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Tuesday, April 06, 2010

Ubiquitous Spending by California Gubernatorial Candidate Meg Whitman

What does it take to become governor of California?

Money helps ... as billionaire Meg Whitman, former head of eBay, is reported to donate another $20 million to her Gubernatorial campaign:
"... her ubiquitous radio and TV ad campaign led to her spending $27.2 million in the first 11 weeks of the year — an average of $358,439 a day." [emphasis added]
But in this case the money also appears to be combined with a great deal of competence. If you can run eBay can you run a defunct California? Possibly.

Here is what the Wikipedia bio says about candidate Whitman:
"Whitman was born on Long Island, New York, the daughter of Hendricks Hallett Whitman and Margaret (Goodhue) Whitman. Whitman attended a public high school, Cold Spring Harbor High School in Cold Spring Harbor, New York. She had wanted to be a doctor so she studied physics and mathematics at Princeton University. However, after spending a summer selling advertisements in a magazine, she switched to studying economics, earning a BA with honors. She then obtained an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1979. Whitman is married to Griffith Harsh IV, a neurosurgeon at Stanford University Medical Center....

Whitman has committed to only three major areas in her campaign: job creation, reduced state government spending, and reform of the state's K-12 educational system. She has explained that she believes it is best to start only a few things and finish them, instead of starting a lot of things and not finish them.

Whitman has pledged not to raise taxes.... She also proposes lowering business taxes and making California a more business-friendly environment, stating that California is losing jobs not to other countries but to neighboring states with lower tax rates....

For water issues, Whitman has opposed a federal judge ruling and supports turning on water for thousands of Central Valley farmers. She said if elected, on her first day she would suspend AB 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, to study potential economic implications. At the state GOP Convention in March, Whitman described California Republican Governor Schwarzenegger's climate change bill as a "job-killer."
I am a political centrist who plays no favorites as far as the political parties are concerned, but this looks like a good option for the State of California, where it is time to "clean house".