Jeff Takada, Central California, 11th Congressional District

Events

Moving forward against McNerney

Wednesday March 17, 2010, 1:00 am

The mid-term elections of 2010 are a critical litmus test for the direction our republic is taking.  Will we repudiate the bipartisan mutiny against the taxpayer called “stimulus?” Will we reject the attempts to socialize our private health care?  Will we defend ourselves against the creeping tendrils of federal power into our lives?  Will we dethrone those who continue to defy the will of the voters?

Of late, the Republican Party in Congressional District 11 has a poor track record of delivering anointed candidates to the voters and it is critical that a viable, energetic conservative who has a clear vision and a clean past be chosen to juxtapose the liberal McNerney.

Since I withdrew from the race, I have been contacted by all the remaining relevant candidates and I have advocated hard for responsible, responsive government and a commitment to take up leadership on the most critical environmental and economic issue our district faces – water.

I am pleased to say that all candidates pledged to me their opposition to any sort of Peripheral Canal scheme and the adoption of a water policy that consults the locally elected leaders of the Delta area in any federal agenda or legislation.

I do not necessarily agree with the remaining candidates on all the issues or the order in which they prioritize them, but I have decided that I will pledge my vote for the candidate that I believe is best positioned to defeat McNerney in 2010.

I pledge my vote for Elizabeth Emken.

I will vote for her because she can articulate the damage being done to our economy by reckless federal spending and how to reverse it.

I will vote for her because she has experience in Washington getting our elected representatives to hear the people they represent – and I don’t think she will forget to listen to us in turn.

I will vote for her because she has management experience at a Fortune 500 company.

I will vote for her because her experiences on a dairy farm give her firsthand knowledge of the livelihoods, needs, and desires of my neighbors in the Manteca-Tracy-Ripon corridor and the titans of San Joaquin County agriculture – the dairy farmers.

I will vote for her because she sees public office as an honor bestowed and not an ambition attained.

Elizabeth has demonstrated the fundraising horsepower necessary to win and the wisdom necessary to steward the funds entrusted to her.

Most importantly, Elizabeth is a candidate that the independent voter will not shrink from. Only by re-earning the independent votes that have left the Republican Party and the hard-working blue-collar Democrats can we hope to beat the incumbent.  Elizabeth can do this.

I am proud to endorse Elizabeth Emken and I look forward to her defeat of Jerry McNerney in November.
In Liberty – Jeff Takada

NUMI today, gone tomorrow

Thursday March 11, 2010, 9:06 am

                It can be said that one’s leadership qualities come to the fore in a crisis.  In the impending closure of the NUMMI plant we have an epic crisis.  Scores of thousands of skilled workers will be displaced or unemployed in the worst economy since the Great Depression.  I’ve been told that the Roman emperor played a fiddle while Rome burned to the ground.  All I can say to Congressmen Pete Stark and Jerry McNerney is at least that tyrant had the decency to provide musical accompaniment to the ruination of his district.

                While government takeovers of private industry (as in our new not-quite-General Motors) are an abomination to the Constitution, advocating on behalf of one of the most important job providers in the Bay Area is not.  While Stark and McNerney supported the takeover of GM, they have not lifted a finger to save the NUMMI goose laying the golden eggs, save a few oddball questions thrown at Toyota executives while they testified on the Hill about an unrelated matter.

I have many questions for these presumptive district representatives:

•  Why have you not been working day and night with the Toyota Motor Corporation to save this plant?
• Why have you not advocated on behalf of the thousands of workers and managers in your district to save NUMMI as space for the revitalized General Motors?
• Why have you not been barraging your counterparts in Sacramento to create a more business friendly environment for NUMMI today, and every other prospective manufacturer tomorrow?

                I expect these questions will only be answered by smug reassurances, bland counterstatements, and aloof, intellectually dishonest form letters to constituents.

                Toyota has said this closure decision is final as of April 1, 2010.  I am not going to be able to halt the end result of a shattered economy and the gross negligence of our preening political elite, but I can fight against the deindustrialization of America.  Without a productive capacity, our economy will never recover.  We were not saved from the Great Depression by lattes, back rubs, and call centers, but by rivet meeting steel.  Japan recognizes this and so they are beginning to pull their productive capacity back to the home islands. 

                This trend will not stop at NUMMI.  As Japan and America’s economies continue to plunge into what could become the Depression 2.0, Japan will retreat from our shores to the extent they can.  This is why I have proposed and will lead a Congressional Japan Caucus – to work with their government to bring (and keep) the benefits of their high tech gadgetry, industrial production, and innovation here and to share with them the bounty of our agricultural harvests and productive capacity.  Such leadership would have forestalled this catastrophic blow to our regional employment figures and our national industry.

                It is important for the voters in Central California to understand the extent to which the political class has been struck dumb, eyes glazing over and a stream of drool emerging from their collective mouths as the destruction of the mortgage and banking collapse, years of profligate government waste, and the meltdown of the American working and middle class due to over-taxation and under-representation becomes apparent. 

Jeff Takada is a career public school teacher and a grassroots Republican candidate for Congressional District 11.