Meg Whitman set a new spending record in her campaign for governor of California. According to a campaign finance statement filed earlier this week, the Republican gubernatorial candidate has spent a record $140 million on her campaign through the end of September.
GOP candidate Meg Whitman has mostly spent her own money in her drive to replace outgoing California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Democratic candidate Jerry Brown hasn't yet filed a campaign finance statement, but his campaign noted he has spent about $10 million so far out of a $22.5 million campaign reserve.
MSNBC notes that Meg Whitman's record-setting campaign spending has made her the biggest self-funding candidate in US history. $119 million of the money she's spent so far has come out of her own pockets. She's prepared to sink in a total of $150 billion.
While Meg Whitman's been spending her money so fast, her campaign's been less than a runaway hit. Opinion polls place Whitman and Brown statistically even, if not giving Brown a slight lead.
The fact the race for the CA governor's seat is so neck-and-neck is probably because of two things. One, Meg Whitman started spending first and most. Her record-setting campaign monies have been saturating the state's airwaves for months. Jerry Brown has only just started to fight back in the last few weeks.
Second, California's reputation as a liberal state is won by its major cities. The geographical majority of the state is firmly in the conservative camp. A poll that takes this into account will show that balance.
Meg Whitman's record-setting campaign spending should still be setting off alarm bells with fiscal conservatives. If she's that loose with her own cash, what will she do when it's not her money?
Article ©2010 Brenda Daverin for Gather.com. All rights reserved.
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Comments: 2
;-> She can't be worse than the ones in control now. And at least it is her own money. Unlike Barack during the presidential campaign; he threw other people's money around the way Whitman is throwing her own around. Hmm . . . which one is more worrisome I wonder?
However, in regard to Meg's spending, perhaps she was taught the same as I (and many others were); I was taught and I taught my children to take care of other people's things even better than they took care of their own.
And they better take real good care of their own stuff. Still, that was their choice since if they didn't take care of it they would be the ones to miss out 'cause we weren't replacing the stuff they neglected.
The point being, Whitman can choose to spend and treat her own stuff and money as she pleases. If it pleases her to spend it like there is no tomorrow ... so be it and more power to her; it's her money and she is the only one who is out all that money whether she wins or loses.
But if she was brought up the same way I was, I doubt we have all that much to worry about because she will probably treat OUR money with more care than she does her own simply because it isn't hers.