LECTURES | California Up for Grabs

Last night, California gubernatorial candidates Jerry Brown and Meg Whitman sparred for the third time in their campaign. In Friends' Hall at The Huntington, an audience of 150 watched the debate on two wide-screen televisions and then listened to a live panel discussion featuring Joe Mathews and Mark Paul, authors of California Crack Up: How Reform Broke the Golden State and How We Can Fix It. Veteran political journalist Bill Boyarsky served as the moderator.

When someone from the audience asked about the role of voters, Mathews paused solemnly and asked everyone to repeat after him: "I am a Californian, and I am the author of a broken system." Voters in California, he said, have tremendous power and therefore carry some responsibility for the state we are in.

You can download the recording—"California Up for Grabs"—from The Huntington on iTunes U. The event was sponsored by the Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West. Director Bill Deverell hosts a number of public programs throughout the year, including a luncheon series that kicked off last week with Michael Hiltzik, author of Colossus: Hoover Dam and the Making of the American Century. That talk, too, is available on iTunes U.

-- Matt Stevens is editor of Huntington Frontiers magazine.