Kevin Faulconer, an ex-mayor of San Diego, runs for governor.
Kevin Faulconer, an ex-mayor of San Diego, runs for governor
Editor’s Note: Below is a version of a piece published in the current issue of National Review.
Any political pro, R or D, would have to admit this is a pretty good pitch:
What happened to the promise of California? State of natural wonders and free spirits, where innovators and visionaries create and build. Home of the American Dream. Birthplace of the future. Land of opportunity.
California has become the land of broken promises.
This is how a campaign video begins. Then the speaker says, “I’m Kevin Faulconer, and it doesn’t have to be this way.” That is an old political line, an old concept, an old appeal: It doesn’t have to be this way. We can do better. Decline is not permanent. Reversal is not impossible. It doesn’t have to be this way.
Reagan made great use of that theme in 1980. So did Rudy Giuliani in New York, the first two times he ran (’89 and ’93).
Kevin Faulconer has a slogan, or a catchphrase: the “California comeback.” It has the advantage of alliteration, but it also packs an entire outlook into two words. At the end of his video, Faulconer says, “Let’s go!” That’s the spirit.
He is running for governor of California. Faulconer is a Republican. From 2014 until last December, he was mayor of San Diego. That made him the only big-city mayor in America who was a Republican. With about 1.4 million people, San Diego is the second-biggest city in California — after Los Angeles, with about 4 million — and the eighth-biggest in the country.
In the past, San Diego was a Republican stronghold. But that past is ever more distant. San Diegans have voted Democratic in the last seven presidential elections — so, going on 30 years. Four of the five congressmen in San Diego County are Democrats. As Faulconer tells me, San Diego tracks with California at large: About 24 percent of registered voters in California are Republicans, and so it is in San Diego.
But, he notes: He won his first mayoral election with 54 percent of the vote, and his second with 58 percent. How? Not with partisan appeals, obviously. Faulconer campaigned on ideas and reforms, and he campaigned in both English and Spanish (a language he learned as a boy). He likes to quote Margaret Thatcher: “First you win the argument, then you win the vote.”
Furthermore, Californians are not particularly partisan, says Faulconer, no matter the lopsidedness in registration. The fastest-growing “party,” he adds, is “NPP.” Those initials stand for “no party preference.” The voters, in other words, are gettable.
K evin Faulconer was born in 1967. His last name is an old English one, which came from French. (It means, of course, “falconer.”) The candidate pronounces it “FAWL-kuh-ner,” touching the second syllable very lightly. He is tall and blond, with a politician’s affability — a Californian’s affability, you might say.
He grew up in the city of Oxnard, which is in Ventura County, about 185 miles north of San Diego. He was a political kid. His dad, Jim, was an assistant city manager. Kevin would accompany him to city-council meetings, doing his homework in the back. Kevin’s mother, Kay, was a college administrator, and very public-spirited. “My mom was always volunteering in our community,” says Faulconer, “and always stressed the importance of getting involved.”
That was a great phrase when I was growing up, and when Faulconer was growing up: “get involved.”
His parents were Democrats, incidentally. Kevin became a Republican because he was attracted to the idea of opportunity: economic opportunity, individual opportunity. (You may recall that Jack Kemp was always talking about an “opportunity society.”) Young Faulconer liked Reagan and Reaganism, including the national-security component: “peace through strength” (a slogan that originated in the Goldwater campaign of 1964).
He got to San Diego by going to San Diego State University. He majored in political science and was elected president of the student body. He worked on campaigns of Pete Wilson: the Republican whose progression was mayor of San Diego, U.S. senator, and governor.
Faulconer was elected to San Diego’s city council in 2006. In 2012, Congressman Bob Filner was elected mayor. He had been in the House for ten years. He had to resign the mayoralty in August 2013, however, owing to allegations of sexual harassment. The resignation meant a special election.
Councilman Faulconer won that election — its runoff — in February 2014. He got the aforementioned 54 percent. In 2016, when he ran for reelection, he bumped that up to 58. Faulconer uses a phrase common to politicians who run in areas not friendly to their party: “by addition.” You win “by addition” — by adding people to your camp — because if you rely on your “base” or party rank-and-file, you have no shot.
San Diego mayors are term-limited, and Faulconer was succeeded last December by a Democrat, Todd Gloria. On February 1, Faulconer announced his candidacy for governor.
He is aiming to beat Gavin Newsom, one way or the other. Newsom is the incumbent governor — a Democrat, and a former mayor of San Francisco. “One way or the other”? Newsom is up for reelection in November 2022. He may well have to face the voters before then, in a “recall election.” The rules for a recall are rather complicated. Suffice it to say: Faulconer, along with other Republicans — none of whom is as prominent — is trying to upend Newsom.
Usually, Faulconer’s politics are described as “fiscally conservative, socially moderate,” or “socially liberal.” This is a little pat.
It is certainly true that Faulconer is a free-marketeer and an “opportunity society” man. He thinks that California is absurdly — ruinously — overtaxed and overregulated. Businesses great and small are tangled up and tied down. Hewlett Packard and Oracle have left the state, he points out to me. “And I can tell you that others are actively looking to do likewise.” This situation is “unsustainable,” he says.
In his campaign, Faulconer has made a hard, firm pledge not to raise taxes.
He is an environmentalist, like all Californians, really — or a “conservationist,” if you like. (This latter word is related to “conservative.”) Nationally, Republicans may joke about the “green beans,” as Karl Rove, the famed GOP strategist, calls them. But there is little such joking in California. “Clean water, clean air — all that’s in our DNA,” says Faulconer. He says that environmentalism in California “transcends party.”
Since 2008, when he was a city councilman, Faulconer has been for gay marriage. As to abortion, I ask him whether he favors any restrictions. He says, simply, that he is “pro-choice” and that there is “passion” surrounding this issue, which he respects.
Immigration? It is a very big issue in California, naturally. San Diego is within shouting distance of the border with Mexico. Faulconer speaks of a “safe and secure border.” For illegals, he favors a “pathway to citizenship.” He is also strong on integration and assimilation, which his policies in San Diego aimed for.
About immigration in general, he sounds more like a Republican of old — of the Reagan era — than a Republican of today. He’ll say, for example, “We are a nation of immigrants, and for generations they have given our cities life and our nation strength.” Unblushingly, he talks of “the American Dream.”
On the issue of homelessness, Faulconer has spent a lot of time. It, too, is a big, big issue in California — go to almost any city in the state, and you’ll see why. Faulconer is proud of having reduced homelessness in San Diego. His approach, in a nutshell, is this: Everyone has a right to shelter. But if that shelter is provided, you have to use it. You may not camp out on the streets. The Faulconer administration provided an array of services to the homeless in San Diego: physical shelter, yes, but also mental-health services and the like. But the mayor would not allow camping out, with the attendant degradation, for all.
The issue of policing is a tricky one; Faulconer walks an interesting line. He decries efforts to “defund the police.” He boasts that he increased the San Diego police budget. In his campaign literature, he says that he “protected peaceful protesters and had violent rioters arrested.” He has the cops’ back, he says. At the same time, he expects them to “meet the highest standards as they fulfill their oath to protect the public.” And he will “work to ensure violent criminals are held accountable for their actions.”
If that sounds basic, it is, or should be, or used to be.
This is a theme that Faulconer presses as he runs for governor: the basics. I will paraphrase: Government ought to do the basics, and the state government is failing, miserably. Government is not the be-all, end-all, but what it should do, it should do competently. The taxpayer is being let down. Time for a change.
The candidate has a Trump problem. In 2016, he supported Marco Rubio for president. Back then, five years ago, he and Rubio were in broad harmony. Faulconer refused to support Donald Trump. He says, however, that he voted for Trump in 2020. Did he do so sincerely or out of necessity? It might be hard to secure a GOP gubernatorial nomination without having backed Trump. Anyway, this is a subject of speculation among California politicos.
When I ask Faulconer about Trump, he gets off the subject as quickly as possible. Gavin Newsom wants to make the election a referendum on Trump, he says, in order to deflect from his own failures. Instead, the election must be a referendum on Newsom.
Can Faulconer win? You would not bet the ranch on him — but you would not bet the ranch against him either. He has the best chance of any Republican to win the governorship since the businesswoman Meg Whitman in 2010. (She wound up losing to Jerry Brown.) Faulconer says, bluntly and boldly, “We can and will win.” He won in San Diego, he says, with a 24 percent GOP registration, and he can do it statewide.
I think of Susana Martinez, whom I covered a bit. She was elected governor of New Mexico in 2010 and again in 2014. She is a Reagan Republican. Her state was overwhelmingly Democratic when she sought the governorship (as it still is). She went to places that had rarely seen a Republican. She did not use the word “Republican” or “Democrat,” or the word “conservative” or “liberal.” She simply talked about ideas, values, and reforms — and saw heads nodding.
Maybe, just maybe, Californians will take a chance on Kevin Faulconer. There is widespread discontent with the way things are going. It doesn’t have to be this way. The state is not ungovernable, it’s just being governed badly. We can do better. We will, in fact, do better. I’m a problem-solver, as my record confirms. Let’s go! Yes, a good message.