Announcement of Candidacy for Governor of the State of California

Friends, fellow Californians:

I want to thank you – each one of you – for being with me at the start of this journey.  But I especially want to thank my wife Julie, and our three beautiful daughters, Megan, Christina, and Arianna.  Julie’s been the love of my life, my partner, my best friend for two decades now and counting; Megan, Christina, and Arianna remind us why the counting matters.

I can’t tell you what it means to me to be here at Spring Valley Elementary School. 

As many of you know, Spring Valley is the oldest public school still open in California – built in the Gold Rush, when the dream of free, public education was just starting to take hold.

For my family, Spring Valley was the start of a different kind of dream. My father first set foot in this school nearly eighty years ago.  And, he’s back here with us today. 

My grandparents -- his parents -- came to this country from Greece -- and not in search of the easy life. My grandmother never really learned English, and never took a moment for herself.  Hers was a deeper purpose.  She worked as a seamstress – long hours, into the night -- so my dad could go to college.  She knew what that free education could mean -- and she meant for my dad to have it.

He didn’t go to the University of California at Berkeley, one of the great universities in the world, to glorify himself; my mom and dad didn’t work hard all their lives, like their parents before them, to drive fancy cars or see their names on a marquee. 

They simply wanted their kids to have even more chances than they’d had.  That was their dream – that we’d do better than they had done, that they’d keep the faith with the next generation. 

And they did.  And I’d like to dedicate this day to my parents and grandparents.  They gave me all they had to give, and taught me to give it too.

California’s always been the frontier of that dream – for the gold seekers who first crossed the Sierra Nevada 150 years ago – for the cyber-visionaries who are forging a new kind of gold in the Silicon Valley, even as I speak these words – for the mosaic of peoples and cultures who are our diversity and our strength. 

I’m here today because that dream is in danger.  I don’t believe we’re keeping the faith with our children, or our children’s children. 

And I say to you now: as a public servant – as a father of three daughters – I cannot stand by and watch the promise of California wither away.

We’re the richest state in the wealthiest nation in human history.  Yet we’re 48th out of 50 states in student achievement, and we have a Governor who wants to cut 15,000 dollars out of every public school classroom.  A Governor who broke a 40-year-old covenant, by telling 25,000 hungry young minds – kids who worked hard, made all the grades – that there was no room for them at our state colleges and universities. 

We’re the richest state in the wealthiest nation in human history.  Yet the gap between the rich and the poor is widening.  And we have a Governor who thinks it’s fine to cut assistance to children, to the poor – that somehow, if we just shower more fortune on the fortunate, the crumbs will reach the rest, like the leftovers of a Hollywood dinner party.

Friends, we are the richest state in the wealthiest nation in human history.  Yet we have a Governor who has embarked on an unbridled borrowing spree, a parade of fiscal irresponsibility that will hamstring our ability to invest in our future – in our schools, in a clean environment, in a world-class infrastructure, in good jobs for our people.  This, at a time when budget gaps are virtually non-existent in other states. 

Now, some of you will hear these facts and say, hey, times are tough. We don’t have the money.

So I ask you: why has this Governor refused to close the hundreds of millions, some say billions, in corporate loopholes and tax boondoggles that are now on the books?  Why has he refused to ask the most fortunate among us to shoulder one ounce of budgetary burden?

Not because he’s against tax hikes, that’s for sure.  In this year’s budget, Governor Schwarzenegger wants to raise taxes. But only on a select group of Californians: the elderly, the disabled, and the blind. 

I fear that this Governor views the life of hard-working Californians as some kind of athletic endurance test, where only the strong should survive, where we just lavish more on those who have the most.

It’s ironic, if you think about it; California now has a Governor who’s not merely descended from immigrants, he’s an immigrant himself.

Yet instead of renewing the wellspring of opportunity for each new wave of seekers, it’s as if he’s auctioning off the well and saying: let them drink Perrier.

Governor Schwarzenegger said in his inaugural address that he wouldn’t rest till our fiscal house was in order, till the people of California saw their government as a partner.

Well I think it’s time to give the Governor some rest.

The California dream is in danger.  We’re not keeping the faith.  And here, in the shadow of my own family’s dream – here, in the nerve center of American vision and innovation – here in what is still the great American frontier, the native home of hope and opportunity –

I announce my candidacy for Governor of the State of California.  We’re going to take back this great state; we’re going to put it to work for working Californians; we’re going to build a better future for our children. 

I have no illusions about the difficulty of this race – a relatively unknown public servant, looking to take on a global action hero, an international celebrity.  Some of you probably think the State Treasurer’s a guy who keeps loose change in a shoebox.

So let me tell you who I am, and what I believe:

I’m a Californian to the bone.  Julie and I have raised our three girls in the same quiet neighborhood where both of us grew up – the kind of place where people care about each other’s kids, and know each other’s hearts.  We’ve had the same friends all our lives.  We believe in community -- in staying and making it better.

I spent fifteen years building a business, meeting a payroll and creating jobs.  And for me, it wasn’t just about the bottom line. I built a place called Laguna West, near Sacramento, that remains a model of a livable, walkable, environmentally sustainable community, good for families and good for business.

I believe in truly free markets, not the special-interest supermarket we’ve got now in Sacramento.  And I believe huge tax giveaways for the wealthy, endless perks for the powerful, aren’t the way to build an economy. My own career’s proven you can do well and do right at the same time.

I became Chair of the California Democratic Party back when the first President Bush had stratospheric approval ratings – when there seemed to be more Spotted Owls than Democratic office-holders.  So I did what I wish more Democrats would do today: I insisted we could win; I refused to give up or turn back or stand down; I fought with every inch of my ability until Bill Clinton won the State of California and we had elected two women Democratic Senators for the first time in American history.

As State Treasurer, I’ve taken an office that probably did have a few shoeboxes in it, and used it not just to manage your tax dollars better, but to improve the lives of ordinary Californians.

And I’ll tell you why: unlike Governor Schwarzenegger, I don’t believe in a Charles Darwin fiscal policy, and I don’t believe in a Marie Antoinette tax policy.  I don’t believe a great state’s economy should be a race to the bottom, where we reward quick profiteering at the expense of long-term growth and opportunity.

So I pushed the State’s major pension funds to dump all their tobacco stocks, because it’s wrong to reward companies that target and poison our kids. 

I led the fight against the Enron-style fraud that ransacked the hard-earned savings of millions of Americans.  
 

I’ve led this state to invest in our neglected communities – because I believe we will never achieve our full potential if anyone is left behind.

I’ve pushed the State to invest in technologies that clean up the environment and combat global warming – so we can be the State that sells them to the world and creates good jobs.

I've fought to open the doors to higher education wider - so that more of our young people, not fewer, can go to college.

I believe in fiscal responsibility – which is why I’ve harnessed billions as a force for good, without costing taxpayers one thin dime. 

I believe there’s a high road to prosperity – where we have the most livable cities, the cleanest environment, and the best-educated workers, so we can compete for and win the high-wage jobs of the future, jobs you and I can’t even imagine today.

Because, let’s face it: we can never win a race to the bottom.  That’s the problem with slash-and-burn, Schwarzenegger-Bush economics.  If companies want cheap, uneducated labor – if they want 18-hour workdays without pensions or health care -- they’ll always find it cheaper in Indonesia or Malaysia anyway.

We can have a California that leads the nation and the world once again -- a California that’s still a frontier of opportunity – and not a throwback to the Wild West, where if you can’t pay your way they hurl you out the saloon doors.

So instead of passing on every nickel of debt, every failure to confront the cold fiscal facts, I will balance California’s budget, so we can invest in the promise of the future again.

Instead of turning our state government into an all-you-can-eat special-interest buffet, I’ll be a Governor who cracks down on corporate irresponsibility, and shuts down tax loopholes for those who don’t even need them.

Instead of slashing education, I’ll be a Governor who protects it and strengthens it, and makes pre-school available on a voluntary basis for every four-year-old in the State. 

Instead of bashing teachers, I’ll be a Governor who elevates the teaching profession – who trains them and rewards them -- so young people from across America join our corps of educators, our trustees of the next generation. 

It’s easy to view any statewide race as a fight over potholes and practicalities.  This race is much, much bigger than that.  It’s a choice between two vastly different visions of our future; two sharply opposing sets of values. 

Governor Schwarzenegger said at last summer’s Republican National Convention that he was inspired to get into politics by another California politician, Richard Nixon.

Funny thing, Governor. So was I.

The Governor campaigned in Ohio with President Bush last fall – the State that decided that critical election by a razor-thin margin.  Maybe he was hoping to claim credit for the outcome. 

Well I’m here today to give credit where credit’s due.

Now he’s bringing the Bush-Cheney policies of debt, division, and diminished opportunity back home to our California – more of the trickle-down travesties that are shredding the fabric of this country. 

I’m proud that I’ve stood up to this Governor, that I’ve even been called the “anti-Arnold.”  And he’s called some of our fellow Californians some pretty choice names himself.

But I believe the cheap phraseology, the tough-sounding rhetoric, masks a deeper, more enduring problem.

After all, this is the Governor who promised that he’d “tear up the credit card,” then he borrowed billions -- enough hot checks to melt Glacier Point.

This is the Governor who promised that the State law guaranteeing minimum funding for our schools would be suspended – and I quote him -- “over my dead body.”  Then he proposed suspending it for the second year in a row.

With any luck, the Governor’ll start promising to win re-election.
 

The truth is, it takes more than tough talk to lead a major state.

It takes more than scripted soundbites to build a future.

It takes leadership.  It takes forthrightness.  It takes substance and seriousness. 

My daughters will tell you that sometimes, I can be too serious.

Maybe that’s because I take my obligation so seriously – to give back what this state has given to me.  To make opportunity real for people like my grandparents, who come here with just a dream, a determination that their kids will do better.

My father always told me: for every advantage you have been given, remember, there are people who work fifteen hours a day just to survive, people who never get a break from anyone.  He always told me: don’t ever, ever forget them.

If you elect me as your Governor, I will not forget.  I will stand up for you every day.  I will give everything I have to make this state the home to your hopes, your own California dream.

So I ask you to work with me, for a California that serves the many, and not just the few;

I ask you to join with me, for a California future as bold and bountiful as our potential;

I ask you to lead with me, for a California that lifts up all who have been left out, or locked out, or left behind.

I tell you, we’re going to win this race. And then we’re going to go on and win something much greater -- for our children, and their children to follow.

Thank you all – God bless you – and let us keep the faith.