Padilla bill to boost wildland protection
Sen. Alex Padilla, DCalif., announced Monday that he is introducing legislation to increase protection of more than 1 million acres of public lands in California, mirroring part of a wilderness bill approved by the House earlier this year.
The proposal would preserve redwood forests along the north coast, create a trail stretching from Monterey County to Los Angeles and expand the popular San Gabriel Mountains National Monument in Southern California, among other things.
The conservation push comes as the new administration in Washington encourages protection of the nation’s wildlands. President Biden has been a champion of the 30 by 30 campaign, an effort to safeguard 30% of U.S. land and waters by 2030.
“It is incumbent upon us to be thoughtful stewards of these special places so that our communities can enjoy them and benefit from
businessman whom Newsom drubbed by 24 points in the 2018 governor’s race. That was a familiar result. Cox has run unsuccessfully for office five times in Illinois and California.
At the same time, Davis is trying to portray Newsom as an outoftouch elitist, just another politician who is indifferent to the state’s problems. Given Newsom’s wellknown dinner at the French Laundry at the height of the pandemic, that may be the easier task.
The 30second ad that will be shown on broadcast, digital and cable platforms for the next month starting Tuesday is a takeoff on the “Beauty and the Beast” theme. It is a distilled version of a nearly threeminute minimovie designed for social media that is a lot different from the ads that flood our screens during political season.
The longer ad begins with a narrator bemoaning what’s become of California, “our grand state that for generations led the world in livability, in innovation, creativity, ingenuity.”
The reason for the state’s decline, the narrator says as images of Newsom’s face appear on screen, “is politics. We chose pretty over accomplished. We chose beauty over brains.” Then the ad flashes to a parrot chirping, “Pretty boy.”
Instead, the ad says, “We need to choose someone who can fix this place.”
That would be Cox, according to the ad. A selfmade man who was “born with nothing, never knew his dad” and grew his real estate and other assorted businesses into a empire that reportedly is worth more than $200 million. The ad describes him as somebody you want to have a beer with.
“That’s our choice, California,” the narrator says. Do you “want beauty, a pretty boy, or a ballbusting beast” who will not invite you to his fancy French Laundry dinners? The ad closes with the bear licking Cox. (Davis said the shoot lasted all day and “John eventually warmed up to the bear.”)
The point is to try to frame the race as a twocandidate race between Newsom and Cox, even though the field of challengers includes former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer, former Sacramentoarea Rep. Doug Ose, and reality TV star and former Olympic gold medalwinning decathlete Caitlyn Jenner.
That said, the existential question here for Cox: Will Californians want to vote for a selfdescribed “ballbusting beast” even if he is “the nicest beast you’ve ever met”?
Davis said that when Cox approached him, he was looking for something different. That’s what you want when you call Davis. Especially during a recall campaign that likely will draw hundreds of candidates, most of them running as a publicity stunt.
“I would almost like to reintroduce John as what he really is, which is a serious CPA, he’s a serious business dude,” Davis said. He’s done “really well, well enough that he can (pay for ad campaigns) at 5 million bucks a pop.”
At the same time, Davis said, “he had to do something big and different and fun in addition to being serious.”
Cox isn’t a stranger to political stunts.
In 2016, he spent more than $373,000 on an unsuccessful attempt to qualify a ballot measure to force politicians to wear the corporate logos of their top donors when they appear at official functions — similar to how NASCAR drivers sport sponsors’ logos. He got the idea from a Bill Maher comedy bit.
Davis, who created an ad for Sen. John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign comparing Barack Obama as a “celebrity” akin to Paris Hilton, is legendary in California political admaking circles for an ad he made for former HP CEO Carly Fiorina’s 2010 Senate campaign.
The ad tried to portray Fiorina’s primary rival Tom Campbell as a Republican, a fiscal conservative, in name only. It featured a glowingly redeyed wolf in sheep’s clothing, which soon got dubbed “the demon sheep.”
The ad went viral, spawning its own Facebook following, Twitter feeds, online mashups (to Pink Floyd‘s “Sheep”) and even a Tshirt slogan. (“Yes, Ewe Can. Demon Sheep 2010.”) “It just oozes that special brand of ludicrous hilarity that the internet loves,” conservative commentator Mary Katharine Ham wrote on the rightwing WeeklyStandard.com. “The thing’s going viral, but not necessarily in a way that will help Carly Fiorina’s campaign.”
Davis estimated that the ad, made for all of $15,000, gave Fiorina’s campaign $5 million worth of visibility. He hopes the bear will do the same for Cox.
The bear — yes, the live one from the ad — will be with Cox at 10 a.m. Tuesday at Miller Regional Park in Sacramento as the candidate begins a bus tour across California. Its first stop Monday afternoon: the French Laundry in Yountville.
Promised Davis: “This is only the start.”