Interesting little story by TPM about California Republican gubernatorial hopeful Meg Whitman stumbling because of some old Goldman ties. I hadn't seen the ads because I don't have cable, and my ad intake comes exclusively from Hulu and visits to other peoples' houses. But it sounds pretty bad for Meg.
I don't really hate Meg Whitman. Unlike a certain other former CEO trying to break into California Republican politics, I've heard only good things about her executive abilities, and though she's tacking to the right in the primary she's pretty much an Arnie Republican and most people know it. Truth be told, I'm not a huge Jerry Brown fan and I wouldn't be terribly broken up if Whitman beat him in the general election. Brown isn't bad from an executive standpoint, but if he won the Democrats would be running what would theoretically be a unified government in CA, except that it's nowhere close to that due to budgetary supermajority requirements. Brown seems none too keen on fixing those problems, or on saying much about anything at this point, so I'm not too thrilled to have him back in office. Having a (nominally) Republican governor, on the other hand, helps diffuse blame a bit, and it helps with bargaining with the handful of GOP moderates that are actually willing to bargain. It doesn't look like Meg is going to get the chance, though. Which is actually quite surprising to me. Poizner sort of slipped through the cracks to be insurance commissioner in 2006 when Schwarzenegger won a big landslide in the state. Having him at the top of the ticket will pretty much eliminate the GOP's hopes of holding the governorship, and probably help kill any of their hopes of beating Barbara Boxer to boot.
