Whitman wastes 140 mill on campaign

Discussion in 'Politics' started by Syzygys, Nov 3, 2010.

  1. Syzygys As a mother, I am telling you Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    12,671
    It is nice to know money can't buy everything after all.

    Ex-business leader and Republican candidate Meg Whitman came 2nd in the race for the CA governorship, wasting mostly her own money. When you are a billionaire, 140 mill is small change, nevertheless she could have invested it in something more useful, like creating jobs or feeding starving African kids.

    Carly Fiorina, the other rich former business leader also lost, at least going by the early numbers...
     
    Last edited: Nov 3, 2010
  2. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  3. Cowboy My Aim Is True Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,707

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!



    And you care about this...why? What percentage of your income have you donated to starving Africans? How many jobs have you created?

    I wasn't a fan of Whitman, but I'm not going to fault her for trying to get into a position to make California into what she saw as a better place.
     
  4. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  5. Pinwheel Banned Banned

    Messages:
    2,424
    That money would have gone to someone, not vanished into thin air. If she wants to spread her wealth around again good luck to her

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
  6. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  7. countezero Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    5,590
    Electing Brown is farse. California has whatever is coming to it now (if it didn't already, what with its ballot iniatives and all). Putting a man back in charge whose family has a huge hand in the state's current state? Yeah. That makes sense.
     
  8. 786 Searching for Truth Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,089
    The money she used in whatever things creates/retains jobs- isn't that how government stimulus works... Spending is creating jobs

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!



    Although I don't agree that it 'actually' creates a job- only false ones (i.e short term)

    Peace be unto you

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
  9. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    37,884
    A mental mindf@ck can be nice?

    Well, that's the strange thing about this election, and not just in California. With the GOP poised to take over both houses of Congress, look at the candidates they managed to put up.

    In places like Kentucky and Georgia, some of those candidates were safe bets. Rand Paul, for instance, is going to the Senate. Nathan Deal is headed to the governor's mansion in Georgia. But the Tea Party cost the GOP the Senate with Christine O'Donnell and Sharron Angle. It may seem surprising that Harry Reid survived, given how unpopular he is even among Democratic supporters, but these low-grade candidates were even more unpalatable. Delaware and Nevada should have been Republican seats, but ....

    In Washington state, perennial loser Dino Rossi is trailing in an extremely close vote that could be decided in a Seattle vs. Spokane showdown, with large numbers of ballots from each area yet uncounted; as of this morning, Rossi trailed by around fourteen thousand votes. What this tells me, having watched this race evolve, is that the GOP could have taken Murray's seat if they'd gotten a better candidate. From the outset, Rossi didn't seem as if he really wanted to run. His attitude seemed, "What, me again? You don't have anyone else? Anyone better? Oh, alright, I'll do it."

    The fact that Jerry Brown is the next governor of California? That points to two realities about the election. First, that the conservatives couldn't put up a good enough candidate to beat him, and, second, that the whole new blood/anti-insider attitude was a lie. After all, a government insider, former Sen. Sam Brownback, won the gubernatorial race in Kansas.

    In the end, people are just frightened and angry, and looking for someone to take it out on. Yet California voters rejected her for Jerry Brown. They rejected former HP boss Carly Fiorina for Barbara Boxer. Outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi won re-election by a whopping 80-15 margin. Could the California GOP not get anyone better in a year when incumbency was supposed to be so powerful a strike against a candidate?

    Or Colorado. Incumbent Democratic Senator Michael Bennet has apparently survived his contest with the Tea Party's favorite rape advocate, Ken Buck. It's a narrow victory, called by a local news outlet as Bennet holds a 7,500 vote lead with 88% of precincts reporting. As with the Murray-Rossi contest, one might be inclined to think that the GOP could have won this seat with a better candidate.

    It's a really strange year. Not that the GOP found success; that was expected.

    But the GOP couldn't muster better than 15% against Pelosi? I mean, sure, she's got a fairly secure district, but fifteen percent? That's like Seattle, where, sure, Rep. Jim McDermott was expected to win. But the Republicans didn't even bother trying; the incumbent "Baghdad Jim" won over 80% of the ballot compared to the independent Bob Jeffers-Schroeder, who took just under 19%. Democrats Jay Inslee, Adam Smith, and Rick Larsen survived with better margins than Republican Dave Reichert, who scored nearly 53% in a traditionally-conservative district.

    What happened?

    Even the official Republican choice in Alaska appears poised to lose his race to the rejected Republican. Tea Party conservative and official Republican candidate Joe Miller appears to have defeated his Democratic challenger, but trails significantly against the write-in ballot, which is expected to back incumbent Sen. Lisa Murkowski. She might become the first write-in senator since Strom Thurmond in 1954. (Thurmond is, to date, the only write-in U.S. Senator on record.)

    Joel Connelly wrote, for SeattlePI.com:

    A few lonely voices seemed to recognize the need to govern, to work at solving the nation's problems.

    "Divided government will give Republicans in Congress a chance to move beyond the extreme and partisan rhetoric of this campaign season and show they can work constructively towards real solutions to our energy security and environmental problems," said Republicans for Environmental Protection, a group active here. (It backed Kirk in Illinois and Rep. Dave Reichert in this state.)

    Lotsa luck. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce Republicans elected to the Senate Tuesday have a record of subservience to Big Oil and Big Coal, Roy Blount a case in point. Soon-to-be House leaders have drawn a line in the sand: No compromise.

    Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has said Republicans' chief goal the next two years is to win the presidency in 2012.

    The GOP's failure to win the Senate points to a path to what it must avoid to reach that goal. Americans have reacted in 2010 to what they saw as Democrats' excess. They could just as well recoil at extremism of the right in 2012.

    May we live in interesting times. So it would seem we are.
    ____________________

    Notes:

    Connelly, Joel. "Tea Party denies GOP Senate majority". November 2, 2010. SeattlePI.com. November 3, 2010. http://www.seattlepi.com/connelly/429497_JOEL03.html
     
  10. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    22,910
    And it seems to me that many Republicans are winning by the narrowest of margins. This is hardly a mandate or a support for the Republicans.
     
  11. countezero Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    5,590
    Spin. Spin. Spin. Spin.

    Poised? I never thought they would take both houses, and most polls never showed that. So holding that up as some kind of failure seems disingenuine.

    As I remarked at lunch, part of this is the timing nobody seems to remember and the primaries that got turned wrongside up by a minority of angry voters. That is, a lot of these Republicans signed up to run in the races way back in the days when Obama and the Dems seemed unstoppable. So a lot of these candidates were no-hopers and were running just for the sake of it. They weren't "quality" candidates recruited by the Party. They were cannon fodder. And sometimes two or three ran. Throw the Tea Party into the mix, the small turnout in primaries (held a LONG time ago) and you've got this perfect storm of oddballs.

    You mentioned GA's Gov. race. Karen Handle won the damn primary, but lost the runoff because she couldn't get a majority (four or five people were running). Then Deal snuck in. Now he's gov. Two other races I am really familar with, one in Texas the other in GA, have similar stories.

    In Georgia Jim Marshall lost to a nobody after two previous Republican big shot failed to unseat him. The guy running this year that he lost to was just some guy who ran for the hell of it. Suddenly, 18 months later, he's a congressman. In Texas, Chet Edwards lost to another nobody after a bunch of mediocre Republican candidates battled it out in a primary nobody really cared about because they thought Edwards was unbeatable. Now the nobody, essentially picked by less than 15 percent of the electorate, has won an election and is a Congressman.

    The hitherto untold (and rather scary story) of this election is not the Tea Party fringe candidates, but the utter luck that has propelled some very mediocre non-Tea Party Republicans to power. And that all has to do with the timing I laid out.

    I don't think that says anything about the GOP. What it shows is how barmy California is and how ludicrous its districts are, neither of which are new or shocking claims.
     
  12. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    37,884
    Slings and Arrows: Or, America vs. Reality

    I'm not worried about the idea of a mandate. Politicians and pundits will try to make all sorts of hay out of the outcome, and rabid supporters of both parties will argue ferociously for or against that postulation of conventional wisdom.

    In terms of the society, I'm just weary of myopic and superficial politics. One thing the last decade has demonstrated unequivocally is that my conservative neighbors have only two concerns: self over community, and the great political scoreboard. They're not interested in substantial political discourse. American principles are mere rhetorical toys to them, devices to be twisted and shaped toward those two goals, regardless of how perverse the form they create. They fight for and depend on ignorance. If we, who disagree with them, condemn ourselves to only fighting their brand of politics, that's all we'll get out of government. As Senate Minority Leader McConnell explained, the GOP's goal is not to govern, but to win the White House in 2012.

    And we see what compromising with this superficial, greedy lot brings. The Democrats played electoral politics, sold both the health care and financial reforms short, and got their asses kicked, anyway. It was only by the grace of conservative extremity about superficial greed that the GOP didn't take the Senate. Nine years ago, it brought us the War on Terror, which resulted—perversely—in the Iraqi Bush Adventure. And yet, here comes this chest-pounding, flag-wrapping, faux-patriot horde complaining about fiscal irresponsibility and pandering for the rich.

    And it works. People aren't looking forward. They're looking to satiate their frustration. People voted against taxes, and against fiscal irresponsibility, and for many politicians who are only going to dig a deeper hole.

    "Pay as you go" is a popular mantra right now, but think about what it doesn't address. We have a big debt to pay off, and—

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!


    David Horsey, SeattlePI.com, November 2, 2010

    —that means slashing defense, reforming Social Security funding, reforming Medicare, and, yes—increasing revenue. In other words, for all people claim to be worried about the national debt, the one thing they didn't vote for yesterday is to do anything about it. In fact, they probably just voted to make the problem worse.

    Looking forward, the implications are a bugger. Take, for instance, your campaign to counterpoint the Limbaughs, Becks, and other morons of the right wing. It doesn't work. This isn't necessarily because people are too stupid to get it, but because enough of them just don't care.

    Liberals right now don't have a party. If the Democrats are to be "our" party, it's going to be a long, difficult reclamation. They'll probably have to lose the White House in 2012. They'll probably have to redefine themselves as an opposition party, and also what it means to be an opposition party. And the next decade, at least, should be invested not in playing tit-for-tat superficial politics, but in identifying what reality actually is.

    Remember: If the Republicans get their way, they'll cut taxes disastrously, and make cuts to various programs that have little impact on the deficit while taking a tremendous toll from society at large. Sure, it might feel good to say, "Cut entitlement programs", but we'll end up spending the money on prisons. And, to be certain, if we raise taxes on corporations, they'll flee overseas, but this is also how we've set the system up. Their object is to claim as many benefits of our society as possible while making as little a contribution as they can manage. And we've made this trade, repeatedly, in recent decades. The future is abstract; the immediate is real.

    We will hear much about how we need good educational standards, but at what point will we witness a substantive discussion about the effects of poor funding or overspecialization? There is an immediate gratification that comes with cutting budgets and specializing students, but the long-term effect corrodes social structures (both infra- and super-). It feels good to be "tough on crime", but how does one cure the disease by perpetually racing to catch up with the symptoms? Everyone loves to tout "family values", but how does it help or hurt our society to have people wrapped up in crazy myths?

    No, really: Yesterday, my seven year-old daughter lectured me on how Obama wants to keep old people from going to the doctor. When she was four, she advised me about how grease (e.g., cheeseburgers, pizza, &c.) comes from Satan. I'm not teaching her this shit, yet people want me to be cautious and compromising when dealing with her maternal grandparents, who have her believing that she's going to die of a heart attack because she eats french fries. (Apparently, she had a panic attack in Mexico last week because she thought she was dying after a nerve she tweaked swimming into the wall of the pool caused numbness in her shoulder. And she would not be comforted that she wasn't dying because, well, her maternal grandparents can't be wrong. Why can't they be wrong? Because God says so. And, yes, people want me to go easy on them. You know, respect their rights, too.) Not too long ago, she spent a half hour explaining to me how the world is only six thousand years old. Yeah. Family values. Gotta respect 'em.

    What kind of damage are we doing by giving over the discussion to these perverse terms?

    But the alternative—intellectual and political responsibility—spells doom at the ballot box.

    And it's time to accept that. Someone needs to be responsible, and it's certainly not going to be the conservatives. Presently, we can rest assured that it will not be the centrists, either.

    We should not worry about anyone staking a claim to some sort of conservative mandate. That only distracts from what's really happening, and what needs to happen.

    Then again, we could always concede that the "American dream" and its concomitant values are a swindle. I'm not ready to do that, yet.

    Is the best we have really the best we can do?

    Our best-case scenario by the current method is to limit the amount of damage the conservatives do each time they get their chance, and when the people get sick of it and give centrists a chance, repair as much damage as possible; then, of course, people will get scared and put the conservatives back in charge, so we must limit the damage and then try to repair it when the pendulum swings again. The best we can hope from this cycle is an excruciatingly slow recovery, and given the state of things, that might take longer than the nation and its faith and credit have. Eventually, someone will call in our debts, and then the dream will be over.

    So it's time to change the method. If that means liberals need to go out and annex a party, or form one of their own, and make a stand, so be it. We aren't adequately represented in the rhetoric of governance, anyway; we have the least to lose, and the most to gain. If we can take back the Democratic Party, that's fine, too.

    But the one thing we cannot afford is to continue allowing greedy conservatives and superficial centrists to set the terms of debate. The only reason people are left choosing between a giant douche and a turd sandwich is because that's what they want.

    In order to convince them to want something better, we need to make the point that there is, in fact, a better alternative. Unfortunately, that alternative involves a lot of statistics and data; sociological, anthropological, historical, psychological. And that means losing the audience for a period, which, of course, means hell at the ballot box.

    But we see what happens when a conservative learns the phrase tu quoque. And we see what happens when the centrists hear them use it. Yes, it happens on both sides of the aisle, because that's what people reward. If one intends to survive in such a marketplace, of course they have to play by its rules.

    So it's time to transform the marketplace.

    Don't worry about the stale rhetoric. Search for truth. Put it in front of the people, and eventually they will have to look. And if they can't deal with reality, maybe the Chinese will pay for the psychotherapy once they run the world.

    Or something like that.

    But the present condition, the current method—these are unsustainable.

    Sometimes leadership means one must meet the slings and arrows with a glad heart. And it's time someone did it. Why not us?
    ____________________

    Notes:

    Horsey, David. "Disingenuous victors". Drawing Power. November 2, 2010. SeattlePI.com. November 3, 2010. http://blog.seattlepi.com/davidhorsey/archives/226994.asp
     
  13. quadraphonics Bloodthirsty Barbarian Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    9,391
    Err, you realize that money spent on an election campaign is used for, y'know, campaign expenses, right? Not just vaporized into thin air? Plenty of ad agencies, tv networks, poster printers, consultants, etc. got paid with that money, and are now spending it on other things (expanding their businesses, paying their mortgages, feeding their kids, going on vacations, feeding starving Africans, etc.). I would bet that very, very little of that $140 million simply "vanished into thing air."

    But I do find it satisfying that the only thing Meg Whitman has to show for it is a smaller checking account and the distinction of having proved that money can't necessarily buy you the CA governorship. Plus, for all that money, she ran a crap campaign. It was all a lot of vague bloviating about "jobs, efficiency and growth" and some "I'm a successful businesswoman, he's a Sacramento insider" posturing. There was no substance to vote for there - the only discernable policies were the usual sack-the-teacher's-union red meat for ideological conservatives.
     
  14. Syzygys As a mother, I am telling you Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    12,671
    And you care about why I care why? Let's talk about the weather instead.

    But since you asked:

    1. In a democracy everyone should have close to equal chance to run for office. When the superrich can finance themselves that tilts the odds.


    2. A smart and rich person would do a risk analysis first and waste so much money of there is a very decent chance of winning. So I have to question her smartness.

    3. Not a particular good choice as an investment, again, this is a business woman.
     
  15. Pinwheel Banned Banned

    Messages:
    2,424
    Err, you realize thats what I said....

     
  16. Syzygys As a mother, I am telling you Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    12,671
    By the way people this thread is not a general chit-chat about the results of the election, but about the rich financing their political campaigns.
    Now one could argue that everyone wastes/spends their money the way they wish. But in campaign finance there are certain regulations, how much a person can give, so shouldn't that apply to themselves too??
     
  17. Buffalo Roam Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    16,931
    Yes. Jerry Brown, one of the Governors who made a major contribution to putting California in the fiscal trouble it is in today, well lets watch California go over the cliff.

    déjà vu " all over again.
     
  18. Bells Staff Member

    Messages:
    24,270
    I just think that it is ironic to be campaigning and running for a party that supposedly represents fiscal responsibility and less spending, while spending $140 million on the campaign..
     
  19. Syzygys As a mother, I am telling you Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    12,671
    A few years ago there was a guy, also running in CA, spending about 100 mill, and he didn't even come in 2nd. He was 3rd out of 4....

    Had Whitman won, would have made a dangerous precedent for democracy, that money buys power. (which it does, most of the time)
     
  20. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    22,910
    I largely agree...especially with your last statement, "Sometimes leadership means one must meet the slings and arrows with a glad heart. And it's time someone did it." - Tiassa

    It seems to me there are some such brave folk in the Democratic Party, but they are few. And on the conservative/Republican side, I can see no individuals with the moral courage to put country before self interest.

    It is a tragedy that our young and poor folk will sacrifice their lives and bodies in defense of their country. But finding a politician in Washington willing to sacrifice their careers for their country is like trying to find water in a dessert. It is a disgrace. It is all a game.

    I hope for change. But sadly, it may not come. And if it does come, it may come too late.

    As an aside, I was listening to a business pundit this evening explain the impact of the election on the market. He put it thus, the election last evening signficantly improved the value of stocks because having Republicans in control of one House reduces business uncertainty.

    He went on to explain that the reason business certainty had improved signficantly was because Pelosi could not be bought/corrupted. She would act in the interest of the country versus the special interests. And that is not good for businesss. Now that she has been replaced with a Republican speaker who can be bought business certianty has been signficantly reduced thereby increasing the value of stocks.

    I am an investor and I like investing and making money. But I don't need corruption to make a buck. And frankly, the practice disgusts me to the bone. Investors should be able to make money the old fashioned way, by earning it - not by rigging the game.
     
  21. Buffalo Roam Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    16,931
    Yes, it will be fun watching California under Jerry Brown.
     
  22. superstring01 Moderator

    Messages:
    12,110
    Money buys every election, Syz. Don't be simplistic. Show me an election where the winning candidate didn't spend gazillions of dollars and organize thousands of volunteer workers (still an uncalculated expense) to get the job done! Or, did you fail to see the "equalizing" force that brought Brown up to Whitman's level of expenditures? That would be called "third party organizations". Not regulated. Can broadcast and print whatever they want and spend whatever they want.

    And they did! Brown won because of big bucks. The only difference between Whitman and Brown is that Brown went begging hat in hand to the DNC and a bunch of other organizations. Whitman spent her own money.

    Let's assume the opposite, had Brown not spent a dime, who do you think would have won?

    ~String
     
  23. iceaura Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    30,994
    There was no such time.

    The scorched earth policy designed to take back the House and destroy Obama's effectiveness was figured to rake in notable success from November, 2008. They knew they had the filibuster in the Senate, the blue dogs in the House, the full cooperation of the mainstream media, the racism and fear of the Secret Muslim Kenyan Usurper getting his ideology from his Luo tribal socialism, and the majority support of middle class white males (as always the single most powerful US demographic group) throughout at least the south and midwest.

    These candidates and media personalities are the Republican base, empowered. And they aren't notably different in most respects from their counterparts of days gone by - Chenowith, Reagan, Agnew, W, Joe the Plumber, Bachmann, Vitter, Ashcroft, et al
     

Share This Page