Whitman: No disconnect between frugality and her record-setting spending...she's smart & strategic!

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Meg Whitman credits tenacity for career successes
By Juliet Williams The Associated Press
Posted: 10/11/2010 10:08:31 PM PDTUpdated: 10/12/2010 09:30:44 AM PDT

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Whitman has often referred to her mother as a source of inspiration for her successful career and for her decision to seek the Republican nomination for governor.

Whitman also has adopted elements of her mother's frugality, in spite of her outsize spending on her gubernatorial campaign. Whitman's fortune was estimated at more than $1.3 billion before her bid for office, yet she often chooses to eat at middle-of-the-road chain restaurants on the campaign trail.

She says there is no contradiction between her proposals to be frugal with the people's money and her own record-setting spending. Instead, it's just part of a disciplined approach.

"My view is I'm running a smart campaign. I want to have the best team, I want to be out there with the right message," she said at a recent campaign event. "So I want to be smart about it and strategic about it."

http://www.dailybreeze.com/latestnews/ci_16315039

[DFW]

1. Let me see if I have this straight

A woman worth $1.3 billion is spending a tenth of her fortune to campaign for a job that pays maybe $250,000 a year.

OK, so it's not for the money. If it's not the money then it's for the power and the fame. She must realize by now
that all her hundred million dollars plus that she has pumped into this race has still not bought her a commanding
lead over Jerry Brown, despite outspending him seven to one or whatever it is. So, obviously spending her $100,000,000
on herself has not turned out to be money spent frugally or wisely--neither smart nor strategic.

The only logical conclusion is that she has neither the right team nor the right message. If she did, with that kind
of money advantage, she'd be leading 80-20. She's not. Either she is well aware of her situation and is lying through
her teeth, or she really believes her BS and is divorced from reality. Either way, it's not what California needs in
its next governor.

For that matter, it's not what any state needs in its governor. Without KochRove money, there probably wouldn't be any
new Republican governors, and there would instead be some new Democratic ones. My fingers are still crossed for Alex
Sink in Florida and Bill White in Texas, even if Michigan seems like a lost cause.