Former California Republican Party President Tom Del Beccaro highlights the hypocrisy of politicians ignoring restrictions.
On New Year’s Day 2021, the 105th annual Rose Bowl was due to be held in Pasadena, California. Instead, it will be played 270 miles north of Pasadena – Pasadena, Texas, that is, at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.
California is on a losing streak and the eventual loser may well be the state’s governor, Gavin Newsom.
In just the past few weeks, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Oracle moved from Silicon Valley to Texas.
Elon Musk moved to Texas.
ORACLE IS NOW LEAVING CALIFORNIA TO TEXAS. WILL THE LAST BE IN THE SILÍCIO VALLEY, PLEASE TURN OFF THE LIGHTS?
And even Joe Rogan left LA for Texas.
And now the Rose Bowl, the most popular football game, played continuously since 1916, has moved to Texas – or it would be closed because California politicians, adopting increasingly draconian and seemingly ineffective COVID-19 rules, would not allow some friends and family to watch a football game in a giant open-air stadium with a capacity for more than 92,500 people.
This is serious.
This is only the second time that the “grandfather” of bowling games (so called because it is the oldest continuous contest) will not be played in California. The other? In 1942, three weeks after the Japanese Empire attacked Pearl Harbor, fear of a Japanese attack caused the military and game organizers to shift the dispute to North Carolina.
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COVID-19 is not a world war and, compared to the Spanish flu of 101 years ago, young and healthy people have relatively little to fear from it.
To put it in context, the Spanish flu has killed about 675,000 Americans – with a very large proportion of children under the age of 5 and young adults – this is about 6.8 times per capita the number of fatalities due to COVID-19 so far.
Still, during the height of the Spanish flu pandemic, the Rose Bowl was fought in front of a crowd of 25,000 on New Year’s Day 1919 for a war showdown with the Great Lakes Navy Bluejackets that blocked the Mare Island Marines for 17-0.
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The immediate cause of the Rose Bowl’s move to the east is California lawmakers, from Governor Gavin Newsom to city officials, putting the state in another more difficult block – despite a growing body of evidence that such blockages do little to slow the viruses and save lives.
What the blocks do, instead, is to destroy businesses, especially family businesses, damage mental health and lead to an increase in suicide and overdoses.
Now Texas is happy to have the Rose Bowl – especially to boast about California. But Texas is fortunate to be evaluated on a curve and California is the most troubled child in its class.
At the moment, it is not very difficult to beat California. Unfortunately, Texas is not doing much better with an unemployment rate of 8.1% just slightly lower than California’s 8.2%, as the main urban areas of Texas, run by Democrats seeking inspiration in California , copy Golden State’s disastrous policies.
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Missing something as symbolic as the Rose Bowl because of inflexible – and unthinkable – policies (the cardboard fan cutouts would far outnumber viewers in the game) while California politicians are found gushing themselves over fancy restaurants, usually hours after ordering to people who don’t do the same, it will leave a certain segment of the electorate in a bad mood.
This cannot help California Newsom’s governor, who is in the midst of a growing recall effort. The recall organizers have already collected about half of the 1.5 million signatures they need by mid-March to force a recall election.
In 2003, California Governor Gray Davis became only the second governor in US history to be recalled. The problems that took Davis out of office at the time were electrical blackouts (sounds familiar?) And a huge increase in car tax.
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California recalls are strange cases. If the revocation qualifies and an election is held in mid-2021, voters will have two options: revoke “yes” or “no” and then decide who to support for governor. In 2003, 135 people came to the polls when Arnold Schwarzenegger won with 48.6%.
While the recall was gaining strength 17 years ago, Democratic politicians treated Davis as if he were radioactive. Newsom, then San Francisco’s supervisor, was busy running for mayor.
Records of campaign funding and media files indicate that Newsom did little or nothing for Davis. Newsom should expect the same if the 2021 block recall qualifies.
Chuck DeVore is vice president of national initiatives for the Texas Public Policy Foundation, was a California state deputy from 2004 to 2010 and is a lieutenant colonel in the US Army Retired Reserve.