Voting For Change

Dear Editor,

I’m a boomer, and I’ll say it: the KCRA 3 debate between Tom McClintock and Michael Masuda showed exactly why District 5 needs generational change.

McClintock has been in Congress since 2009, and it shows. His answers looked backward: blaming environmentalists from the 1970s, invoking Reagan from the 1980s, and warning that socialists are coming for us. Fear is not a plan for rising grocery bills and gas prices, struggling rural hospitals, or the water our farms depend on.

His record is no more reassuring. He voted for last year’s budget bill that cut Medi-Cal and food assistance for his own constituents, and he rarely breaks with his party to work across the aisle. Then there’s the simplest question of all. McClintock lives in Elk Grove, outside the district. He can’t even vote for himself. When did you last see him at a public event in Modesto, Oakdale, or Turlock?

Michael Masuda offered something different. An engineer who grew up in Amador County and served as a State Department diplomat, he understands how Washington works without being shaped by it. His approach is practical: listen to the people who know the problem best, from farmers and water districts to teachers and doctors, then build a solution that works. He points to Turlock Irrigation District’s solar panels over canals, which generate power and save water, as the kind of common-sense thinking we need.

This was Masuda’s first televised political debate against a man who has spent decades in office, and he more than held his own. He was prepared, calm, and focused on answers.

We deserve a representative who lives here, shows up, and works with anyone to get results. On November 3, I’m voting for Michael Masuda. I hope you will too.

Cathie Callanan,

Oakdale