WHITMAN NO CANDY IN CALIFORNIA

The California gubernatorial race has heated up to proportions we have not seen in Illinois over one candidate’s aide calling their opponent a whore and getting caught on tape. What fun!


In the Midwest, the name Whitman means a candy sampler, in California the name means former eBay CEO Meg Whitman or “whore,” who is the Republican nominee for Governor. Her opponent is current California Attorney General Jerry Brown who was the California Governor from 1975-1983. Brown previously compared her to Nazi leader Joseph Goebbels. Maybe “whore” is a step-up in labeling!

The Los Angeles Times broke the story last week of a private conversation in September that was recorded on voicemail. Brown was leaving a message at a union office. He thought he phone connection was cut. Au contraire!


The LA Times story:


“The comment came after Brown called the Los Angeles Police Protective League in early September to ask for its endorsement. He left a voicemail message for Scott Rate, a union official. Brown apparently believed he had hung up the phone, but the connection remained intact and the voice mail machine captured an ensuing conversation between Brown and his aides.


With evident frustration, Brown discussed the pressure he was under to refuse to reduce public safety pensions or lose law enforcement endorsements to Whitman. Months earlier, Whitman had agreed to exempt public safety officials from key parts of her pension reform plan.


“Do we want to put an ad out? … That I have been warned if I crack down on pensions, I will be – that they’ll go to Whitman, and that’s where they’ll go because they know Whitman will give ‘em, will cut them a deal, but I won’t,” Brown said.


At that point, what appears to be a second voice interjects: “What about saying she’s a whore?”


“Well, I’m going to use that,” Brown responds. “It proves you’ve cut a secret deal to protect the pensions.”


The audio can be heard at http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/california-politics/2010/10/an-associate-of-jerry-brown-calls-meg-whitman-a-whore-over-pension-reform.html

The Whitman campaign responded with, "The use of the term 'whore' is an insult to both Meg Whitman and to the women of California. This is an appalling and unforgivable smear against Meg Whitman. At the very least Mr. Brown tacitly approved this despicable slur and he himself may have used the term at least once on this recording."


The Brown response? "This was a jumbled and often inaudible recording of a private conversation," said Brown's campaign manager Steven Glazer. "At times our language was salty. We apologize to Ms. Whitman and anyone who may have been offended."


The police union has since endorsed Whitman.

That would seem like the end of the story, but it gets worse. Where do women's organizations stand in castigating the Brown campaign? Less than 24 hours after the slur, the National Organization for Women (NOW) endorsed Brown! In my mind NOW does not have a great endorsement history. They endorsed Bill Clinton, when his track record of treating women was well known years before the Monica scandal, and then endorsed Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton.


The Whitman campaign responded by saying, “Meg Whitman is a pro-choice woman who was ranked among the world’s most accomplished women in business. She’s now running to become the first woman governor in California’s history, and on the same day that it’s reported Jerry Brown’s campaign called her a ‘whore,’ the National Organization [for] Women endorses him. It’s official: NOW is a partisan organization.”


I don’t understand how NOW endorsed Brown. The word “women” is in its name!


I guess they didn’t want to endorse a “whore.”