If Xavier Becerra Wants to be Governor, He Needs to Show Up for the Campaign

Breaking news today: Xavier Becerra PULLS OUT of tomorrow’s LA Times debate, the Hilton campaign reported. “The move comes after a new poll found CNN debate viewers favored Hilton 74% to 20%.”

This makes us question what should voters expect from candidates applying for the job of California Governor? 

Ideologically, this goes beyond Steve Hilton or Xavier Becerra.

The Governor’s job is uniquely important, and can improve and advance, or harm and destroy a state. Voters should never treat the race and election lightly.

California has one of the largest economies in the world. The governor oversees a massive state government: approximately 570,200 total state employees, in 158 state agencies, plus in higher education.

The governor makes decisions affecting nearly 40 million residents, in a state that encompasses 163,700 square miles.

If you are applying for that job, shouldn’t voters expect you to show up, answer questions, defend your record, and explain what you would actually do?

Let’s look at the two current gubernatorial campaigns.

For the past year, there has been a Steve Hilton media advisory, press release or press event every day. Steve regularly does three or four events in a day, crisscrossing the state. He talks to reporters constantly. He gives reporters his cell phone number. He calls them himself. He answers questions, including the uncomfortable ones.

Hilton has accepted 12 debate invitations and several forums.

He is running like someone who actually wants to earn the job.

Compare that with Xavier Becerra.

Becerra promised Californians multiple debates. With less than 30 days remaining, will these debates take place?

There are no California debates currently on the calendar. The one debate he agreed to was with CNN, a national news organization using its national moderators rather than a California news organization and California journalists.

Why?

If Becerra is running to lead California, why isn’t he willing to debate his opponent before California reporters, with broadcasting on California local news stations?

The contrast extends beyond debates.

Reporters regularly call Steve Hilton directly and quote him in stories. With Becerra, his communications staff frequently answers for him.

Hilton holds events and takes questions. Becerra has held few traditional press conferences and has been seen leaving events without taking questions.

This doesn’t mean reporters should go easier on Steve – quite the opposite. But Becerra should receive the same attention:

Challenge him.

Question his numbers.

Scrutinize his advertisements.

Ask him how he will accomplish what he is promising.

That is exactly what political reporters are supposed to do, and Steve Hilton has been challenged, questioned, scrutinized and had his policy positions dissected.

Shouldn’t the same standard apply to Xavier Becerra?

There are serious questions about Becerra’s record that deserve answers. His tenure as President Joe Biden’s Health and Human Services Secretary, and the government’s handling of unaccompanied migrant children, which has been the subject of extensive investigative reporting, including by The New York Times. Migrant children are still missing and legacy media doesn’t seem too interested.

Whatever Becerra’s explanation is, shouldn’t California voters hear it directly from him?

House Oversight Chairman James Comer recently accused Xavier Becerra when he was HHS Secretary of potentially hiding Anthony Fauci’s COVID-era diary and cellphone from Congress — documents that contained references to “COVID-19,” “gain-of-function,” and “Wuhan” that Republicans specifically requested in November 2023. Becerra either intentionally withheld the materials or failed to conduct an adequate search, according to Comer.

Becerra already had his own troubles in D.C. as he was up to his eyeballs in the House Democratic Caucus Awan Brothers Congressional IT Scandal. Then-Rep. Xavier Becerra was the caucus chairman when he gave a fake server to the cops in order to obstruct their investigation.

Crickets on that issue.

What about the debates Becerra promised?

What specifically would he do differently from the Newsom administration that has governed California for the past eight years, and the Brown administration eight years before that?

What does he think California government has gotten wrong? Or right?

What would he change? What does he like about California government?

Where does he disagree with Gavin Newsom and Sacramento Democrats?

What does he think he personally got wrong – or right – during his decades in public office? Why does he deserve to be governor?

Those aren’t Center Right or Center Left questions. They are basic questions for someone applying to be governor.

There is also a larger media question worth examining.

Are we seeing the “Karen Bass effect,” when she declared that the governor’s election is over and Xavier is the next governor of California? Because if everyone assumes a Democrat will win, the Republican candidate risks being covered as the challenger who must prove everything, while the Democratic candidate is treated almost like an incumbent who merely has to avoid mistakes. And hide in the basement.

That would be a disservice to voters.

A campaign strategy of minimizing risk may be politically smart. But journalists aren’t obligated to accommodate it.

If a candidate won’t hold a press conference, he needs to be asked why.

If a candidate promised debates and isn’t doing them, he needs to be asked why?

If campaign staff answers questions instead of the candidate, reporters need to keep asking for the candidate, and only for the candidate.

If there are difficult questions about a candidate’s record, ask them. Voters deserve answers.

And if one candidate is doing three or four public events a day while the other is maintaining a dramatically lighter public presence, that contrast itself is worth examining.

There is something refreshing about a candidate actually campaigning, and one so accessible.

Steve Hilton knows this is an uphill race. He knows reporters are going to challenge him. He shows up anyway, and answers the questions asked of him.

That is what running for office is supposed to look like.

You don’t have to agree on everything with Steve Hilton. You don’t have to like all of his policies. Journalists certainly shouldn’t give him a pass.

But Xavier Becerra shouldn’t get one either, and it appears the California press are providing him that pass.

California voters deserve to see both candidates questioned, challenged, and forced to defend their records and their plans before Election Day.

The governor’s office is too important for anything less.

The story isn’t that the media should be nicer to Steve Hilton.

The story is much simpler: Why isn’t Xavier Becerra being required to work for the job he wants?

This is about legacy media not doing their job. Why? Do they support Xavier? Shouldn’t they be intellectually curious enough to want to know how Becerra will govern? What his policies are?

They never fail to write about how Steve said this and Steve did that, and they scrutinize ads by Steve, discussing on social media who favors it and who opposes it. But shouldn’t that same level of scrutiny apply to Xavier Becerra?

Just because Becerra is mostly MIA doesn’t mean journalists shouldn’t ask the same questions of him they ask of Steve Hilton. And if they get crickets, report the crickets.

Why give him a pass?

Is Becerra just applying this absence as a campaign strategy to avoid holding events, avoid screwing up, or showing how unqualified he is?

Challenge him, and make him answer your questions. Make all politicians and candidates answer all of your questions.