Meg Whitman has been under some pressure to take a position one way or the other on Prop 23. It would be nice to know what her take on one of the most major pieces of (anti-)environmental legislation in the nation is. Yet she has persistently and consistently denied all efforts to get her to say yay or nay.
But never you mind, she is very supportive of Prop 22:
The Republican gubernatorial nominee came out in support of Proposition 22, which would forbid the state from raiding county and city coffers at times of fiscal crises.
At an event in Culver City, a laid-off Long Beach teacher asked Whitman about her thoughts on decentralizing education spending. The state has cut billions in education spending in recent years, leading to widespread teacher layoffs, program cuts and the shortening of the school year in many cities.
"There is a proposition on the ballot in November that actually makes it illegal for the state to take money from cities and counties to balance the budget," said Whitman, who is known for being disciplined in sticking to her talking points during campaign events and discussions with the press. "I think it's the right thing to do. I'll be supporting that initiative." (LA Times)
Now, of course, this wasn't really the question asked. Prop 22 doesn't really change the general structure of education funding. Now, it does change the way the state can grab money that was destined to be allocated at the local level. However, education spending, which is heavily determined by Prop 98 formulas, will most assuredly not be given a boost by Prop 22.
It should also be noted that Prop 22 also has a nice little plug in there for redevelopment agencies, which are kind o f the scorn of the right-wing. They have some eminent domain powers, and folks like Chuck DeVore are not very big fans of Prop 22 for precisely this reason. It will be great to see how those right-wingers take the news of Prop 22.
And then there is the fact that Whitman has still not taken a position on Prop 23 yet. We're still waiting on that...
Apparently Meg Whitman doesn't like her own plans for California, or else why would she threaten to sue TV stations if they don't hide her true ideas from the state:
Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman is threatening to sue television stations that run a California Teachers Association ad attacking the candidate, calling the spot a lie.
The Whitman campaign today said some stations have pulled the ad. The CTA said it is trying to confirm that. ... CTA spokeswoman Sandra Jackson said the ad's claim relies on Whitman's plan to cut $15 billion in state funding overall. She said cuts to education typically make up about half of total budget cuts. (SacBee
In the letter, Whitman's attorney (and attorney for the proposed GOP Dirty Tricks) said that she hadn't specifically cited education as a target for cuts. But, you know what, there are pretty little magazines that you can control, and then there is the real world. If Meg Whitman really wants to cut another $15 Billion, where does she think that is going to come from? She's not doing anything about tax loopholes, heaven forbid.
Her pound of flesh is coming from California's most vulnerable, and she will extract for the short-term from the promise that California holds for the long haul. She will slash and burn through the education budget and call herself some sort of champion of the people.
And it will probably work, because she has money, and these days the one with the money rules, right? Right?
As for this pathetic attempt, TV stations shouldn't be bullied by flimsy claims. If Meg Whitman doesn't like the truth, how about she explain what she means. For real this time, not the blather we've heard before.
On Meet the Press, Meg Whitman's consultant, Mike Murphy, laid it out for all the Californians that are getting extremely annoyed with Whitman's incessant ads:
MR. ASLAN: My question, Mike, is, why does Meg what to be governor of California? Why would anyone want to be governor of California?
MR. MURPHY: Because...
MS. MYERS: Let alone spend 140 million of their own money to get it.
MR. MURPHY: Yeah, but the money is about getting--California is so expensive, $3 million a week for television, it's about getting a message out against the entrenched public employee unions.
MR. GREGORY: OK.
MR. MURPHY: I'm mean, I'm...(unintelligible)...but I believe it. I live there. I care about it. (Meet the Press, h/t to LA Times)
So, the reason that she wants to buy the governor's office? Well, we didn't really get an answer to that one, now did we. But what did we get an answer for? Well, apparently Meg Whitman needs to spend 3 million per week to fight the unions that put up...a grand total of around $8 million this summer. And there's not going to be a lot more than that.
The truth is that Meg Whitman is using the state of California. She wants to decimate the middle class by crushing the organization of labor in the state and to use the gig as a jumping off point for her further national political ambitions.
But when you come down to it, there is no there there. Her plans, even according to her Republican "friend", the current Governor, are nothing more than cheap campaign promises. And when she does come close to laying out a plan, she gets the facts wrong in her haste to make state employees the face of all that is wrong in California.
What is wrong is that we have stopped investing in our state. We have stopped building infrastructure, reduced our investments in K12 and higher education, and stopped planning for the future, instead coasting on the success of the master plan legacy. That will not be sufficient if we are to compete in the 21st century. Maybe Meg Whitman knows that, maybe she doesn't. But either way, her stated goals are just wrong for California.
Part 3: The many (actually just two) faces of Meg Whitman
Thanks in no small part to the 2/3 vote requirement for passing a state budget, this year's is now the second latest in history -- 10 weeks and counting -- with no resolution in sight. But just a few weeks ago, the Sacramento Bee reported:
"About one of every 11 residents in the Sacramento region smoked pot during the last month, a usage rate roughly 30 percent higher than the statewide average, according to a new federal study. Local residents were more likely than the rest of the state to have a casual attitude toward pot use."
This must be why passing a budget takes so long: the contact high from all that pot smoke (in and) around the Capitol just slows everything down.
There is a lot of work to do between now and November 2, but right now we are pretty much looking at an even race:
It's too close to call in California's Senate and gubernatorial battles, according to a new poll.
A CNN/Time/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Wednesday indicates that Sen. Barbara Boxer holds a 48 percent to 44 percent margin over her Republican challenger, Carly Fiorina, but Boxer's 4-point advantage is within the poll's sampling error. Five percent of people questioned say if the general election were held today they'd vote for neither candidate and three percent were undecided. (CNN) Full results (pdf)
Care to see a 1990s style witch hunt against the administration? Well, you are set for a fun ride. Otherwise, it's time to get in gear and work for the Democratic ticket.
Robert mentioned Jerry Brown's new TV ad. It's likely not going to make the crowds go wild or anything like that, but it shows the formation of an economic plan and a campaign strategy.
As for Whitman's plan, it looks like she has some champions for her in the ring: Wall Street.
At a fundraiser she held in New York, Whitman said she met with people who "have suffered the financial reforms that are going to crimp our ability to raise capital, and they want California to turn the corner." ... Now the financial industry has lined up behind her gubernatorial campaign.
According to a Bee estimate, investment banks and firms, private investors, financial advisers, venture capitalists and even the chairman of the Federal Reserve in San Francisco have poured $4.7 million into her effort, more than a fifth of total outside contributions she's received. Whitman has also given her campaign $104 million of her own money.(SacBee)
Her plan to rally California is to, umm, let Wall Street run amok? Turn back the clock on the reforms in the financial markets? Under Whitman, governance will apparently be done by the best hedge fund managers that money can buy.
It is no small fact that of the little money she has raised, much of it has been from Wall Street interests. Her campaign is geared towards the long-term benefit of those who have been made rich by the excesses of the last decade, and to continuing the false expectations of bubble economies. The end result can hardly be a surprise for anybody: continuing and growing disparities between the ultra wealthy and the middle class.
Marshal McLuhan famously said the medium is the message, and that was certainly true in late August as the release of a Hollywood blockbuster and two campaign ads drew attention to a central issue of the governor's race, one of Meg Whitman's favorite targets: public employees.
At theaters everywhere, state workers rallied in protest at the opening of "The Expendables," a routine but top-grossing summer action flick made exceptional in California by the appearance of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in a cameo role. Playing on the movie's title, state workers wanted the governor to know that expendable is what they are not.
If you followed the World Cup at all, then you heard about Paul, the amazing octopus who, amazingly, picked the winner of all eight matches Germany played, including its final loss to Spain. Octopuses are considered the most intelligent of invertebrates, and yet, Paul's astonishing knack for picking winners seems almost unimportant next to the mystery of why anyone was asking an octopus in the first place.
Maybe it's because humans are the stupidest of mammals. Still, despite the vast gap in mental acuity and animal taxonomy, the common octopus closely resembles one human subspecies in particular -- the common politician -- in that both respond to threats by spilling a lot of ink to cover themselves while they flee. Indeed, politicians appear to mimic the eight-legged mollusk: Among animals with backbones, only politicians prefer to act like they don't have one. Appearing to walk upright, their good posturing can be maintained without any backbone at all.
Meg Whitman briefly checked in with the San Mateo County Courts a couple of days ago, and was told that she was on call. She got that call, and apparently the whole buying the governor is going to get her out of jury duty for the time being.
Earlier in the day, while being questioned, Whitman told attorneys she would serve if selected but acknowledged this is "not a good time for me to give 100 percent."
Defense attorney Richard Keyes asked the former eBay CEO if, considering "the nature of your current position "... this might be one of those cases that it's not the right time" to serve on a jury.
"I would try my very best," Whitman replied. "Whether it is the right time for me is another question," she added, drawing laughs from the courtroom.(SJ Merc)
Whitman was "Juror No. 11", which meant that unless she was disqualified for some reason, she would have been on the pool. We all have lives and commitments, some of us choose to honor them, and honor our democracy by doing the little things, like jury duty, and, well, voting. Running for governor is great, and it takes a special person to do it.
It also takes a special person to sit on a jury for a terrible child molestation case. Or to work as an in-home support service worker, or as a teacher.
Perhaps Queen Meg would be served well by partaking in the tasks of everyday Californians a bit more.
Meg Whitman has an ad out with some specifics about how she's going to cut 40,000 jobs without harming state services. And she's really serious about this. Only problem is that her plan is really nothing new at all, her "facts" are just wrong, and as an added bonus she goes after the most needy among us while ignoring those who skirt taxes and the billions of unnecessary tax loopholes and credits. Stay classy Meg!
Take a listen to the ad here, the biggest part of this plan is for a civil grand jury to go through and find the "waste, fraud, and abuse." That would be a great idea for some body to go through and compile a list of everything that should be combined, reduced, and other savings opportunities. So great in fact that it has been done before. And not like done before thirty years ago, but done before as in 2005. Arnold Schwarzenegger had this same plank, but he dubbed it the California Performance Review.
These sorts of reviews aren't really all that cheap, so what Meg is asking the state to do is to write another report, on the taxpayers dime, when the CPR is still sitting there. Sounds like some waste to me.
Meanwhile, as she continues on the "billions of waste, fraud, and abuse" right-wing canard, she's really talking to the right-wing base, in the whole wink-wink way. When she says there are billions of waste in IHSS, Medi-Cal, and welfare, what she is talking about to the right-wingers is the whole concept of those programs. To them, IHSS is a big waste. That is until one of their family members gets sick and they need to rely on state assistance. If you look at the actual reports, IHSS fraud exists sure, but not to such a great extent that it is really any more prevalent than other workplaces.
California Watch investigates another flaw in the ad, her statement of fact that the LAO has called 150 employees at the Department of Education superfluous. Of course, they have now changed that to 70 people, months before the ad went on the air, and even that number is heavily disputed by SPI Jack O'Connell, who has said that cuts on that scale would stop the Dept. of Education from carrying out the tasks assigned to it under law.
The whole ad is feeding into the theory of government is not supposed to do anything, shutting down our infrastructure, and stopping the cycle of investment that worked so well for us as we made California into the truly Golden State. Meg Whitman's future is a grim future, where there is no such thing as a fair share, where everybody is left to fend for themselves, and the governor's gig is just a stop on the way to the top for her and her right-wing policies.
San Francisco has a lot of courts, and a lot of litigation is done here. So, there is always a need for jurors. I've been called several times, and a word for the wise: Hope for the civil courts: the facilities are much nicer as you wait there.
But, it seems that Queen Meg Whitman deigned to join the common folk for jury duty yesterday:
Her campaign said Whitman was called, showed up, filled out the questionaire today -- and is actually still in the jury pool. She may still be called to return later in the week, they said.
The funny part: the judge actually asked the former eBay CEO if she had any hardships, or scheduling problems with serving. That's when she informed him that...uh, she was running for governor of California.
Darrel Ng, spokesman for Whitman, issued this statement: "Meg Whitman was called to do jury duty today. She enjoyed meeting her fellow potential jurors this afternoon, but looks forward to returning to the campaign trail where she can continue to tell Californians about her plans to create 2 million jobs during the next 5 years." (SFGate)
Isn't it sweet that she introduced herself to the fellow jurors? Super sweet! I wonder if she introduced herself to the court employees that she hopes to fire as well. But, you know, she'll tell them how she'd definitiely, totally, going to create a new job for them (perhaps as her private plane pilot?!) once they are laid off. It's going to be great. Seriously!
Props to Carla Marinucci and the SF Gate crew for the follow-up joke: at least we know she is registered to vote now.
But that brings up the larger question, doesn't it? For years she hadn't even registered to vote. Of course, that generally means no jury duty as well. But what else does Meg Whitman not do because she is...umm...Meg Whitman?
There was once a day when the word "pension" inspired not jealousy, but pride for having done hard work to earn it. Yet these days, pension seems to be a dirty word, while "golden parachute" seems to be all the rage. Take our two candidates for governor.
Meg Whitman has been trying to pin the infamous "double-dipping" tag on Jerry Brown. Brown's service in state government in addition to his tenure as Mayor of Oakland would offer him two different methods of a pension. Outrageous cries the Whitman campaign, he's probably taking billions of money from public coffers. I should know, I looted eBay on the way out the door. And all that.
However, it seems Whitman speaks from too much personal experience and not enough actual knowledge of the situation. Brown released his pension records, and he is due slightly under $80,000 per year when he retires. (With his selected option of keeping his wife on as a survivor.)
As for Ms. Whitman, let's go back to that looting of eBay. Her exit from eBay can be best described as a gentle nudge by the Board after some controversy with rising fees (taxes?!) and some issues on the stock front. She stuck around at eBay on the Board for a few years after she left, and it was during the time immediately after she left the CEO gig that her successor laid off 10% of eBay's workers. Meanwhile, Whitman was receiving a fat golden parachute.
But, you see, Whitman earned that! Right? Right?
So, to summarize, it is great, nee awesome, to raise fees on small businesses so you can get a phat golden parachute. But to work for 25 years as a public servant to get a modest pension? Outrageous!
Why is Brown's pension even an issue? Or is this one of those Karl Rove jujitsu moves where she's attacking where she's weak? Fact is, that Whitman carted off a billion dollars worth of loot from small businesses trying to create jobs. Do as I say, not as I do, I suppose.
What the wonderful world of interwebz brings us these days. You can pretty much find anything, join anything, whatever. But today, you can now become a proud member of GenM!
What's that you say? Why, it's a "coalition of entrepreneurs, executives, & professionals dedicated to getting Meg elected as next Gov of CA." Apparently, they are not down with the blue-collar folks, as they are absolutely and completely not allowed into the generation.
And by generation? I mean a twitter account with witticisms such as:
via the the Competitive Enterprise Institute.The worst attorney general in America is California's Jerry Brown #GOMEG
Of course, what exactly is the "CEI"? Well, they are a front group for Big Oil and Big Tobacco. According to SourceWatch, some of their big donors include Texaco, Phillip Morris, and guess who...our good old friends the Koch family. You know, the ones that are secrectly funding the Prop 23 campaign in order to save themselves some cash as they continue to pollute our air.
Yup, such pithy sayings are GenM is THE generation to join. I mean, who doesn't want to snuggle up close to the never-ending cash buckets that seem to trail around both Big Oil and Meg Whitman, and especially the convergence thereof.
All the Best executives of California are joining, don't you know? Um, well, at least the 124 followers anyway. Quite the generation there.
As you may or may not know, I do some work for candidates in the online space. One of the questions that campaigns frequently ask is whether they can use names of people that have signed up on their Facebook pages or website as supporters. My customary answer is something like, "well, a lot of people just like to see the messages coming out of the campaign and haven't yet committed."
I say this because I know it to be true: I do it myself on occasion. In fact, even if you want to disagree with a page's posting, you have to "like" it. Otherwise you can't post a comment. There are reasons for that, pro and con, but them's the rules. Best to know them before you step on the field.
However, apparently the eCandidate's team didn't really brush up on that...and got burned by it. From the always resourceful CalBuzz team:
Calbuzz pal Barbara O'Connor, one of our favorite, well-informed eggheads on the subject of state politics and government, checked in to say that reports about her supporting Meg Whitman are not only wrong but also result from a manipulative practice by Team eMeg.
Meg Whitman's Facebook ad misused my name. They said I was a supporter because I looked at her website and Facebook page as an observer. So much for trying to see what they are posting. If you see my name on any of their materials please complain and ask it to be pulled. I am not supporting her.
Duly noted. To get off the list, she defriended eMeg. (Gasp!)
For her part, Barbara O'Connor is doing what she has to do to keep tabs on the campaigns. This is what you have to do these days. And for Whitman to think there is an endorsement in there tells us a lot about her campaign. Sure, it's everywhere on TV, but it's all about smoke and mirrors. A mile wide and an inch deep.
Hey do you vote? Well, if you are reading this, the answer is probably yes. And you would assume that pretty much anybody who was really interested in politics would have done so for pretty much every election. Not so with Meg Whitman. She's less interested in such trivial matters when she can go ahead and just plunk another $104 million into the game.
But, some really good people fought like hell to give her that right to vote that she has chosen to cast away. So, a few groups have banded together to remind her of said fight, on the 90th Anniversary of the 19th Amendment
Whitman's spotty voting record, of course, has been an issue in the gubernatorial campaign, and the candidate herself has called it "atrocious." But the California Nurses Association, the Courage Campaign and a host of labor groups intend to remind voters again, insisting they'll deliver the largest and possibly most colorful anti-Whitman rally ever on the 90th anniversary of the day the 19th amendment was signed into law. ...
The 4 p.m. rally near the Capitol steps will include folks in period costumes, historical characters, newsboys and Elizabth Jenkins-Sahlin, the great great grandaughter of the women's rights pionner Elizabeth Cady Stanton,says CNA spokesman Chuck Idelson. (SFGate)
Should be fun for the whole family, don your best bonnet if you are in the neighborhood.
As millions of Californians continue to struggle in this economy, Meg Whitman will spend her evening today collecting huge checks from corporate insiders at the posh Corona Del Mar mansion of fellow billionaire CEO Henry Samueli.
Of course, there's nothing unusual about candidates holding fundraisers, even billionaires like Whitman. But there's more to meets the eye with this particular fundraiser considering the host's background. And there's some serious questions that need to be raised about whom exactly would have Whitman's ear if she were to be elected governor.
Among the most burning questions raised in relation to tonight's Whitman-Samueli cash bonanza is: Why would Whitman draw herself further into the web of corporate greed and corruption epitomized by Broadcom, the company Samueli led until forced out amidst the nation's largest stock backdating scandal?
California Labor Federation Executive Secretary-Treasurer Art Pulaski:
Meg Whitman's decision to hold a high-dollar fundraiser with another billionaire CEO whose questionable practices have drawn the attention of federal investigators is both troubling and illuminating. It's clear that Whitman is growing bolder in her shameless attempt to buy this election. The fact that she would consort with controversial corporate figures like Samueli to fatten her already bloated war chest shows a serious lapse in judgment.
While many corporate insiders are aware of Broadcom's troubles, Samueli's past isn't on the radar of most Californians. But given Whitman's close ties to him and other corporate CEOs, it probably should be.
A look under the surface shows Whitman and Samueli have more in common than being billionaire CEOs. Both were corporate insiders whose companies were involved in questionable insider deals that made millions for executives at the expense of shareholders. Both Whitman and Samueli's companies have been targets of federal investigations into the very same kind of shady Wall Street dealings that drove the economy into meltdown.
And while the title sentence could work for a million questions in Sacramento, it works perfectly for Chang's question. No. Whitman's spending cannot move Californians.
Of course, that statement alone doesn't end debate, so let's look at the situation. Most importantly, Meg Whitman has been spending $2 million per week on her incessant ads, basically since the Winter Olympics back in February. They were annoying back then, but by now people just want them to stop. This is born out by anecdotal and hard data. As Robert pointed out recently, Jerry Brown's team has data showing that her ads are moving people in the wrong direction from what she intended:
A survey we completed three days ago found most people who have seen a Whitman ad don't believe her claims are true. When we asked whether these ads have improved or worsened their opinions of the candidates for Governor, the results were as follows:
Attorney General Jerry Brown: 6% improved; 4% worsened; 58% unchanged
Meg Whitman: 8% improved; 27% worsened; 31% unchanged
But there is another issue at play here, it is more than just the point counter point ads. For whatever money labor is spending to support Jerry (and I assure you that it is nowhere near the funding level that Whitman is looking at), the real issue is that it isn't just Meg alone, or her ads, that are turning off voters. It is her failed ideas.
For nearly seven years now, we have dealt with a Governor who has espoused the notion that our government is a failed experiment and we just cannot afford it. The facts don't bear that out, and Whitman's ideas to slash and burn through the state government are simply a step too far, even when compared to the Governator.
There aren't 40,000 jobs to cut in the state. There aren't billions to be saved through IT innovation. A few hundred million, perhaps, if it is done correctly. But the huge savings she is predicting simply by improving and "innovating" just will not be there. They are simply a new way of the old conservative propaganda tune of "Waste, Fraud, & abuse." Sure, there is a bit of waste, but overall productivity rates at our government institutions are quite high.
We have to stop looking for new panaceas and get back to the simple drudgery of providing quality services. The way we do that is to provide stable and good-paying jobs for well-trained state employees while providing enough oversight to ensure that our money is well-spent. Not by going on staff cutting binges that produce no savings, but a lot of confusion and failure.
Where does Meg Whitman stand on immigration? Well, that all depends on when she's being asked, where she's being asked, and who is doing the asking.
* Last year, in an attempt to cater to her Republican base as she prepared for a heated primary, Whitman told reporters she believes the state should "prosecute illegal aliens and criminal aliens in all of our cities, in every part of California."
* When Whitman's primary opponent, Steve Poizner, began gaining traction by veering far to the right on immigration, Whitman's campaign advisor, former Governor Pete Wilson, produced an anti-immigrant radio ad, touting Whitman's opposition to "amnesty" and her plan to block immigrant families the having access to education, driver's licenses and other vital services. He said she'd be "tough as nails" on immigration. Gov. Wilson is the notorious architect of Proposition 187, the initiative that sought to deny immigrant families these same basic rights.
* Whitman's hypocrisy became even more evident when she told a reporter, "You haven't seen an ad from me with the border fence," while at the same time airing TV ads across the state that prominently feature the border fence.
* Just one week after winning the primary, Whitman again changed direction, and began airing Spanish-language ads during the World Cup, indicating she was against the Arizona immigration law.
Just in case you didn't know, Meg Whitman has a lot of money. Her gigantic pile of money includes that she which made from eBay and her little dalliance with Goldman Sachs. Heck, even Steve Poizner thought it was skeezy. But, at this point, she doesn't see any reason whatsoever to stop making every effort to purchase the governor's gig. And why not, $104 million is really only a down payment, and it's just one step away from the White House, her intended destination anyway.
So, she really doesn't need any added financial resources, but why the heck not?
Days after California's political watchdog agency said it would not crack down on issue advocacy ads until after the Nov. 2 election, a business group took aim at Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown with a blistering example of such ads.
The Small Business Action Committee, backing Republican Meg Whitman for governor, launched a new television ad attacking Brown's record on job creation and spending. (SacBee)
Of course, Joel Fox, the leader of this committee is quite supportive of Whitman. He should be anyway. Just a few days after she paid $10,000 to be on his slate card for the primary, the committee endorsed her. How convenient. Must be good to get the green stuff coming in from Whitman and going out from the big corporations. And there are cuts to be had at each stop.
Now, I would post there ad, but I think I prefer this Steve Poizner ad about Meg a lot better.
I find NotTheLATimes generally hilarious, but the newest addition to the site, Whitmanopoly, is simply insane. (h/t OCRegister). It's a version of the game Monopoly with all sorts of twists and turns.
RULES OF PLAY
PREPARATION: Meg Whitman starts the game with $150 million. Jerry Brown gets $20 million and an autographed poster of Linda Ronstadt.
TOKENS: Brown travels around the board with a 1974 Plymouth. Whitman commandeers a wheelbarrow of cash.
And on and on it goes. It takes shots at both candidates, but let's be honest, one candidate offers much, much more fodder than the other. I'll try not to spoil it, just go see it right now!
