Tag Archives: Meg Whitman

Election 2010, Jerry Brown

The Costs of an Education: Why Students Matter in November

Meg Whitman just spent $100 million in her bid for Governor of California, $91 of which came from her own pocket. It disgusts me that a candidate who claims she can get California on the right track injects into her campaign millions of her own wealth to fuel her own ambitions and propaganda. What could come of that money? Surely, enough to ease some of problems facing hardworking Californians. For students, this money could actually place importance on the value of our education. It made me wonder what this money could do for the student who couldn’t return to college this fall because of a reduction in his financial aid, about the student who couldn’t pay the latest UC fee hikes, and about the student whose family cannot afford to send her to college at all.

Attorney General Jerry Brown, on the other hand, knows the issues facing parents and students, starting two public schools in Oakland in his tenure as Mayor. He understands the value of an education and how to engage students with all interests. Brown whole-heartedly agrees that more attention must be due to California’s public school system in order for it to survive. Similarly, we must also turn to leaders like Mayor Gavin Newsom, whose City and County of San Francisco shines in California as the epitome of innovative ideas and pragmatic solutions put to practice.

As young people become more disenfranchised by California’s political system, it is crucial to change the status quo that is tearing our state apart. Those who place personal ambition over proposing legitimate solutions to fix California must be stopped. As a student who fears the loans awaiting her upon graduation, I highly trust Brown and Newsom’s abilities to help students like myself gain affordable higher education.

One of Mayor Newsom’s main priorities as a candidate for Lieutenant Governor is to get the public education system back on track, by increasing the quality and accessibility of schools within the CSU and UC systems. He understands every student’s desire for a quality education without being penalized by endless fees, finding themselves ineligible for state grants, and carrying a heavy burden of loans upon graduating. Higher education should be accessible to all, regardless of financial background. How else will California move forward with the leaders of tomorrow if they can’t afford the rights to an education?

While shaking up San Francisco, Mayor Newsom made unprecedented progress in promoting an affordable and accessible higher education by launching “SF Promise,” an initiative that guarantees an college education, with financial support provided, at San Francisco State university to all qualified San Francisco State Unified School District students. Projects like this, which benefits hundreds of students, can easily grow at the state level, spurring enrollment in colleges across the state.

The partnership of Brown and Newsom in Sacramento will bring the Golden State out of a depression it suffers on all levels. Our state will thrive once again through job growth, environmental protection, reduced crime rates, clean energy expansion, a strong education system, and so much more that will rebuild California.

Students of California, this is our election to win. We can no longer sit and watch as unqualified persons are elected to office only to serve private interests. By mobilizing by the thousands, we’ll be able to fight for our rights as young people looking towards a brighter future. By electing Gavin Newsom for Lt. Governor, we’ll have our voice heard on the UC Board of Regents and CSU Board of Trustees, strongly fighting for affordable education for everyone. No more will students forego a higher education or be prevented from returning to school. Please join students from across the state as we build the movement to reform California at www.studentsforgavinnewsom.com.

Manisha Goud is the Los Angeles Regional Director for Students for Gavin Newsom. Join Students for Gavin Newsom on Facebook at www.facebook.com/studentsfornewsom.

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Whitman Speaks From Both Sides of Her Mouth

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Meg Whitman has been getting really creative of late on the immigration issue. In Spanish language media, she’s been against SB 1070, Arizona’s immigration law, since, well, forever.  Meanwhile, in her native tongue, well, she’s singing a different tune.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman – who has campaign billboards and Spanish-language ads in California declaring “NO to the Arizona law” – told talk show hosts Wednesday that the same controversial immigration law should be allowed to stand in Arizona.

“You know, I’m running for the governor of California so I had to make a decision,” Whitman said. “Does the Arizona law make sense for California? And I have said no, I don’t think the Arizona law makes sense for California because we have a much bigger state with much bigger geography.”(SacBee)

You can grab the audio of the interview here. (h/t to Chris Kelly of Huffington Post).  But the sum total of her point is that, yeah, she’s cool with it being in Arizona, but just doesn’t want to pass it in California.  But in the end, let’s sort her mixed messages:

Meg Whitman supports SB 1070 in Arizona.

She can muddle through whatever she plans on saying to different portions of the media, but she can’t continue to do so without being called out for it.  John Kerry caught hell just for trying to explain Senate procedures. Those are arcane, but perhaps so is eMeg’s thought process here. She was against it before she was for it, before she was against it, before she was neutral(ish) on it.

Meg Whitman is just wrong for California.

UPDATE: I would be remiss if I didn’t include this Spanish ad from California Working Families. It was just released yesterday, and basically is all over Whitman for talking out of both sides of her mouth. Of course, instead of addressing the point of the ad, the Whitman campaign cries crocodile tears that Brown isn’t doing these ads himself. Attack the messenger all you want, how about the message?

Jerry Brown

A Few More Thoughts on that Field Poll

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Demo TableAs Robert just mentioned, the latest Field Poll (PDF) is showing a dead heat between Whitman and Brown. (Though a Reuters poll yesterday showed Brown up by 6, 45-39.)

In terms of favorability, well, these folks seem less popular when the whole affair started.  Brown is at +2 (42-40) and Whitman at 2 (4042).  The big difference is in how the two got there.  Since Brown has been in (and sometimes not so in) the campaign, his favorable numbers have hovered around the lower forties, with his unfavorable gradually growing from 25 in March 2009 to 40 today. A slow but steady rise that is the indicator of a Republican electorate now viewing him as the enemy. No real shock there.  The bigger movement has been in Whitman’s numbers. While she was a relative unknown in March 09, the big change came from March of this year to now.  Back then she was at +13 (40-27), so a net 15 point swing in that unfavorable number. Thank the IEs and Steve Poizner for that one, I suppose.

In terms of the demographic numbers to the right, the one that gives me the most optimism and the most pessimism is the 18-39 year old numbers.  This is a lean-Democratic voting bloc, generally very socially progressive, but Whitman has a statistically small lead.

There are a slew of reasons for this. Of course, Brown is new to us in that age bracket. We don’t remember his last terms in office and he has been hoarding his resources in an attempt to go all out in the fall.  That has meant that Whitman has been dominating the airwaves, even with the IEs throwing out some anti-Meg commercials. This is a demographic that knows eBay and knows Whitman, at least with some notion of her public persona.

Brown clearly needs to do better here. That’s done partially through social media, which has been mentioned around these parts, but also through on the ground organizing that the Obama campaign specialized in.  As of now, there hasn’t been an effort to do a real field campaign from either candidate, but expect that to change fairly soon.

But as CalBuzz points out, there is grounds for optimism for Dems here.  Take the numbers on independents. Whitman needs to at least tie if not win there. She’s heading in the wrong way right now:

Whitman has not done as well as might have been expected with independents. She leads Brown marginally now, 42-39% among non-partisans compared to 50-36% in March. That’s a 3-point lead, down from 14 points. Both candidates are holding their party bases, although Whitman is doing better among Republicans (80-9%) than Brown is doing among Democrats (74-16%).

It’s going to be an interesting four months as we head into Nov. 2.

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No Rest for the Weary Electorate

This piece originated at Speak Out California.

While California takes the summer off, the wealthy use their extraordinary wealth to undermine the state’s future.

While grills all over California are still smoldering under the weight of July 4th hot dogs, burgers and maybe a veggie-burger or two, those with unlimited resources (and who most likely grilled steaks instead), continue their barrage on the senses of Golden State residents.

With all that money, there’s no need to respect the notion that these are the “dog days” of summer, when those lucky enough to have jobs try to sneak in a restful vacation or two with their families and friends and those who are out-of-work try to find some, or if not at least find solace in the fact that summer tends to be slow in the work-place anyway. But for E-Meg and the big oil companies, this is no time to let the rest of us relax.

With four major Texas-based oil companies putting in the few millions necessary to qualify Prop. 23 on the ballot, we can expect a summer filled with more lies and misinformation about what AB 32, the law that will move us to develop an alternative energy economy, is going to do to the state. To the oilies, it represents a commitment to move from their dirty, fossil-based fuel driven economy to something more sustainable and protective of the environment (you can include the ocean in that, as we continue to watch in horror as the Gulf of Mexico absorbs millions of gallons of the dirty, toxic and deathly gunk every day).

Of course, what’s not to like in that idea? Well, the claim (made without any justification or factual data to support it—but what else is new?) is that it will raise the price of oil and be a drag on our state’s already suffering economy. You know, another “job-killer” bill.

For thinking people, this reasoning is pure nonsense. Fortunately, according to a new poll that came out today, most Californians reject this nonsense and realize forcing us to move to renewable energy resources could and would put California right in the middle of a changing, vibrant and profitable new energy economy. For more information on the report, check out Cal Buzz here.

And then there’s E-Meg, the multi-billionaire who wants to buy the Governorship on her way to trying to buy the Presidency of the United States. Now, while I’m all for women aspiring and reaching the highest office in the land, (and I am, indeed), E-Meg has no experience and up until fairly recently no interest in government or its workings. But that’s the least of it. For those of us who have been in both public service and private enterprise, there is one thing that is clear. One is analog and the other digital. You can’t run business like and government and you can’t run government like a business. Why? Because the purpose of business is profit. The purpose of government is to provide for the public good.

We saw that up close and personal with Ahnold. He came in as an “outsider” with a great story of financial success (even as a mediocre actor, but that’s for another day). No one can argue that Meg has had enormous success as well (even though much of it is integrally linked to her relationship with Goldman Sachs). And no one can argue that she’s put together an extraordinary political campaign machine–probably the best that $90 million (and counting every minute) can buy. She’s got the sound-bites down, controls her press conferences with impressive precision and has well-choreographed ads up on all the right stations and programs, etc. She has attacked her opponent with great gusto and creativity—-unfazed by the fact that most of her criticisms are totally distorted, if not downright lies. We know, however, that she will stop at nothing to make her case—just look at the way she ran to the far-right to beat Steve Poizner in the primary.

It will be interesting to see her race back to the “middle”, which she is already trying to do with the Latino community. She’s spent a small fortune so far buying time on Spanish-speaking media trying to convince this population that she’s supportive, even though the hated former-governor Pete Wilson (Mr. Prop.118) was (and still is?) her campaign chairman.

Her politics aside, the problem is: With all her money and clever advertising and posturing, she doesn’t have a clue how to GOVERN. We do know she knows how to bully—as illustrated by a small incident that only cost her a couple hundred-thousand dollars. Just chump change for her. Just wait til she’s in Sacramento if she wins. What’s she going to do–challenge the legislature to a shoving match? Challenge the cities and counties and public safety groups and public interest groups to a duel?

Governing calls for compromise, for respect for the other branches of government. It calls for thoughtful discussion. This is not a monarchy where the richest get to tell everyone else what to do-and how to think. No sound-bite in the world is going to suddenly move everything in your direction in a democracy. Willing it to be doesn’t make it happen. Governing is an intricate, subtle, and wisdom driven calling. If you don’t have the skills and experience, you’re going to flop. And the last thing this state needs at this point is another inexperienced, arrogant, unprepared rich person who has no idea what they’re doing. Just look at the present governor if you have any doubts.

Jerry Brown

Whitman FAIL: Prefers To Buy, Not Debate

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Meg Whitman has lots of money, so she’s been able to buy all the TV time that she would want. Why would she accept debates when she could just buy all that?

Well, that doesn’t mean that she isn’t worried about appearances of rejecting all those debates. So, she’s gone on the offense.

The two have tangled publicly over debates, with both accepting one appearance together. Brown, a Democrat, has challenged Whitman to nine more.

“We’ll look at some of these other debates. But I’ve got to tell you, he is talking about 10 debates. I would be glad if he had 10 ideas to fix California,” Whitman said to applause from the 75-strong audience. (LA Times)

Meanwhile, what are her ideas? Well, I’ll let Arnold Schwarzenegger summarize her “bogus talk.”

He didn’t mention her name, but in brief remarks at the Los Angeles Press Club’s annual awards gala on Sunday night, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger swiped at Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman, calling her proposal to eliminate 40,000 state worker positions “bogus talk” and praising journalists for asking where those cuts would be made.(SacBee)

Whitman doesn’t have the ideas, and that which she has are “bogus.” Sounds about right.  Nonetheless, she’s got money, so the whole Buy It Now Plan is still in operation.

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Meg Whitman Declares War on Nurses

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(cross-posted from DailyKos)

One of my favorite things in all the world is watching a right-wing politician do something really foolish.

And Meg Whitman, the woman trying to push the “buy it now” button for the governorship of California, is heading down a road of monumental foolishness indeed.

How out of touch is she?

She’s decided to go to war with the California Nurses Assn.

Details below.

Some of you may remember our current “governator” Arnold Schwarzaneggar.

Ahnold was swept into office back in 2003 in a wave of adulation.  The “girly men” in the Democratic controlled legislature groveled at his feet.  There was talk of changing the constitution so he could be president.  He was on top of the political world.  In late 2004, with his approval ratings running around 70%, he announced that he was rolling back the staffing ratio law that thousands of CNA nurses had fought for 12 years to achieve.  Bad idea.  Over the next year, nurses staged over 100 demonstrations at every public appearance he made.  We followed him all over California and to Texas, New York, Ohio and Boston.  Instead of strolling in the front door like a conquering hero, he was forced to sneak in back doors, protected by a horde of bodyguards from the (mostly) women in scrubs.  A year later, his approval sat at 30%.  A massively inept Democratic campaign allowed him to win re-election, but he’s never been the same since.  

Now, Meg Whitman has decided to pick a fight with those same nurses.  Some people are too dumb to be let out in public.  Perhaps we get a clue why she’s so anxious to avoid unscripted events.

Here’s the history:

Ever since last fall, Whitman has been carpet bombing the California airwaves with the most expensive television campaign in state history, financed largely with her own massive wealth.

With her anti-union, anti-regulation, anti-worker rhetoric, nurses saw her as a huge threat to the quality of care we give, and ultimately to our patients.  As a fairly small union, the amount of money we can spend on politics is a drop in the ocean compared to NutMeg’s wealth.  But we do have some creative minds.  With the help of a fine actress, we created Queen Meg, a parody character representative of Whitman’s wealth, sense of entitlement and disconnect from the lives of everyday Californians.

Here’s what happened:

So the Queen has been touring California, we’ve been having fun with this and so have the press. (  http://www.kcra.com/politics/2… ) The real Meg however is not amused.  Having disposed of her GOP primary opponent, her campaign has decided to declare war on us.

The themes of her attack are tiredly familiar.  We’ve heard them all before from other politicians we’ve upset:

1. Nurses really love her, it’s just the nasty union that doesn’t like her.

2. The union has brainwashed the nurses

3. We shouldn’t be wasting money on politics

4. Our Executive Director is paid too much (A salary that probably equals the daily interest on Meg’s fortune.)

Her campaign wrote us a letter damanding that we give her our membership list so that she could communicate directly with the nurses.  

Here’s a  

 report:

Gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman’s campaign asked the California Nurses Association this morning for its mailing list, the Republican billionaire lambasting the union’s leadership for “partisan theatrics” and asking for direct access to its members.

Read more: http://blogs.sacbee.com/capito…

In the corporate world, I’m sure that what Meg wanted, Meg got, but nurses are not so easily pushed around.  So, our leadership sent back a nice, polite letter in which we declined to share our members’ private information with her, but offered to sponsor one or more public forums in which she and her opponent could appear before large audiences of real nurses and take unscripted questions directly from them.  Whitman, who has based her campaign so far on avoiding unscripted events and open questioning, was not interested.

So, we said, “OK, you don’t want to appear with your opponent, how about all alone?”  We offered to sponsor a forum where she alone could take questions from nurses.  We even told her we’d set up video links to statewide venues so nurses all over could hear from her directly.  No dice on that one either.  Something about unscripted questions she just does not like.

Now Meg and her surrogates are making the rounds of the far-right, union hating talk radio ranters to attack us.  All the themes I mentioned above, repeated ad nauseum.  They’re even issuing statements telling nurses what we believe:

“The nurses do believe that the union leadership has gone too far,” said Pompei. “They don’t agree that the money that they’re spending, you know, $50,000 on a wrapped bus to follow Meg around. They don’t think that’s a good use of union dues.”

So here’s the matchup:

In one corner: the richest woman in politics, and surely one of the most arrogant, armed with more money that anyone can reasonably imagine.

In the other corner: the 85,000 working nurses of the California Nurses Assn., armed with our honesty, our knowledge, our credibility and our creativity.

Anybody want to make a bet on this one?

A final note: While Meg Whitman as Governor may seem like a joke, she’s a joke with a whole lotta money.  And the reality of Meg Whitman as Governor of our largest state would be no joke at all.  Please support

Jerry Brown.

And for those of you on Facebook, please friend our Queen Meg:

http://www.queenmeg2010.com/

Note: the diarist is a Registered Nurse and a volunteer board member of the CNA

   

Election 2010

Electing Equality: Voters Chose LGBT and Pro-LGBT Candidates at the Polls

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(A hearty welcome to EQCA – promoted by Brian Leubitz)

By Chris Moore, Deputy Director of Political Affairs, Equality California

Last night’s elections were invigorating! The outcomes are generally very favorable for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Californians and could prove to be history making. There are, however, some dangerous candidates on the horizon that will require our community to be energized and cohesive in order to beat them.

Nearly every single EQCA endorsed candidate won their primary yesterday, and we were hard at work helping to make that happen. Our Political Action Committee and its many donors directly contributed to candidates’ campaigns. Our volunteers and staff made over 20,000 phone calls to urge support of our candidates and to get out the vote. We sent over 140,000 pieces of mail to every corner of the state. And to ensure that our candidates succeeded, we closed our offices yesterday and our 44 staff spent the day working on the most critical campaigns.  

Key Wins for Equality

One key win from yesterday may prove to be history making — Victoria Kolakowski, candidate for the Alameda County Superior Court, took the greatest number of votes in her race, with 45 percent, and when she is elected in November will be the first transgender trial court judge elected in our nation’s history! Equality California contributed to her campaign, helped recruit and spread the word on her campaign through social networking and email, made over 10,000 phone calls to voters in the district, and sent a mail piece to the district.

We can also expect to see the size of our state’s LGBT Legislative Caucus increase from four to seven — making California’s LGBT Caucus the largest in the nation to date. Three openly gay and lesbian candidates for the Assembly won their primaries and are gearing up for November: Toni Atkins (76 – San Diego), Rich Gordon (21 – San Mateo) and Ricardo Lara (50 – Los Angeles). All have exemplary records in both government and LGBT advocacy work.  

Right now our state’s judiciary is drastically lacking LGBT representation. EQCA is  committed to changing this and accordingly backed the following successful candidates. Linda Colfax, an out lesbian, won her race for Superior Court Judge in San Francisco with 52.61% of the vote. Because she won a majority of votes, she is now elected to the seat and will not face a runoff. Michael Nava, also a candidate for Superior Court Judge in San Francisco, gained 45.52% of the vote. He will face a run off in November against the second highest vote-getter but is well positioned to win it.

And at the federal level, Palm Springs Mayor Steve Pougnet won the Democratic primary to for the 45th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives. If he unseats incumbent Mary Bono Mack in November he will be the first legally married gay father in Congress.

In two of the closest races yesterday our unwavering straight allies, Betsy Butler and Mary Salas, succeeded! Betsy Butler has been a staunch advocate for the LGBT community for decades and yesterday overcame hundreds of thousands of dollars in attack ads and won her primary in the 53rd Assembly District. Mary Salas has not wavered in her dedication to full and complete equality for the LGBT community. Yesterday she won her primary for Senate District 40 (San Diego) over Juan Vargas, a Democrat who opposes marriage equality. Expect to see both Salas and Butler run strong campaigns between now and November.

Proposition 8 Supporters Also Making Gains

Not all the news was good news. Our opposition also made some alarming gains.

Andrew Pugno, co-author of Proposition 8 and attorney for the Yes on 8 campaign, won the Republican primary for Assembly District 5 (Sacramento area). Pugno was one of the architects of Prop. 8 and its predecessor Proposition 22 in the year 2000. He continues to serve as chief counsel for ProtectMarriage.com and is currently defending Prop. 8 in federal court. His career has been largely devoted to denying rights to LGBT Californians, and EQCA will do everything in its power to stop him.

Meg Whitman won the Republican primary for Governor. She essentially bought her way into the race in November using $60 million of her own cash. She supports a constitutional ban on marriage equality and indicated so when she helped fund Prop. 8. If elected, she appears likely to help defend Prop. 8 in court — something that even Gov. Schwarzenegger has refused to do. EQCA has endorsed Jerry Brown’s run against her.

What’s next? EQCA staff and volunteers will keep up this work through November to see these pro-equality candidates and others get elected. Please join us! Even something as simple as making 15 to 20 phone calls from home makes a big difference. Sign up to volunteer with EQCA at www.eqca.org/volunteer, or contact me at chris dot moore at eqca dot org.

Learn more about these 100 percent pro-equality candidates and others at www.eqcapac.org.

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Catty Carly

Check out Carly. She’s still a loose canon. Fired from HP. Fired from the McCain campaign. And soon to be fired from California politics.

I think she’s set the record in the least amount of time to lose a campaign after winning a nomination..10 hours.

I hope Boxer has some good oppo going because Carly’s has plenty of videos of her supporting unpopular California opinions. In the vid below (4 min mark), Carly supports both drilling and Arizona’s anti-Latino law. Come’on, Barbra, don’t mess around. Hit her hard. Something like: “While I don’t have the latest hairdo, I do represent the fairest and most democratic solutions to blah, blah, blah….

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics…

Jerry Brown

Queen Whitman Can Buy Republican Nomination Now

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Photobucket

Today, Field released its poll on the GOP Governor’s race. And the numbers are looking good for Whitman’s Buy It Now campaign:

GOP gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman is making inroads among Republicans of all stripes, from young voters to born-again Christians, according to the most recent Field  Poll released Thursday.

After seeing her lead dwindle in public opinion polls last month, Whitman has surged back to a 26 percentage-point advantage over rival Steve Poizner less than a week before the June 8 primary. …

“Meg Whitman has spent $90 million, and that’s four times more than I’m spending …” he said. “So people want to know why all the negative advertising? What’s the truth? What is Meg Whitman trying to cover up?”(SacBee

She said she plans on spending $150 Million, but let’s be honest here. If she’s already spent almost $100, it’s going to get to $200 by the time everything is said and done.

Buy It Now Indeed.