Jerry Brown doesn’t have anyone on his campaign team that speaks Spanish.

On Saturday Univision held a statewide televised debate between a the surrogates of Meg Whitman and the Jerry Brown gubernatorial campaigns.

There was a scheduling issue, it seems that Attorney General Jerry Brown doesn’t have anyone on his staff to offer for a Spanish speaking debate.

That’s right – Jerry Brown has no Spanish speaking member on his gubernatorial campaign team. One wonders how he is “communicating with the base of the Latino worker in California” if he has a language barrier.

The California Democrat Party had to bail him out in offering their communications director for the afternoon. Hence, it makes for some very interesting listening and reading here at HOGUE NEWS’ exclusive coverage of the Univision debate.

If you’re wondering, Steve Poizner was not invited to the 30-minute debate round table. He cancelled for the ‘third time’ and Univision moved on.

As you watch this debate focus your attention on a few vital areas of interest:

• Brown’s lack of specifics
• Questions about Meg buying the election
• Numerous directives surrounding the issue of immigration.

 

The Univision hosts are Johanna Sanchez  and Santiago Lucero. The campaign surrogates are Hector Barajas (Meg Whitman) and Tenoch Flores (Jerry Brown), the current Democrat Party Communications Director.  

Johanna: How does Jerry Brown plan to create jobs?

Tenoch: Jerry Brown has the experience, he is speaking with community groups. Groups like the Latino community, groups of workers, educators, and he is meeting with them to find out what we can do to have a budget that works for all of California.

Hector: The reality is that Jerry Brown does not have a plan. More than 40 years.(Tenoch interrupts)…wait, wait left me finish. More than 40 years in state government and now he is getting together with people, they are trying to find out, trying to find out what they want, what they are going to do (This was being said in a mocking way). The thing is, if he is not ready to be a leader than he needs to step to the side. There are seven Democrats running to be the Democratic gubernatorial nominee. And at this point, he has already been Governor, Mayor of Oakland, if he doesn’t know what he is going to do and he doesn’t have a plan, than why doesn’t just say that?

Santiago: Let me interrupt. Tenoch.

Techoch: Jerry Brown has been accused of various things and one of them is that he does not have specifics. But he does have specifics….(Hector interrupts)

Hector: Where are they? We don’t see them. Where are they? (Santiago interrupts)

Santiago: There are some independent voters, and this question will also be for Tenoch and also for you Hector. They understand Brown’s long record, his dedication to California, and they say that today they prefer Meg Whitman, because she has experience in the business world and can create jobs.

My question is to you Hector, if she comes from this corporate world, this world also lets go of people, when things go wrong. The criticism that Meg Whitman receives is that she cannot lead a state as if she were the president of a corporation, in this case like if she was in charge of eBay.

Hector: Knowing how to balance a budget is important, that not only occurs in business, but in our own households. At the same time, knowing that if certain programs are no longer functioning or moving our cause forward, you need to cut them. (Santiago interrupts)

Santiago: She has said that she will let go of 40,000 state workers. So she begins with a plan to let go of people.

Hector: It is about not filling those empty slots, but at the same time, knowing what programs are no longer working. If we create a program today, it will never end. If the program stops functioning in five years, why fund them? That is part of the problem we have, we have programs after programs after programs. And if we are talking about Jerry Brown’s experience, what type of experience did he have when he was in Oakland? Debts, higher homicide rates, and when he was the governor of California he left us with a debt.

Tenoch: That is not true. Jerry Brown when he was governor of California, there were new jobs created in California, we began to invest in clean energy, which is something important for this state (gets interrupted by Hector).

Hector: In 1976?

Tenoch: And let me just say, Meg Whitman begins with cutting 40,000 jobs, there are 2.6 million people without jobs (Hector interrupts).

Hector: So how are we going to balance the budget, with the $20 billion? How? That is what I want to know.

Tenoch: Cutting 40,000 jobs is not the solution, how can you do that?

Johanna: We are going to speak about the budget a little later on, but first we want to show Jerry Brown’s platform. When he announced his candidacy for the Democrat Party, we had an opportunity to talk with him over some issues important to Latinos and this is what he told us:

Jerry Brown Interview:

Jerry Brown: I see my state in a very big problem. I understand the problems and I have a unique experience, because many years ago, I was previously governor of California. I now know what functioned and what did not.

Johanna: How do you plan to close this multi-billion dollar deficit that California currently faces?

Jerry Brown: I will start right after the election and call together all 120 legislators and work with each of them so that they can each understand the budget. What are the options and share them with the people.

Johanna: Do you plan to raise taxes?

Jerry Brown: No, not when people are losing their jobs. The people have to vote. If they want us to raise their taxes, they have to vote for them.

Johanna: What do you plan to do, so that students can continue to study here in California?

Jerry Brown: I don’t want to see any more tuition increases. When I was governor I fought so that they would not increase enrollment, we have to maintain a quality of education in our schools, we can’t allow for California to be left behind.

Johanna: Do you support Gil Cedillo’s bill, the California Dream Act?

Jerry Brown: I think they should get financial aid. Why not? We need people who can work and earn money so that they can pay taxes.

Johanna: What are your thoughts on Driver’s licenses to undocumented?

Jerry Brown: No. I am the chief law enforcement officer, I can’t say that if you are here illegally, we are going to give you a license. This does not work for me. We have rules and we have to respect them.

Johanna: Why should Latinos vote for you?

Jerry Brown: I was a very good friend of Cesar Chavez, his union always supported me. I have a long record of working with the Latino community and I plan to continue this if I am elected governor.

End of Brown Interview.

Santiago: I believe every gubernatorial candidate is going to have a difficult time solving the $20 billon deficit. Tenoch, I want to let you respond, he stated that he would not raise taxes and he is not inclined to make drastic cuts, how do we solve this? (Johanna interrupts)

Johanna: There won’t be taxes, unless the public wants them.

Tenoch: That is the thing of cuts again, I don’t understand that when there are more than 2 million unemployed Californians, Meg Whitman wants to eliminate those jobs. There are solutions there. Jerry Brown knows the solutions, knows the people, and knows what is needed to make progress in this area. We have a broken budgetary process. It needs to be fixed. It is very difficult and I believe Meg Whitman does not have the experience or knows how to solve it. It is very difficult to be in charge of a large company and be governor, and Meg Whitman really doesn’t have that experience.

Johanna: We were looking at the webpages for each of the gubernatorial candidates and we could not find anything concrete on Brown’s plan to stimulate the economy or to close the budget deficit.

Santiago: There is a difference with Meg Whitman, who has specific points.

Tenoch: Yes, and Meg Whitman also has more than a billion dollars to do this. We saw that she had a book of solutions, but it had more pictures than anything else. Jerry Brown has specifics, what he doesn’t have is more than a billion dollars to spend on TV and radio ads, and to send this book to the state libraries.

Johanna: Meg Whitman gets accused of trying to buy the Governorship.

Hector: These are the facts, we have already used up 15 minutes in this interview and we don’t know from when we stared to now, what Jerry Brown is planning to do. (Santiago interrupts)

Santiago: Let me interrupt you, we have to go to a break, but we have two more segments, so we will be right back.

Johanna: Thank you for continuing to be with us, Meg Whitman has already invested more than $59 million in her campaign, they accuse her of trying to buy the Governorship, Hector.

Hector: As I was saying, I find it comical, yet sad. First, Jerry Brown does not have a person who speaks Spanish in his campaign, I know that they brought Tenoch, and than you for being here. Second, where are the specifics? We don’t know what Jerry Brown is planning to do. He sells you a beautiful story, but at the end of the day, he accomplishes nothing. (Johanna interrupts)

Johanna: Is she trying to buy the governorship?

Hector: Meg Whitman is communicating with voters, it costs more than $1.5 million to advertise (Johanna interrupts)

Johanna: She is not trying to buy the election?

Hector: No. She is not buying it. (Tenoch interrupts)

Tenoch: How much as she spent from her own money?

Hector: It is from her own money, unlike Jerry Brown who leaches off of the people of California. She has invested $59 million. (Johanna interrupts)

Johanna: And she is planning to invest $150 million. (Hector interrupts)

Hector: And you know what, this is money that she earned. Her own money. Money that she earned through her effort and hard work. (Tenoch interrupts)

Tenoch: Money that she made in Wall Street. A large portion in Wall Street. (Hector interrupts)

Hector: She did not work for Wall Street, she worked for eBay. (Tenoch and Johanna Interrupt)

Tenoch: She worked on the board for Bain.

Johanna: Goldman Sachs. (Hector interrupts)

Hector: Let me say this, she was an executive at eBay, when she started working there, there were 30 employees. When she left, there were 15,000 employees and the business was generating more than $8 billion in revenues and millions of people were now making their living with eBay. And that is what she accomplished. She accomplished this. She was an executive, and the accolades and the money she has, she earned it through her own effort. (Tenoch interrupts)

Tenoch: And speaking of eBay, how many Latino manager did she hire when she was at eBay? Because I have heard, not a single one.

Hector: I believe the number is 4, including Henry Gomez who is on our campaign. (Santiago interrupts)

Santiago: We are going to continue on and show you the platform of another candidate, who we mentioned earlier. He did not provide us with a campaign representative.

Santiago: The next question I am going to ask both representatives of the campaigns has to do with immigration. I only want a yes or no response. Does Meg Whitman and Jerry Brown support a comprehensive immigration reform plan for undocumented immigrants? First I begin with you Hector.

Hector: We can’t (Santiago interrupts)

Santiago: Yes or No?

Hector: I am telling you, we can’t get to this point without first securing our borders. And this is a federal issue and we are working to solve (Santiago interrupts)

Santiago: The voice of California’s governor carries a lot of weigh in the federal level.

Hector: If we can’t find a way to secure our borders, we can’t make the next step. What we do favor is a guest worker program.

Santiago: Ok, but you are not in favor of a immigration reform plan? Meg Whitman is against an immigration reform plan for undocumented immigrants.

Hector: If we don’t secure our borders, no.

Santiago: President Obama has earmarked $400 million to secure the borders, so we are going to (Hector interrupts)

Hector: If we are going to have a discussion on what Barack Obama is or is not going to do (Santiago interrupts)

Santiago: He has already earmarked this money.

Hector: You know what, you and I can have a discussion for half an hour or two hours on: he said this, he said that, and then he said this. (Santiago interrupts)

Santiago: He has already earmarked this money.

Hector: Until that money gets used, who knows what is going to happen with it.

Johanna: And Jerry Brown?

Tenoch: Yes, this is a big clear difference between Jerry Brown and Meg Whitman. Jerry Brown supports immigration reform, he is with the President and with the congressional leadership who believe that this is something we need to do and it is important that we find a way to integrate the people who are here so we can all continue to work for something this important. And this is important.

Hector: But we are all in agreement, including Jerry Brown and Meg Whitman that we should not provide driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants. (Johanna interrupts)

Johanna: Yes, but recently there as a survey where 65% of the Republicans, I am talking about Republicans, not Californians, support a path way to legalization for people who are already here. So Whitman is not complying with the electorate.

Hector: At the same time, a majority of these people also believe we should secure our border. What we need to focus on, here in California, and this is what our campaign is focused on: how are we going to creating jobs, how are we going to reform education, because without an education our community does not have a future, and if we don’t do this and focus on these issues, we are going to end up where we always do, having this very same debate four years from now.

Santiago: When governor Schwarzenegger became governor he suspended the VLF, the cost of car registration, if provided $6 billion a year. Schwarzenegger said, that is it, we won’t charge it anymore. From that time to now we have lost $42 billion in earning for the state. Does Meg Whitman and Jerry Brown plan to reinstitute this fee?

Tenoch: I don’t know about that specific fee, but this is an example of the philosophy of Republicans that have taken us to where we now find ourselves. Who believe we can cut everything and believe we can still have programs. The reality is we need programs, and what Whitman is doing is a continuation of what Schwarzenegger is doing and we don’t need it. (Hector interrupts)

Hector: The difference we have here is, Meg Whitman gives you specifics and with Jerry Brown after almost half an hour, nothing. (Santiago interrupts)

Santiago: Will she institute the VLF?

Hector: There will be cuts in some programs (Tenoch interrupts)

Tenoch: Again there is no specifics there. (Johanna interrupts)

Johanna: We are going to have to end there, thank you both for joining us, we are going to have another program on this. Thank you for being with us today.

Santiago: We will see you next Saturday for the next Voz y Voto. We will continue to talk about Meg Whitman, Brown and Poizner. Get yourself involved in this interesting debate. Thank you.