Michael Shellenberger. Independent thinker. Lifelong Democrat. Trying to take back California from “country club” Establishment
California, an enormously populous and wealthy state with an outsized impact on the culture, economy and politics of the United States, has a gubernatorial election this year. Jerry Brown, who has served a total of four terms and is the son of a former two-term California governor, isn’t running for reelection due to term limits.
Michael Shellenberger has decided that he is the right person to serve as Governor of the great state of California. At this point in the campaign, even some of his biggest fans don’t give him much of a chance. He has never run for elective office and does not have a conventional political machine.
He does, however, have a substantial amount of name recognition, ever-improving oratorical skills, and a powerful message that is embodied in his campaign’s slogan “Give Change a Chance.”
His initial platform is one of opposition to corruption, support for housing crisis solutions, improvements to the educational system and – the reason his campaign rates coverage here – support for abundant clean energy that includes keeping Diablo Canyon operating, taking action to repair and restore San Onofre, and enabling the construction of new, advanced nuclear power plants.
Abundant, affordable and clean energy can provide the resources and jobs required to revive California’s Dream. A Shellenberger victory in California would have a positive impact on the future prospects of U.S. atomic energy development that would be difficult to overstate.
Shellenberger sees California as an incredible state blessed with many natural gifts, including a dynamic, diverse, progressive population. As he told Dave Rubin during a recent interview on the Rubin Report, he also believes that the political system is broken and terribly skewed in favor of the tiny slice of people at the top, some marginally effective programs for people at the bottom, and not much benefit at all for the majority of the people in the middle.
He calls the establishment Democrats “country club” liberals. He believes it is insane to have a system where just 17% of the teachers in the state can afford to buy a house near their schools. He worries about the state’s ability to continue to function at all when other public servants cannot afford to live and where even a six figure tech job enables someone to buy or rent a few hundred square feet with little left over for other expenses.
He has courageously touched the third rail of California politics by suggesting that Proposition 13 needs to be revised so that neighbors in virtually identical homes do not receive property tax bills that can differ by factors of 10 or 20 based on the time they purchased their homes.
He’s a lifelong Democrat who grew up in a religious, pacifist family that emphasized the importance of education and service. He has a lifelong love of the natural world, and was once a firmly committed Environmentalist. In recent years, he has reemphasized his humanist leanings and helped to develop a new school of thought known as Ecomodernism. Though he initially considered running for office as an independent, he has determined that he will run as a Democrat.
For those with a reasonable understanding of current California politics, it is a big stretch to imagine success for an outsider who is not already well entrenched in the Democratic machine. However, California voters enacted a law in 2010 that provides a large enough opening to enable someone like Mike to surprise everyone with an upset victory.
That law created a unique system for choosing the candidates that will appear on the November ballot. In June, there will be a primary that is open to all registered voters without respect to any declared party affiliation. All of the people who have properly registered to run by the filing deadline of March 9 and have paid all of the required fees will be listed on the ballot. Their party affiliation, if any, will be listed next to their name on the ballot.
The top two candidates, regardless of party affiliation, will advance to the general election.
In such a contest, name recognition will be important, but so will the candidate’s ability to reach the voters and explain why they are the correct choice. The system offers some intriguing possibilities for people skilled in the art of attracting attention on social media platforms. Michael is a recognized star on the Internet.
EMC Research conducted a pool of likely voters at the end of February. Michael Shellenberger was number 5 on the list in terms of name recognition, which isn’t a bad start considering the large size of the field (somewhere greater than a dozen candidates) and the early stage of the formal campaign season. Of course, some of the front runners have been campaigning or positioning themselves for the office for careers lasting decades.
“He believes it is insane to have a system where just 17% of the teachers in the state can afford to buy a house near their schools. ” And just yesterday I read that San Francisco is seriously considering building “Dormitories” for the silicon valley Technical workers to ease the home prices for SF hotel and restaurant workers. Looks like Orwell’s 1984 has finally arrived.
gifts of a a “dynamic, diverse, progressive population”
LOL you should write for the NY Times.
Time for California to split into multiple states. Most of the state is predominantly conservative outside LA and San Francisco. Maybe we can carve out Diablo Canyon into one of those. Leave the others to bask in their dynamic, diverse, progressive, and homeless (due to failed policies and commitment to keeping a permanent underclass) population.
@Huntster
The populous coastal areas of California are all Democratic including the Diablo Canyon site. The central valley, the mountains and the deserts are borderline Republican.
http://www.ppic.org/publication/californias-political-geography/
Here is a useful web site
http://radiationeffects.org/
which Atomic Insights readers may wish to encourage others to read.
I hope I am able to sell my house and get the hell out of CA before he gets his hands on Prop. 13.
This state is going to have to undergo a hard failure before there is any chance of sanity being restored. Between the coming public employee pension bailouts, Brown’s bullet train to nowhere and the red carpet for illegal aliens from the third world, it won’t be long.
FermiAged, I couldn’t agree more. One has to wonder if those in charge are deliberately attempting to sabotage the state…and country.
The same self-destructive policies are pursued in numerous western nations regardless of the political party in power. The policies are characterized by hostility towards western values such as free speech, logic and personal indepedence (particularly through restrictions on energy development). This is no accident.
Michael running is an opportunity whether he wins or loses because he will be advocating for nuclear energy. I think the rest of us supporters of nuclear need to donate to Michael to help get him more into the spotlight. For example to help him join the debates. He will be promoting the same values we want for the whole country. Any success he has will have positive effect outside the state as well. Even outside the country.
He’d be even more courageous if he campaigned for the scarcity value of all resources supplied for free by nature/God to be collected and paid as a citizens dividend.
Not only would this rebate in full to producers, like teachers, that part of expenditure on immovable property that currently makes it unaffordable, but would also allow the market to optimally allocate existing and future developments.
Resulting in affordable housing, compact, attractive cities and more space at the margin left for wildlife.
But Rome wasn’t built in a day, and I suppose repealing Prop 13 is about as good as we can expect from a politician.
I will be voting for M. Shellenberger in June. I do not expect him to win.
It would be great if he can make the other candidates speak honestly about the current energy policy in the state.
I do find it odd that even the folks at the Rocky Mountain Institute note that the military will be using nuclear to power their ships. But it’s to expensive for the rest of us. Only if you don’t count it’s co2 free output like we (CA) count it for RE!
It would be great if folks would leave a few comments over at this post by Kunstler- http://kunstler.com/podcast/kunstlercast-302-yakking-chris-nelder-energy-transition/