Kounalakis’ wealth should not determine the next governor’s election – Marin Independent Journal

Lieutenant Governor Eleni Kounalakis addresses healthcare workers and their families during a Labor Day march and rally organized by the Service Employees International Union and United Healthcare Workers West at Mosswood Park in Oakland, Calif., on Monday, Sept. 4, 2023. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group)

If you’re in California and happen to be sitting near a television, you may have seen a terribly troubled woman looking into the camera and discussing her support for abortion rights.

“You can call me Eleni,” she says.

This would be Eleni Kounalakis, the state’s vice-governor.

Kounalakis is keen to become the next governor of California, and her nervous appearance in the 30-second spot is part of her strategy to make that happen in November 2026.

In California, the legalization of abortion is not in the least threatened. A woman’s right to abortion is enshrined in the state constitution and is underpinned by the dominance of the Democratic Party in Sacramento.

But abortion is an extremely controversial issue, and Democrats are hoping that the Republicans will rescue it in November, and that it is a current opportunity for someone like Kounalakis, who plays no special role in the election campaign, to get involved in the political debate.

The Democrat is thus imitating a tactic that Gavin Newsom and Arnold Schwarzenegger have already used successfully: They used their ambitions for the governorship as a campaign issue to improve their prospects in the elections.

Kounalakis is also the latest in a long line of wealthy citizens who have piled up a mountain of cash to run for California’s highest political office.

Most of them – Meg Whitman, Jane Harman, Al Checchi, to name a few – failed spectacularly.

Kounalakis’ stated mission for this campaign is quite simple. She has formed a political action committee to mobilize pro-choice voters in the contested presidential races in Arizona and Nevada and to support Democrats in several contested races for House seats in California.

As part of that mission, she appears in a campaign-style commercial filled with ghostly images of several right-wing avatars — Donald Trump, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Clarence Thomas — that keep Democrats sweating at night.

It is clearly a campaign ad for the governor’s office, even though the issue of abortion is at the center.

Of course, it’s up to Kounalakis how she spends her money or the campaign contributions she collects. If she wants to have a bonfire and burn $100 bills on the Capitol lawn – after she’s gotten the necessary permission, of course – then bring on the marshmallows.

It is neither good nor healthy that Kounalakis bought her way into the governorship, just as she used an oversized purse to crush her opponents and win the office of lieutenant governor in 2018.

At the time, Kounalakis’ main political achievement was donating vast amounts of money to Democratic candidates and political causes – so much that then-President Barack Obama gave her the opportunity to appoint her as U.S. ambassador to Hungary.

When Kounalakis sought elected office, vast amounts of cash again paved the way for her.

She profited enormously from the millions her father, a wealthy Sacramento developer, donated to Kounalakis’ candidacy through a political action committee that supported her campaign.

Kounalakis topped it all off with several million more for personal expenses.

This makes her one of several wealthy candidates who have secured lower-ballot seats in California by investing part of their wealth in the election campaign.

Since taking office, Kounalakis hasn’t exactly blown Sacramento away, even though she won re-election in 2022. George Skelton, my columnist colleague who has covered the capital for well over half a century, once described Kounalakis as “the most obscure lieutenant governor I’ve ever seen.”

Her campaign says that view unfairly overlooks her many accomplishments. Perhaps it does. Kounalakis will have more than a year to make her case to voters once the presidential campaign ends and the focus turns to the race for the vacant California seat to replace Newsom.