Neel Kashkari
The former U.S. Treasury official who administered the federal government’s bank bailout program recently spent a week living as a homeless man in Fresno. [LA Times]
Multimillionaire Laguna Beach resident Neel Kashkari is the Republican candidate for the California governorship. In his bid to unseat Governor Jerry Brown, Kashkari is trying to convince voters that the incumbent has not delivered the economic recovery that he has boasted about.
Accompanied by two videographers, Kashkari rode a Greyhound bus from Los Angeles to Fresno on July 21 with just $40 in his pocket. He also brought a backpack with a change of clothes and a toothbrush.
Kashkari said that the week he spent in Fresno was the most difficult of his life. He tried to find work but did not succeed and resorted to sleeping on park benches and finding meals at a homeless shelter.
“’California Comeback!’ is the favorite slogan of Governor Jerry Brown and other Sacramento politicians cheering a temporary budget surplus provided by a roaring stock market, Kashkari wrote in a Wall Street Journal piece on his experience. “But California also has the highest poverty rate in America at 24 percent. Is California really back?”
Kashkari currently trails Brown by about 20 points in polls and has far less campaign money to spend.
