Carolla Vs. Newsom

Listening to Megyn Kelly’s podcast interview with Adam Carolla this past week and Adam mentioned a debate he had with current California Governor Gavin Newsom on his own podcast back when Newsom was only the Lieutenant Governor. You can listen to Carolla debate Newsom here (the last 20 minutes, from a political philosophy standpoint, are incredible). It’s definitely worth your time, especially since everyone knows this guy fantasizes about running for President one day.

Yes, Newsom comes off as brainless and witless but that’s not really what caught my attention. I’m sure many others have written about his amazing fealty to failed Left wing ideas about race and class and his ridiculous inability to confront the real challenges that are causing poverty and despair among California’s minority populations. But the incidents of stupidity that struck me were much more prosaic. I was fascinated by Newsom’s reflexive defense of every single Governmental spending program, even when presented with hard evidence that these programs were not effective, and even when opposing a given program would have zero negative politcal consequences for him personally.

He’s like a robot that can only utter canned responses. It’s amazing.

Take California’s “Click it or Ticket” program, a campaign to remind California drivers that they can be ticketed for not wearing a seatbelt. Carolla pointed out that every car manufactured since 1976 comes with an alarm that will not stop buzzing until you put on your seatbelt. Then he asked Newsom, if people will ignore an alarm going off INSIDE THEIR FRIGGIN CARS, what makes him think they will obey a sign on the highway as they drive past it at 70 miles per hour. Newsom’s response? Well, some people buckle the seatbelt to shut off the alarm and then sit on top of it rather than buckling it around themselves the way you’re supposed to. Newsom is, apparently, too dumb to realize that he just answered Carolla’s question. If someone is so committed to not wearing their seatbelt that they would buckle it and then sit on top of it just to shut off the alarm, then it is self-evident (or it should be) that they are not going to obey a highway sign?

Undaunted, Carolla tries again. He points out to Newsom that statistics show 96% of Californians already wear seatbelts every time they get in the car. Newsome’s response, “what about the other 4%?” is, perhaps, entirely predictable. The answer, Gavin, is that those 4% are the same idiots who buckle their belts and sit on top of them. They are unreachable, no ad campaign can ever change their minds, and Newsom should damned well know it. But he just can’t bring himself to say anything bad about any governmental spending program, no matter how obviously pointless it might be.

This isn’t even smart politics. A smart politician would have said something like “you know what Adam, these are some really good points, it may be that this program has outlived its usefullness. I’m going to look into that.” He doesn’t even have to actually cut the program, all he has to do is SAY he’ll look into cutting it. But he can’t even do that. Because spending programs are sacrosanct to The Left… always and forever, amen (or awomen, I guess).

And the worst part about it is that he can’t bring himself to question a program like “Click it or Ticket” even when the political consequences of doing so are at absolute zero. One wonders what is he afraid of… the vicious “Click it or Ticket’ lobby? Yeah, I hear those guys never forgive and they never forget.

If we can’t cut “Click it or Ticket”, then we can’t cut anything. And that’s the problem… if only Gavin Newsom were smart enough to see it.