Neel Kashkari provides Republicans with an excellent opportunity to take the Governors mansion. Posted on 06/04/2014 4:23:14 AM PDT by dignitasnews
Neel Kashkari provides Republicans with an excellent opportunity to take the Governors mansion.
In California's Tuesday elections, Republican Gubernatorial candidate Neel Kashkari outlasted a stiff challenge from Tim Donnelly to head into a November showdown against incumbent Jerry Brown. In other notable races, former NFL player Damon Dunn fell just short in his bid for the Long Beach Mayor's office, while contraception cover-girl Sandra Fluke appears to be heading a second place finish the 26th District State Assembly race, which will qualify her for Novembers general election.
With nearly 99% of all precincts reporting, Kashkari held an apparently insurmountable lead over Donnelly, capturing 594,849 votes (19%) against Donnelly's 465,302 (14.9%) in California's open primary system. The 40-year-old son of Indian immigrants will take on incumbent Governor Jerry Brown, who secured his place in Novembers general election with 54.5% of the overall vote.
Neel Kashkari burst onto the political scene following a successful career in the private sector, which included stints as a mechanical engineer and investment banking. Despite Brown's notoriety and experience, the charismatic and telegenic GOP challenger could provide Republicans with a solid chance to retake the Governors mansion in the heavily Democratic state.
Born and raised in Ohio to Kashmiri Pandit parents, he graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with bachelors and masters degrees in mechanical engineering. He moved to California and began working for NASA contractor TRW, Inc. where he worked on the James Webb Space Telescope, developing a component meant to steady and reduce vibration upon deployment. He then followed a growing interest in finance and obtained his MBA from the Warton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He then entered a second career in investment banking for Goldman Sachs, dealing mainly with software companies.
At Goldman's, he caught the attention of CEO and Chairman Hank Paulson, who took Kashkari with him to Washington when Paulson was named Secretary of the Treasury in 2006. He named Kashkari his special assistant on energy policy, where he helped to develop President George W Bush's energy conservation initiative as well as international infrastructure development, assisting US allies including India. His impressive work was recognize by Bush, who in 2007 named him as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for International Economics and Development.
During the height of the subprime mortgage meltdown and the financial crisis it triggered, Kashkari was instrumental in the "Hope Now Alliance," which aimed at reducing foreclosures by modifying loan terms for qualified distressed homeowners. He clashed with Paulson in 2008, arguing that if the Bush administration did not receive the proper authority needed to deal with financial meltdown the next administration would ultimately blame Bush for the entire crisis. He proved to be quite prophetic in predicting then-Senator Barack Obama would both win the Democratic nomination over Hillary Clinton and would use the crisis to take the White House that November, subsequently further crippling the economy by laying blame on Republicans and using the crisis as a precursor for further government intrusion into the economy.
While his support for gay marriage and unclear positions on abortion have put him at odds with social conservatives and Tea Party enthusiasts within the party, his fiscal positions and aversion to government regulation helped him overcome some of those opposition and as the night wore on it became more and more apparent he was pulling away from Donnelly, who boasted strong pro-life and traditional marriage credentials. The aforementioned social positions may help him overcome liberal efforts to paint him as "too conservative" for California, with its large gay population and generally left-leaning positions on many social issues. In a state suffering economically from decades of Democratic control, his pro-growth philosophy could make him a formidable opponent against current Governor Jerry Brown, whose popularity has suffered due the states economic malaise.
In other high profile races Tuesday:
Former NFL player and protegee of Condoleezza Rice fell short in his Mayoral bid in the city Long Beach. The Stanford University graduate fell in a tight race against Robert Garcia. Barring any changes, Garcia secured 52.1% of the vote, against Dunn's 47.9%. The Dunn campaign suffered from a lack of sustained momentum, despite initial confidence. He initially secured the strong support of local Republicans, but appeared to distance himself from the party label, concerned that this might prove to be a hindrance with certain demographic groups in the city. This decision proved to be fatal, as it caused conservatives and moderates alike to question his ability to carry the GOP message into minority neighborhoods and grow the party's base. Current City Councilman Garcia enjoyed strong support and cooperation from the city's large gay gay and lesbian community, from which he counts himself a member. This proved to be a key factor in his razor thin victory over Dunn, who experts believe could have been victorious with a more organized and enthusiastic ground game.
Damon Dunn's decision to obscure his Republican identification turned out to a bad decision.
In the states 26th Senatorial District, contraception cover-girl Sandra Fluke appears to be headed to the November general election with a 2nd place showing in the westside areas primary race Tuesday. The first-time candidate utilized the national attention she received as a result of her testimony in Washington DC, where she called on the government to provide free birth control via health insurance regulations. That and the subsequent media storm following conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh's critique of Fluke brought her into the national limelight, which she parlayed into a successful fund-raising effort. She received 19.4% of the vote in the heavily liberal district, finishing in second place to fellow Democrat Ben Allen, who she will face off against in November. The Republicans did not field a candidate for this race.
Sandra Fluke's national attention helped her secure a place in November's general election.
Overall, GOP hopes in the state appear to be improving, although it will take more than one election cycle to transform a state in which Democrats have dominated the political scene for than a decade. A sagging economy however, and numerous high-profile criminal probes into nefarious Democratic activities have given conservatives hope that a new band of leaders can help reverse the fortunes of both the party and the states fiscal well-being. In securing his place for the November Governors race Tuesday, Republicans may have just found this new leader in the person of Neel Kashkari.
By Dignitas News Service
Sources:
CaliforniaStateGovernorsReturns CaliforniaStateDistrictReturns CityofLongBeach NeelKashkari
He
- Voted for Obama in 2008
- Is pro-Abortion
- Is pro-Amnesty
- Is soft on 2nd Amendment
- Was the guy who doled out the cash for the TARP bailout (thus, “Kash Karry”)
Sorry. Held my nose and voted for a Rat in Cat’s clothing too many times. Brown’s gonna win, I’m gonna write in Mickey Mouse.
I do not recall seeing ONE Tim Donnelly commercial or hearing ONE Tim Donnelly commercial on the Radio, not one.
It’s a wonder that he got as many Votes as he did.
Brown will win in a Landslide, no doubt. Even if we cloned Reagan and he was running against Brown, it wouldn’t make a difference.
Kashkari will fail to get my vote in the general. He’s a Romney guy. He can pound sand.
All true, that's part of my point: his was a real grassroots TEA party kind of candidacy. He had very little money, appealing to the Guns and Bibles Clingers of the "Republican" Party...in other words, us.
And what did the Big Money guys do to him? Did they help?
Nah. They rat screwed him.
We can't replace the upper echelon of the Stupid Party fast enough.
What you mean "we," White Man?
I voted for Republican Meg Whitman, a fully functional leftist on all fronts, as a means to vote "against" Brown. Then after reading here for the umpteenth time J Random Freeper's pearl of pure in-your-face truth that "If you vote for liberals you're liberal," the light bulb finally went on. (Johnny, thank you for your persistence in posting that simple truth over the years, and may you continue for many more years to come).
If she'd won, would I be accountable for the functional leftism I'd voted FOR? As she advanced all the leftist crap, but in a more businesslike button-down "conservative" manner, that Brown advances? Which she would have; I did my due diligence on her, and voted for her anyway, which was stupid of me. One has to be stupid to be a liberal, and voting for Meg Whitman made me a functional liberal, though my intentions were (foolishly) the opposite.
And it will be stupid of you to vote for Kashkari because your vote will be to expand leftism. You can pretend all you want that your vote will be to prevent the Teachers' Unions, just as I used to pretend that my vote for Whitman, and my vote for Schwarzenegger, were votes "against" Brown and Bustamonte.
The reality is that the only thing that matters is what you vote for. When you vote for Kashkari in the general, you will only be voting FOR making leftism and liberalism more powerful in the Republican party. Period.
You know women better than most people.
too bad Kneel, Cash N Carry won the primary
Running candidates that piss off 40% of your own party is not a winning strategy for November.
He doesn’t deserve to win. I will happy to see him lose.
Well, then why can’t you get 60% of the party to support your candidate.
I’ve never heard such whining in politics as the losers who think everyone else is out of step but them.
I bet you guys took the ball and went home when the team didn’t want you to play quarterback.
I’m not a Republican, at this point I hardly care which party wins.
Bill, that's a stupid, shallow, and false analogy.
When you're playing football, you're doing it because you love to play football and competitiveness drives the need to "win," even though whether Team A or Team B wins is of zero importance in the real world. In fact, because it is of zero real importance, is why things like football provide such a popular outlet for people.
When you're engaged in supporting a political candidate, whether a leftist or a limited government conservative wins makes a profound difference in the real world.
Some of us refuse to support Republican leftists because we understand that truth. Some of you consider such refusal as the equivalent of "taking our ball and going home because the team doesn't want us to play quarterback." If you insist on a sports analogy, use one that is more accurate: it's more like leaving when moron players want to use our ball to play a dangerous nightmare game.
+1
Just remember, Sandra Fluke rhymes with.
Um
What dafuq?
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