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As governor of a state in which the political sands are always shifting, he has been a popular success by keeping to the middle of the road. Though a solid Republican, he has taken advantage of state electoral laws to run on both Democratic & Republican tickets, has appointed office holders of both parties. He has also 1) cut the state sales tax from 3% to 2½ %; 2) raised old age pensions from $40 to $50 a month; 3) ticketed $450 million for postwar development; 4) raised gas taxes by 1½¢ a gallon (over oilmen's protests) to finance new highway construction; 5) widened unemployment insurance coverage; 6) signed a bill outlawing jurisdictional strikes; 7) streamlined the state guard.
As a campaigner, he stumps tirelessly, touring the whole 1,000-mile length of the state with his driver, shaking hands and making small talk. Until he announced for the presidency last November, he stuck to California problems, kept mum on most national and international issues.
He is for: a balanced budget, debt retirement, lower taxes (in that order); Government stimulation of housing; rent control; prepaid health insurance at the state level; a permanent FEPC; the Taft-Hartley law (except for the anti-Communist and union press provisions); public power development; the U.N.; the Marshall Plan (conditioned on proof of mutual cooperation & self-help); equal attention to the problems of the Orient; Hawaiian statehood; universal military training.
Pro & Con. His critics say he is a confirmed fence-straddler who rides the donkey and the elephant at the same time, a phony liberal who proposes social reforms with one hand and fails to push them through with the other, a bullheaded, plodding mediocrity who never says or does anything out of the ordinary.
His admirers say he is solid, patient, dependable, an able, incorruptible administrator who has built up enormous public faith in his honesty and political integrity, a sound planner with a painstaking mind and tremendous capacity for work, a good organizer, born leader and proved vote-getter, who has earned the support of both major parties in state elections.