San Francisco Chronicle: Whitman takes early lead over Brown

[marmar]

Whitman takes early lead over Brown
Joe Garofoli, Chronicle Staff Writer

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

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Republican Meg Whitman's months-long advertising campaign is buying the billionaire, first-time candidate a precious political commodity: name recognition - and a virtual tie with Democrat Jerry Brown, a veteran of 40 years in politics, according to a Field Poll released today on California's gubernatorial race.

Whitman, the former eBay CEO who has poured $39 million into her campaign, also continued to thrash her rival in the GOP primary, state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner. Among likely Republican primary voters, 63 percent preferred Whitman to 14 percent for Poizner.

Against Brown, the state attorney general and former governor, Whitman led 46 to 43 percent. The margin of error in the survey of 748 likely general election voters, taken March 9-15, was 3.7 percentage points.

The early snapshot of the race not only is bad news for Poizner but analysts said it could be ominous for Brown, who announced his candidacy March 2. ........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/03/17/MN6I1CGM0F.DTL

[Webster Green]

1. Oh fuck!

This ruined my day, and it's only 8:30.

Please, not another repuke for gov!

[tomm2thumbs]

2. Don't worry, when they see Whitman's 'shipping charges' they'll bid elsewhere...

Not to mention the GOP always has a great description but the actual item always ends up damaged or not as advertised

[Johonny]

3. Sounds like good news to me

She has 24/7 TV ads running. Brown isn't even advertising yet. The general public doesn't even know he's actually running. Yet she isn't above 50 % or above the margin of victory. Plus her attack ads have many easy to counter and use against her statements. If Brown has a good campaign manager he should easily destroy her.

[Mz Pip]

4. Jerry Brown just

formally announced a couple of weeks ago. Meg Whitman has been all over the airwaves with her ads.

Whitman's solution to CA's problems is to cut taxes and laying more people off. If Californians really believe that this solution is the answer to all of our woes they haven't been paying attention. Tax cuts contributed to the mess we are in and more will just make matters worse.

Want to see CA really go down the crapper? Vote for Whitman.

[Confusious]

8. What makes you think Californians have been paying attention?

Whitman's solution to CA's problems is to cut taxes and laying more people off. If Californians really believe that this solution is the answer to all of our woes they haven't been paying attention.

I'm in my cyclical cynicism ( It's really bad on the downswing this time ) but what makes you think Californians won't go for more of the same stupid bullshit Americans have been wolfing down the past thirty years?

[Mz Pip]

9. I'm cynical too

but at some point Californians are going to have to wake up and look around and realize that what's been going on for the past 30 years isn't working.

Californians, like the rest of Americans, want stuff but don't want to pay for it.

[bemildred]

5. Empty babble.

Within the margin of error. Could just as easily be "Brown stays in race while doing nothing" or "Whitman buys attention with $39 million."

[mulsh]

6. SF Chron's shitty political "journalists" are one of the reasons

I no longer subscribe to that paper. Garofoli and Mariucci in particular are consistently Republican stenographers. As a long time reader of that paper I'd advise folks to ignore their political reporting and find other, more reliable sources, say the Sac. Bee, LA Times or SJ Mercury News.

BTW I haven't seen any ads for any Democratic candidate, perhaps Jerry and others are letting the wealthy blow hards spend as much as they can early in this campaign.

[msongs]

7. whitman has swamped the state with tens of millions in ads, not a peep from brown yet nt

[Mz Pip]

10. Jerry needs to take a look

at what happenend in MA. I really hope he hasn't taken a win for granted. Now that he is officially in the race, I hope we will see and hear a lot more from him. There is a whole generation out there that needs to get to know him.

[DemoTex]

11. In other words: Money trumps everything.

Always.

[hunter]

12. California should have political titles billionaires could simply buy.

It would be sort of like vanity plates for your car, and the money would be applied directly to the state budget deficit. It would be a position of zero political power, zero benefits, not even a parking place in Sacramento. But maybe you could go clubbing with Hollywood celebrities, or have tea with the Queen of England.

California Governors who don't understand the extremely dysfunctional nature of California politics are doomed to become useless figureheads anyways. The job of Governor has nothing in common with being the CEO of a major corporation. As a California Governor nobody has to care what you think. If a Governor shuts out the people running the various political machines they will simply shut out the Governor and go on with their business as usual.