For the past 20 years there has been a review of the California’s governors race at Berkeley, where representatives of all the candidates - primary and general election - tell what they were really thinking. Here is a posting about this year’s meeting. For the first time ever a candidate did not send a representative - and Meg got bashed from both sides.
There is a lot more coverage of this meeting than just the linked post. One of the Republicans noted that her ads had no consistent message. Brown’s representative said that the thing they feared the most was that she would shut up between the primary and September - and were very happy that they did not.
Anyone else read the coverage of the review? What did you come away with?
I’m disappointed that we’ll never know the real reason Meg dropped 150 million of her own money in that campaign. It seems to me that there was more involved than her wanting to live in the Governors Mansion. I’d like to know the real story there.
I rather suspect she wanted a high-profile job which was in no way comparable to working as a CEO. She knows she’ll never get another gig like Ebay, never repeat that kind of performance, and the governorship provides an outlet for her restless ambition that won’t reflect badly on her reputation as a CEO, even if it goes south, because any failure will be “the Democrats’ fault.”
Interesting article. I didn’t know about this, thanks for posting. I think that the problem she was fighting, is that Jerry is a known quantity, and someone who has a demonstrated comittment to the state. Even if you disagree with him, we all know his life calling is CA politics.
Meg onthe other hand…well…we all know she was just looking for something to do.
But Californians aren’t that happy with known people - thus Arnold. The interesting thing is that by Labor Day Meg became the known (and disliked) quality.
As for what Meg wanted, it was apparently to flush her money down the toilet. The campaign finance figures came out today, and she spent $144 million of her own money. When it was all added up, her campaign spent $42 a vote. They didn’t give that figure for Brown, but a quick calculation showed something like $10 a vote.
California food banks are stretched due to the recession. I wonder what the shortfall is - probably way less than $144 million.