candidacy.

Whitman, the former CEO of eBay, has never held public office before, which alone is enough to get my endorsement. Plus, she’s actually got some very interesting ideas. Like getting rid of “AB32.” According to the SF Chronicle blog, Whitman wrote an op-ed for the San Jose Mercury News urging Governor Schwarzenegger to put a moratorium on AB32’s greenhouse gas reduction requirements. If he doesn’t, as Governor, that would be her first move.

California’s crippled economy is starving for capital and investment, and getting rid of most or all of AB32 would allow at least a little more of both of them to start flowing in to the private sector. Extensive government regulation, even with the noblest of aims, makes it incredibly difficult for new businesses to get started, especially smaller ones. California’s entrepreneurs need less control, not more. Plus, our environment is way too important to be regulated by government since it is by far the biggest polluter in the world (just take a look at the destruction of the Aral Sea).

She would also cut 40,000 state jobs (about the 2004 levels) and start selling and leasing surplus state property. Even if Whitman was elected and was able to make these spending cuts, they would still be relatively small compared to the total deficit. But it would be a start, and the only way to realistically and effectively trim down the size of our state government (How about a 10% cut every 2 years?). Plus she likes the idea of using a line-item veto to reject some of the routine “district friendly” spending that Republicans get in exchange for voting for a large Democratic bill.

California voters have heard this promise before. Remember Arnold parading from city to city, promising to fix California’s “spending problem?” Much, much more spending was soon to follow. But he was a Hollywood actor who found himself at the helm of the world’s 6th largest economy, and the temptation to keep feeding the public trough was too hard to resist.

Whitman, on the other hand, was the former CEO of eBay, one of the most successful enterprises in history. It’s also one of the closest thing to actual capitalism America has, where millions of people engage in (nearly) unrestricted commerce and the exchange of goods. Best of all, there are no greedy unions involved either.

In the last 30 years, we’ve had actors and career politicians to choose from, and for some reason, Sacramento is buried in debt. Whitman may not have the name or the celebrity of Newsom or Brown, but her outsider background could make her more and more appealing to frustrated Californians.

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For more of Robert’s work, please also visit his Libertarian Examiner blog.

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