{"id":290112,"date":"2026-04-28T18:59:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T18:59:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/290112\/"},"modified":"2026-04-28T18:59:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T18:59:07","slug":"xavier-becerra-is-the-answer-to-a-question-nobody-is-asking-orange-county-register","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/290112\/","title":{"rendered":"Xavier Becerra is the answer to a question nobody is asking \u2013 Orange County Register"},"content":{"rendered":"

California\u2019s race for governor is the oddest one since 2003, when actor Arnold Schwarzenegger replaced Gray Davis in a\u00a0recall<\/a>. Since then, it\u2019s been an anointing, with Schwarzenegger winning a second term, and Jerry Brown and Gavin Newsom each winning two terms. This year, it\u2019s an open field. There\u2019s even a path for two Republicans to make it into the general election as Democrats split between multiple B-listers while Republicans are split by two main choices.<\/p>\n

To avoid that latter scenario, Democrats and their allied interest groups have frantically scurried to coalesce around one candidate. Their effort to rally behind Congressman Eric Swalwell collapsed after he faced several serious\u00a0allegations<\/a>\u00a0of sexual misconduct, leading him to not only drop out of the governor\u2019s race but to resign from Congress.<\/p>\n

That focused attention on billionaire former hedge-fund manager Tom Steyer, who has dropped\u00a0$120 million<\/a>\u00a0pitching his \u201ctax me more\u201d message along with his environmentalist platform. At a time when billionaires are bogeymen, Steyer has struggled to gain momentum. Former U.S. Rep. Katie Porter, a progressive from Orange County, has struggled to overcome her unlikable reputation.<\/p>\n

The race features some others who haven\u2019t gained traction, such as former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa \u2013 a voice from a past era promising to correct the course of the state with a one-term pledge. San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, a new voice with a moderate reform agenda, hasn\u2019t caught on either. The latest post-debate poll<\/a> shows those two struggling 4%, Steyer with 15%, Porter with 9%. Republican former TV host Steve Hilton leads the pack with 16% and Riverside County\u2019s GOP Sheriff Chad Bianco has 10%.<\/p>\n

Former U.S. Health and Human Services secretary and one-time California Attorney General Xavier Becerra is\u00a0moving up quickly<\/a>. He\u2019s at 13%, as Democrats figure he might be the default establishment choice. We don\u2019t blame Democrats for looking his way given the poor choices on the ballot, but Becerra inspires little confidence in his ability to run the state government. His federal stewardship at HHS was a bust, with the Wall Street Journal calling him \u201cout of his depth.\u201d<\/p>\n

His White House bosses had \u201cgrown increasingly frustrated \u2026 over his department\u2019s sluggish effort to house thousands of unaccompanied minors\u201d who had crossed the southern border during the administration\u2019s refugee crisis, per Politico in 2021. He\u2019s still struggling to explain a scandal involving allegations that his advisers pilfered $225,000 from his campaign account. There are no allegations of wrongdoing on his part, but his\u00a0explanation<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 that it \u201chappened outside of my vision\u201d \u2013 doesn\u2019t offer confidence in his management abilities.<\/p>\n

We have long\u00a0criticized<\/a> his subservience to the state\u2019s police unions as AG: \u201cBecerra refused to follow a new law that requires the release of law-enforcement disciplinary records. Courts repeatedly rebuked him \u2026. He even threatened legal action against reporters who had properly obtained some of those records from his office.\u201d He relented, but that lack of transparency also was his hallmark in Washington, D.C. And, again, he\u2019s ultimately an establishmentarian who regurgitates standard progressive policies.<\/p>\n

California faces a bevy of financial and quality-of-life challenges and needs a government with the management skills and right ideas to put it on the path toward reform. We understand the Democrats\u2019 political dilemma, but Becerra is the answer to a question nobody is asking.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"California\u2019s race for governor is the oddest one since 2003, when actor Arnold Schwarzenegger replaced Gray Davis in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":290113,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,1965,975],"class_list":["post-290112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news","tag-editorials","tag-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=290112"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290112\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/290113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=290112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}