◼ In speech to state GOP, Kashkari blasts 'coddled prince’ Brown - SF Gate
Arguing that he has led California’s embattled Republican Party toward a “transformational” moment, gubernatorial candidate Neel Kashkari on Sunday insisted the state GOP is poised to become the party of working families that can defeat Democrat Jerry Brown — whom he derided as the “coddled prince of Sacramento.”
“When they say we don’t care about the poor ... we don't care about minorities ... they have no idea what they’re talking about,” said the former U.S. Treasury official in a combative address to hundreds of GOP delegates Sunday as he closed out the party’s three-day state convention at the Los Angeles Airport Marriott Hotel. “Our party is the party of freedom. Our party is the party of liberty.”
Rejecting the podium and roaming the convention floor to speak to his party faithful, Kashkari repeatedly and passionately asserted — at times raising his voice to a shout — that California Republicans should be “damned proud of who we are.”
Kashkari told GOP delegates that his campaign — which has included visits to urban African American churches and gay pride parades and even a much-publicized stint as a homeless man in Fresno — was an effort “to reintroduce us to the people of California.”
By contrast, the former Goldman Sachs executive then caustically dismissed Democrats as wholly owned by union interests, ignoring the educational needs of California’s children and “out of touch.”
And he depicted Brown — the three-term governor and former attorney general, secretary of state and Oakland mayor — as a son of privilege, saying that “everything has been handed to him on a silver platter.”
“Daddy gave him his political career, Daddy gave him millions of dollars,” said Kashkari in reference to the late Gov. Edmund “Pat” Brown, Jerry Brown's father. “You know the one thing Daddy couldn't give to him ... courage.”
He said Democrats and Brown have failed Californians on the economic front as well....
Currently, polls show Brown sailing toward a historic fourth term — ahead 21 percentage points and sitting on a $22 million war chest.
◼ Neel Kashkari gives a fiery speech at a state GOP gathering - LA Times
Stung by the refusal of two fellow Republicans to support his candidacy for governor, Neel Kashkari sought to put the controversy behind him Sunday with a fiery speech portraying his party as a champion of minorities and the poor.
"We don't just fight for our own civil rights, we fight for the civil rights of all Californians and all Americans," Kashkari, the son of Indian immigrants, told hundreds of cheering California Republican Party delegates gathered for their semiannual convention.
"So this is why I'm running," Kashkari continued. "I'm running to reintroduce us to the people of California and the people of our country because I'm damn proud of who we are."
