Can Underfunded GOP Candidate Outflank Jerry Brown on Poverty?

It was a brief bit of bravado, the kind of thing every politician does.

As the applause faded at the beginning of his annual State of the State address on Jan. 22, Gov. Jerry Brown took delight in chastising some of California's critics.

"It occurred to me that these critics -- who have long recited our state's decline -- perhaps have nothing to say in the face of California's comeback -- except, 'Please, don't report it,' " said Brown from the Assembly's dais.

"Well, I'm going to report it, and what a comeback it is!"

More than six months later, that single quip is what Republican gubernatorial challenger Neel Kashkari seems to believe is his best -- and maybe only -- hope in a long-shot quest to topple the iconic Brown.

Hence the Web video posted late Wednesday night, showing the former investment banker and assistant U.S. Treasury secretary posing as an out-of-work, down-on-his-luck guy on the sultry summer streets of Fresno.

"I've run out of money and had to turn to the homeless shelter for food," says Kashkari to the camera at the beginning of a 10-minute video that blends scenes of the GOP candidate scrounging for work or a place to sleep with interviews of those who are really struggling to make ends meet and those helping them.

Kashkari's political team made the video the centerpiece of a summer media blitz on Thursday, including an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal, an appearance on MSNBC and a morning news conference in Sacramento.

Brown is hardly the first governor to overhype the good things in California. But even some liberal activists think he should, and could, be doing more when it comes to poverty.

The gap between rich and poor is one of 2014's most talked-about issues, both in policy and political circles. And it's an issue mostly invoked by Democratic candidates. The assertion by Republican Kashkari that he cares about the problem more than the Democrat Brown has accounted for a lot of his media attention in the campaign, from the time he formally launched his effort to the contentious battle he won in June over a much more conservative gubernatorial hopeful, Assemblyman Tim Donnelly (R-Twin Peaks).

A study released late last year estimates some 8 million Californians live in poverty conditions -- conditions that are sadly the norm for one in five of the state's children.

In an exclusive KQED interview in April, the governor took issue with those who say he's not doing enough. Instead, Brown blamed the root causes of poverty on forces that extend far beyond California's borders.

Still, public polling shows that a growing number of Californians feel on the wrong side of the income gap. And Kashkari believes he can, in a sense, outflank Jerry Brown on the issue of poverty.

"Gov. Brown is not talking about poverty," said the GOP candidate in his Thursday morning news conference at a Sacramento food bank. "And if he refuses to talk about the issues, and candidly I don't think the press is challenging him on it, then I'm going to do it."

But critics argue Kashkari needs a better solution than what he's laid out so far -- namely, that poverty will subside by simply boosting the state's business sector and streamlining regulations in California schools. And one national writer on Thursday suggested the first-time candidate is confusing poverty with unemployment and homelessness.

Meantime, the governor's campaign team argues Kashkari's role in 2008 and 2009 as the author of the federal TARP effort disqualifies him from being an authentic champion of those in need.

"If one cared about homeless and had $700 billion to spend," tweeted Brown adviser Dan Newman on Thursday morning, "would he give it to banks and ignore families struggling to keep their homes?"

What Kashkari found in his week living on the streets of Fresno, where unemployment in June was 10.4 percent, is no doubt true (and perhaps an uncomfortable bit of spotlight for the other prominent Republican running for statewide office, who happens to be the Central Valley city's mayor). But the money problem that candidate Kashkari really needs to address is purely political: he's raised only a small fraction of the campaign cash amassed by Jerry Brown for the fall contest.

And in a state where $3 million weekly TV ad buys are still the most effective way to wage a competitive race for governor, the GOP hopeful needs to find a way to turn his poverty platform into more than just a one-week walk on the wrong side of the tracks.