Fellow scholars, as much as I love the pursuit of the national championship, it's high time we start a conversation on the "life and liberty" portion of our tagline.
As I sat (and sat...and sat...) in the jury room today, pondering the inefficiencies of public service, I was reminded that with November comes another election. And there's one in particular that perfectly illustrates what I believe to be the fundamental problem of our political system: Whitman v. Brown in the California gubernatorial race.
Now, I realize some of you don't live in California or give two shakes about left-coast politics, but I assure you that my thesis is universal. I'm not going to go into the distasteful and embarrassing grade-school antics of each side's television ads. I'm not even going to talk about specific issues or platforms. Truth be told, I haven't followed that much of the campaign because I don't think the choice should be that difficult.
Consider: Fiscally, California has been operating like a reckless trust fund brat on a bender for as long as I've lived here (5+ years), and no doubt longer than that. ("Whatever, brah...my old man will take care of it.") The state is nearly $80 billion dollars in debt, with another $43 billion approved but not yet issued. And no one in Sacramento seems to possess even a basic understanding of cash flow, requiring 100 days beyond their deadline to pass a budget that is still $19 billion in the red. Clearly, this is a path that is unsustainable.
Also consider: The two candidates for the highest office in the state are 1) a lifelong politician and former holder of said office, and 2) a retired CEO with no political ties who ran one of the most successful companies in Silicon Valley for ten years.
Think about that for a moment...and then answer me this: Why is this race even close? Isn't a successful business leader exactly the kind of person we should want in public office? Shouldn't we be begging the ridiculously smart people of Silicon Valley to run our public policy instead of private enterprises? Wouldn't our government function better if it were being run by people whose careers were built on sink-or-swim meritocracy instead of political maneuvering?
Back in 2007-2008, rumors started flying that Ms. Whitman was considering a run at governor after she completed her resignation from eBay. (Full disclosure: I was a consultant at eBay at the time, though I never did get the chance to meet Meg.) My immediate thought was, "Wow, that's great that she is interested in public service. Why wouldn't you vote for her?"
But on the eve of the election, I am baffled to be asking that same question non-rhetorically. Here is a candidate who has an MBA from Harvard, who has held leadership positions at an impressive list of companies (Bain, Disney, FTD, Hasbro), and who grew the employee base 500x and revenue 2000x in ten years at eBay. She's the type of person any company would want on their board. So why, fellow scholars - why wouldn't we want her as our governor?
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