Whitman: 'Californians want to trust their leaders again'

SFGate.com ^ | 9/22/09 | Joe Garofoli

[NormsRevenge]

Billionaire former eBay CEO and political neophyte Meg Whitman officially announced her candidacy for California governor today in Orange County, vowing to cut 40,000 state government jobs and lower taxes.

The 53-year-old Atherton resident, who registered as a Republican in 2007, told supporters in Fullerton that "Californians want to trust their leaders again. They want to be told the truth.

"And most of all," she said, "they want to live in a place of opportunity and optimism, not a place of small dreams and scaled-down ambitions."

Whitman will battle state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner and former Rep. Tom Campbell in the Republican primary June 8. On the Democratic side, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom has declared his candidacy and state Attorney General and former governor Jerry Brown is expected to challenge him.

Whitman, who had a spotty voting record until a couple years ago, launched the first big shot in the race today with a statewide radio advertising campaign touting her business experience.

"I don't know if I've seen a statewide media campaign launch this early before," said Jon Fleischman, Southern California chairman of the state Republican Party and publisher of the flashreport.org blog.

[karnage]

It’s all about turnout on election day.

[ajay_kumar]

You quote Reagan era in CA. That was then. That was before
the influx of non-conservatives to CA. Hispanics were a much smaller minority then. Then Repubs were getting elected to statewide offices. Now only Repubs who can get elected are Arnolds, the movie stars. A pro-life person will get his/her head handed to them with the current CA voters.

[dalereed]

I wouldn’t trust the bitch any farther than I could throw her!