Everyone thinks they’re Christopher Columbus nowadays:
It’s official: Meg Whitman, the former chief executive of eBay, is planning to run for governor of California.
She announced on Monday that she had formed an exploratory committee, the first step in seeking the Republican nomination for governor in the 2010 race. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger faces term limits and cannot run for re-election, leaving the field wide open for one of the nation’s most powerful governorships.
She’s lining up some heavy hitters in her corner, too:
She also announced that former California Gov. Pete Wilson would serve as the chairman of the campaign while Reps. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Mary Bono Mack (R-Calif.) will serve as co-chairs.
On the staff side, Whitman has attracted high level talent — reflective of the national profile of California races not to mention Whitman’s significant personal wealth — that borrows from a number of the GOP presidential campaigns of 2008 including those of Arizona Sen. John McCain and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.
Question #1 is whether she can escape a GOP primary with conservative jillionaire state Insurance Comm’r Steve Poizner. Whitman, of course, is worth a fortune, too. Should be a good fight.
at first, Whitman sounds like she’d appeal to more voters, but she’s never ran for office before. Never, not a single election in her life. Poizner very nearly won a Democratic-leaning state legislature seat in 2004 and then two years later was elected statewide by 12%.
Who would we rather face?
that Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner does decide to go for it, as speculated.
Two dot-com billionaires squaring off in the Repub primary.
How bloody could that eventually wind up to be?
Im not sure of Poizner’s overall political leanings but I know hes at least pro-choice. Which will help in the general. Of course he shouldnt be called a moderate just because of one issue but its an important one nonetheless. Were he pro-life hed have a much harder time winning a general i would think.
I went to high school with her son. He went to the private school in Menlo Park, and he voluntarily left that high school after it became apparent that he would be kicked out if he did not leave. The story is that he got angry at a black student in his class and wrote a racist letter. Anyways, after that he came to my public high school. He was notorious for saying insensitive racist, homophobic, and sexist things on a daily basis (calling black literature uneducated, saying that people with AIDS deserve to die because they’re gay, saying that a woman’s place is in the home). And since the apple never falls far from the tree, one can only assume that these beliefs are shared by his horrible mother.
Anyways, he was rejected from Harvard University when he applied. So his mother donated a $300 million building to Princeton, and low and behold, he was admitted.
Meg Whitman is a horrible person, and I would want Steve Poizner to win the primary, because I want there to be no chance that this awful woman becomes our governor.
I don’t know much about California politics, and I’ll say that right off the bat. But someone I know (who is smart, well-respected, and well-informed– and whose name I probably shouldn’t mention) is absolutely certain that Whitman will win in 2010 and be somewhere on the GOP ticket in 2012.
I’m personally suspicious on both counts, but it’s an interesting possibility. I don’t know much about Whitman, but she doesn’t strike me as a candidate that’ll hold up over a long campaign for governor. It’s just a feeling, but she seems like one of these candidates that will peak somewhere around May of 2010.
But I don’t know anything, and my unnamed prognosticator shouldn’t be taken too seriously for now.
conservative to moderate part of the GOP electorate (probably a shrinking portion of their primary voters) leaving an opportunity for a more hardcore rightwinger to get the nomination. Who might that be? The obvious choice would be Conservative Icon Tom McClintock, but I don’t think he is crazy enough to give up a House seat to run for Gov so soon.
a conservative. He’s very liberal, and he ran, and had my support against the odious Cruz Bustamonte in the Insurance Race. Poizner made a big ethics stand and refused to take mone from the insurance industry, whereas some 60% of Bustamonte’s money came from the Insurance industry. Poizner is very liberal, and nearly won in 2004 in a House district that went like 70-30 for Kerry. He would be a formidible opponent with his North California base and appeal. He’s also very pro-environment.
and people are all over the place on this thread:
1. Whitman’s son will not play a role in this election unless he gets arrested in the next two years. It’s silly to even mention him.
2. Is Poizner liberal or conservative? I read some people saying he’s a right wing nut and some saying he’s extremely liberal. Can you give some supporting evidence: pro-choice/pro-life, pro-Iraq war/anti-Iraq War, pro-stimulus? pro-immigration/anti-immigration?
so who do we democrats want to run against in 10? and who do our gop brothers and sisters on this site want to run against on our side and why?
Meg Whitman supported Proposition 8 in California last year. Between the three main Republican candidates, she was the only one who did so. Poizner did not publicly state his position while Campbell was opposed to Proposition 8 and wrote an op-ed against it for Reason.com
So I think Whitman will try to position herself as the most conservative of the 3 in an attempt to appeal to the Republican base. Which shouldn’t be too hard for her unless McClintock gets in…
why two successful businesspeople would blow tens of millions of their own money on a worthless nomination? Might as well just write checks to the media consultants for what their overrides would have been and save the cost of the actual buys.
Barring an incumbent Democrat screwing the pooch a la Gray Davis de-electrifying Cali, no Republican is winning this one in the general.