Don's Tuesday Column

THE WAY I SEE IT by Don Polson      Red Bluff Daily News 6/10/2025

   Impressive candidates, Republican dinner

A recap of the Red, White and Blue “Make California Golden Again” dinner could have waited until next week; however, I found the candidates, including Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, candidate for California governor, so compelling that I must share thoughts while they’re still fresh.

First, the turnout was beyond previous dinners, filling the Community Center to capacity. The growth of our local conservative Republican presence is not unrelated to the pride and appreciation for our now-dominant position in the Presidency and Congress in Washington, DC; even as we suffer—well, California still suffers—from the most wrong-headed Democratic leadership and policies of any state in America.

Three candidates for the Assembly seat being vacated by James Gallagher spoke and I am remiss to have not noted their names, nor the topics of their speeches; however, to a man they indicated a continuation of Gallagher’s promotion of conservative Republican values and local priorities in Sacramento.

The dinner itself was scrumptious to the last green bean and red potato; I wisely loaded up on the sliced tri-tip, so as to have a take-home baggie of the pink cuts (my favorite) for a steak-and-eggs breakfast. Even with a roll, a cocktail, and cheesecake desert, the scale was kind to me. The 20 pounds I’ve lost since last summer remain lost.

Congressman Doug LaMalfa has some commonalities with President Trump, in my humble opinion, even though LaMalfa’s background in agriculture couldn’t be further from the real estate mogul’s history. It just strikes this writer and Republican that both are beloved by supporters, both are effectively advancing our values and principles, and both suffer from the unhinged antagonism of a vocal minority.

I feel a little badly for our local Democrats as they put up one “sacrificial lamb” after another, thinking they’ll appeal to a majority of voters, even as their candidates are incapable of separating themselves from the lunatic leftist, quasi-socialist, open-borders, soft-on-crime, hate-filled national and state party apparatchiks and identity. Doug LaMalfa has exuded “common sense” before common sense was a cool Trump campaign theme.

There’s no need for Doug to strike out on a windmill-chasing, boutique brand of Republicanism, as certain Republicans-in-name-only (ahem, Thomas Massie of Kentucky) have made “the perfect the enemy of the good” when it comes to, for instance, the Big, Beautiful Bill (BBB).

The BBB will implement effective long-term victories on the border, immigration and deportations; a pro-growth tax structure to make America’s economy great again; and work-requirements for Medicaid that will hopefully deliver America from the growing culture of government welfare dependency.

It’s been found that work/training/study requirements for receiving government benefits has inevitably resulted in people leaving the welfare mentality behind. There’s no reason that those who find themselves bereft of basic needs, through no fault of their own, can’t be supported, even while those who are simply taking advantage of “free stuff”—cheats, fraudsters, and layabouts—are removed by the “carrot and stick” requirement of being responsible, productive citizens. Such lessons can be applied to the homeless crisis.

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Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, candidate for Governor of California, in his keynote address, used homelessness as an example. Common sense and a bit of “tough love” can sort the truly needy from the “lifestyle sponges” (my terms) whose drug, and (often) drug-induced mental illness requires treatment, forced or required if necessary. Bianco said that he’s found the truly needy constitute about 5 percent of the homeless; the rest are either self-handicapped by substance abuse or choose to live off the enabling kindness (?) of government.

To summarize Sheriff Bianco’s qualifications (if memory serves): He has taken one of the largest sheriff’s departments in California and the nation from being inadequately funded to being funded sufficiently for the public safety needs of Riverside citizens. He’s implemented efficiencies and reduced turnover—and gotten permission to roll over funds not used from one year to the next.

Bianco emphasized that virtually all of the issues and problems facing California and our besieged and struggling residents connect to public safety: from 1) responsive and proactive law enforcement to make people secure in their homes and possessions which 2) creates business-friendly circumstances to encourage employers to stay in this state (moving van rates show many people leaving and few coming here); to 3) the scourge of unsafe forests given to conflagrations from lack of thinning;

And 4) decades of perverse water mismanagement which can be solved by, when Bianco is Governor, proclaiming a water emergency, getting dam construction prioritized, keeping reservoirs filled, and prioritizing fire-fighting equipment maintenance over highly-paid bureaucrats’ cushy compensation. Unlike the voters in Los Angeles who’ve chosen incompetence in their Mayor Bass, if independents and Democrats can say “enough of failed policies,” California can be golden again with Governor Chad Bianco.