Is Meg Whitman using her cash to play political hardball?
Michael Rothfeld looks at the GOP candidate's early
moves and some of the risks associated with her style
of campaigning.
"She tried to push her chief GOP opponent, Steve Poizner,
out of the
primary contest with a consultant's threat to wage
a negative ad
campaign that would destroy his career. Her advisors
have worked, with
some success, to siphon away Poizner supporters, orchestrating
calls by
former Gov. Pete Wilson and others for the party to
unite -- four
months before the primary election -- behind her candidacy.
And Whitman's team warned labor leaders that if they
gave money to
Democratic operatives planning to attack her, the billionaire
candidate
would respond by spending millions to qualify a ballot
initiative that
would make it harder for unions to use dues for political
purposes."
"Democrats are trying to counter Whitman's tactics
with some
hardball moves of their own. They have formed several
campaign
committees to attack her and support Brown, saying
they would have the
financial backing of labor.
"
But Whitman's advisors promptly informed leaders of
deep-pocketed
unions, including the powerful California Teachers
Assn. and the
Service Employees International Union, that funding
attacks against her
would bring retaliation.
"She would help qualify an anti-union measure, known as the "paycheck protection initiative,"
proposed for November's ballot."
Whitman sits down with a California print reporter
(!) and discusses guns, gays and immigration. And she talked a bit about the man she's hoping to
replace.
"I have a lot of
respect for Arnold Schwarzenegger," she said. "He's
done a number of
very good things," such as reforming workers' compensation
and the way
legislative districts are drawn. "But I think he has
not done as
much as he had hoped," she said, in part because he
had never run a
large organization before taking office."
John Myers and I discuss the week that was in California politics in
this week's Capital Notes podcast.
Shane Goldmacher reports on a judge's ruling that could make the state's budget
problems worse.
"An Alameda County Superior Court judge said Thursday
that California
owes back pay to tens of thousands of state workers
that Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger has furloughed without pay since last
February.
"Judge Frank Roesch first ruled in favor of three state employees unions
appealing the unpaid days off in December, arguing
that the governor
had overstepped his authority in trying to address
the state’s
multibillion-dollar deficit."
Jim Miller looks at the different ideas about job creation in the Capitol.
"The week ends
with several bills pushed by the Schwarzenegger administration
and
Republican lawmakers either dead or stalled in Democrat-controlled
committees.
Governor's aides and Republicans say they will continue
to push
their ideas, including a GOP proposal to revamp the
law covering meal
and break periods. Senate Democrats have proposed their
own package of
bills they say will create thousands of jobs.
Assembly Democrats, meanwhile, are expected to roll
out their own legislation.
"Jobs are clearly a priority," said Vickie Bradshaw,
Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger's secretary of labor and workforce development.
"If
there are other good ideas out there, he's all ears.
But doing nothing
is not an option."
Jim Sanders reports health insurers are in the crosshairs at the Capitol.
Jerry "Brown issued subpoenas to the state's seven
largest health insurance
companies: Aetna Health, Anthem Blue Cross, CIGNA, Health Net,
Blue
Shield of California, Kaiser Permanente and PacifiCare.
Brown,
expected to announce his candidacy for governor in
the next two weeks,
said the information will aid an investigation into
"possibly illegal"
rate increases. "We have been looking at these
companies for a number of months and are very concerned
that some of
them are unjustly raising premiums and denying payment
of legitimate
claims," Brown said in a statement.
John Cote characterizes Garry South's new criticism of Gavin Newsom as a "sucker
punch."
"'I'm focused on things like this - the Playground to Parks, Parks to
Playgrounds or Pavement to Parks - all of these initiatives that we've
got," Newsom said, twice fumbling the name of the effort
he had just
announced about making streets and parking lots into
miniparks.
Sounds like focus to us. To be fair, the mayor's been
energetic and in good spirits of late.
"In the next 10 days or so ... I'll make a decision," he said."
And finally, from our Revenge of the Samurai Mother
Files, AP reports, "Police said the mother of an elementary
school student
drank a 40 ounce bottle of malt liquor
before brandishing a sword in her child's school. The woman, 32,
apparently intended to confront the parents of another
child who had
been in a spitting match with her child the previous
day.
"According to court records, an employee at Riverview Elementary School in Memphis reported a drunk woman armed with a sword
was running through the halls of the school and had
threatened to cut her."
Can't wait until parent/teacher conference night...
