Queen Meg is not amused. After the San Francisco Chronicle recorded video of the Yelpers slamming Whitman and her campaign of smears and lies, Whitman is now the first statewide candidate in memory to snub the Chron:
Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman has declined an invitation from the San Francisco Chronicle’s editorial board, making her the first statewide candidate in memory to turn down the election year tradition.
Chronicle editorial page editor John Diaz, who invited Whitman to visit with Chronicle reporters and editors months ago, received word Friday that the Republican former eBay CEO will not accept the invitation of the flagship Hearst-owned newspaper.
Diaz, who has headed the editorial page of Northern California’s largest newspaper for more than 15 years, said Whitman’s decision to decline makes her the first statewide candidate in memory to turn down the session with Chronicle editors and reporters.
Carla Marinucci explains that the SF Chronicle, like many other editorial boards around the country, record the meetings and post the video on the web. It was just such a meeting that brought us the video of Carly Fiorina claiming “class warfare” because Boxer merely fought back against Fiorina’s own war on the middle-class.
Whitman instead prefers to once again hide behind her massive barrage of TV ads, totally unwilling to come out and engage the public or the media in an open conversation. Of course, every time Whitman does engage the public she flops, because she cannot hide behind her scripted lies and misstatements.
Jerry Brown, on the other hand, will take on all comers, even the ridiculous Good Day LA show on Fox 11. He’s got nothing to hide and nothing to fear, understanding that the public wants their politicians to be engaging and open, not hidden and secretive.
But that’s Meg Whitman for you: a wealthy corporate hack who believes that she exists to command her subjects to do her bidding. Whitman’s snubbing of the SF Chronicle won’t cost her the election in itself, but it does provide further evidence that Whitman is an elitist who does not take her electorate seriously. At all.
This is pretty bad. When a candidate for Governor refuses to meet with an editorial board of a major newspaper, it kind of takes my breath away. If a news organization had made financial contributions to her opponent, that might be another matter. But I think that sort of thing is confined to Fox News.
If a candidate is unwilling to talk to the press during the campaign, why would we imagine that she would talk to them while governing? Put the ideology and partisanship aside for a moment, all of her money is warping the campaign and I’m liking it less and less.