Rasmussen polls always skew a bit to the right. As long as you know to take that grain of salt, they retain some meaning. And so while you’d toss a few points towards Jerry Brown, this is still a discomforting poll:

With nearly a year until the general election, a new Rasmussen Reports poll puts GOP gubernatorial hopeful Meg Whitman and still-undeclared Democratic contender Jerry Brown locked in a tie with41 percent support a piece.

The results show Whitman gaining traction since a September Rasmussen survey, in which Brown outpolled Whitman 44 percent to 35 percent.(SacBee)

Putting aside any substantive issues that any of us may have wit Brown, the dithering in announcing his candidacy is hurting the Democratic hopes of recapturing the governor’s seat. Whitman and Poizner are now dictating the conversation of this election, and whether Brown wants to admit that he’s a candidate or not, he is the Democratic standard bearer. And right now, there is no Democrat articulating the values and ideas that the party stands for.

Whatever else you can say about Gavin Newsom, at least he bothered to notify the press that he was running for governor. With his exit from the race, the press simply defines the story on Republican terms.

Enough of this dithering from Brown already. If he wants to run for governor, great, fantastic, let’s do it. But Brown needs to realize that he just can’t skate through without bothering to announce that he’s running.

It is a rare day that every major candidate for the California governor’s race is from Northern California, but that’s they way it is today. And specifically, all three Republicans are from the Silicon Valley.  It’s generally a Democratic leaning area, as it is hard to find a Republican in the Bay Area at all.  But in the Valley, Republicans tend to be the less dogmatic type than you’d find in the Central Valley.  They’ll focus less on social issues and more on their own pocket books. They want a generally functional government, but would like to get it on the cheap.

And that’s why despite the fact that all three candidates are from the area, Tom Campbell’s wonky campaign carries some sway.  In a poll by San Jose State’s Survey & Public Research Institute (PDF, Campbell was shown with a pretty hefty lead in Silicon Valley. While the poll was quite small and the margin of error was huge (6.9%), the size of the lead means there is something to this data. Campbell is at 39%, Whitman 11%, Poizner 7, and the famous “Undecided” at 41.

Campbell is a wonk and a bit of a nerd. And perhaps that is what is playing so well down there. Or perhaps it is the fact that he has represented much of the region when he was in Congress. But for whatever reason, Silicon Valley Republicans are leaning hard for Campbell. The question with Campbell in this race is always the money question. Can he come up with enough cash to really compete with Whitman and Poizner. He can’t self finance, and he’ll need to spend a hefty chunk of change to really make any headway with the right-wing base of the party.

However, if Campbell does manage to squeak out, he probably makes for a very tough campaign for the Democratic nominee, whether it be Jerry Brown or some other late announcing candidate. While his “solutions” tend to be pretty much the same as his former boss, Arnold Schwarzenegger, he is still able to talk the moderate talk.

Meg Whitman is a woman of the people. And by that, I mean she’s flexible, always willing to go with the flow.

Take AB 32. Meg Whitman is on record as wanting to suspend the landmark greenhous gas legislation. Well, it turns out that almost all of her foundation gave money to one of the big supporters of the legislation, the Environmental Defense Fund:

The Griffith R. Harsh IV and Margaret C. Whitman Charitable Foundation in 2007 contributed $100,000 to the Environmental Defense Fund, which is now at odds with Whitman over water policy. The foundation also invested $3 million in hedge funds based in the Cayman Islands – a Caribbean tax haven that’s been the subject of political controversy. (SJ Merc 11/6/09)

Meanwhile, the task that AB 32 seeks out to accomplish, reduce carbon levels to 1990 levels by 2020, is not impossible. In fact, San Francisco will achieve that goal by 2012, and is on track to beat that mark considerably. Mayor Newsom says that that the City will likely reduce total carbon emissions by 20 over the ten year period of 2002-2012. Sure, there are differences between SF and the rest of the state, the main one being the relatively stagnant population in our 7×7 mile corner of the Peninsula. However, going green is not nearly as challenging as Whitman makes it out to be.

And heck, she just ask some of her foundation recpients about that. As Robert pointed out, this is your Republican front-runner. W00t!

George Skelton catches a few, ahem, tall tales in some of Meg Whitman’s radio spots.  

“Did you know,” Whitman asks radio listeners, “that in the last 10 years, state spending has gone up 80%?”

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It doesn’t take much digging to learn that general fund spending “in the last 10 years” has risen just 27%, according to finance department data. Adjusted for inflation and population growth, spending actually has decreased by 16.6%.

(LA Times 10/29/09)

They have some fun with numbers excuse for the 80% number by finishing with the 2007-2008 closed book numbers, but, of course, even that excludes inflation and population growth.

But Meg Whitman has a story for the people of California. A story that bears no resemblance to the more complicated reality, but it’s simple: California’s state government spends too much. That somehow California is just tossing around money because the numbers are big.

Yet, despite the numbers that Whitman would like to show you, here are the real numbers. California is 26th in per capita state spending with about $5,000 per capita. And that’s from FY 2007, the high water mark where eMeg’s ads were proclaiming out of control spending. (Data from Kaiser Foundation). Since that time, we’ve slashed and burned through our budget. We’re spending substantially less money, and providing a lot fewer services. But, we can’t all keep up with those spend happy states like Oklahoma (#18), Louisiana (#9), Alabama (#7) and Alaska (#1).

So, it’s going to be more of the same crap. Lies, deceptions, and half-truths. Yup, a real change candidate, that Meg Whitman.

In the Democratic primary, there’s really not much conversation to speak of. Basically, you have Gavin Newsom running around trying to increase name ID by conducting town halls and the like. Jerry Brown is just patiently waiting back for the spring, or so it seems.

But that is hardly the case on the Republican side. The three candidates have been lobbing hand grenades at each other for several months now. Two of them, Poizner and Whitman, are former CEOs who have given money to, gasp, Democrats.  The other, Tom Campbell, is a self-described champion of bipartisanship.

But how do you show the right-wingers of the party, ie the party base, that you are the Real Republican. Well, if you’re Tom Campbell, you don’t try, and just call yourself bipartisan. I know that might work to pull in 20% in early polls, but that strategy seems like quite the longshot in a Republican primary that tends to skew hard right.

Meanwhile, as Poizner and Whitman go for the “conservative” mantle, they have to deal with their Democratic skeletons in the closet:

Whitman gave $4,000 to Boxer in November 2003 and an additional $4,000 to Boxer and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee that same month, according to the Federal Election Commission.

Whitman also endorsed Boxer in 2003 as a member of the group Technology Leaders for Boxer. In a joint letter publicized by the Boxer campaign, Whitman wrote, “Barbara Boxer is a courageous leader and friend of California’s technology industry.”

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Poizner has faced similar questions about his contributions to Gore and the Gore/Lieberman Recount Committee, which funded the Democratic candidate’s unsuccessful legal efforts in the aftermath of the 2000 election. (SacBee 10/26/09)

Of course, that they each have these issues takes out much of the teeth out of this fight. Unless Tom McClintock is somehow lured into this race, Whitman and Poizner are only judged on a curve defined by the other.  If a longtime Republican conservative enters the race, the complexion changes markedly. However, at this point the field seems to have solidified.  McClintock is really the only name conservative that would be able to have a major impact on the race.

So, press releases are tossed back and forth on who is the Real Republican, and still the phrase has no meaning and no value to the bulk of California voters.