Primary lesson: Don't let ads go unchallenged

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 6/10/10 | Joe Garofoli, Chronicle Staff Writer

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Former Gov. Jerry Brown and other forces lining up to oppose Republican gubernatorial nominee Meg Whitman in November learned something from the billionaire's overwhelming primary victory: It wasn't just about her seemingly bottomless bank account.

It was about letting her ubiquitous advertising go unchallenged.

Of course, Whitman's money played a major role in her victory Tuesday over state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, a fellow Silicon Valley multimillionaire. Whitman contributed a record-shattering $71 million of her own money to her campaign and raised another $16 million. Poizner contributed $24 million of his own money to his bid and raised another $3 million.

While Brown, now the state's attorney general and the Democratic nominee for governor, expects to be outspent in the general election campaign (he has $20 million banked for November), strategists and analysts said Whitman will have to contend with other factors that could blunt her cash advantage.

Conservative stands

Not only will she have to dodge more attacks from union-backed independent expenditure committees working to help Brown, but Tea Party activists will make sure she doesn't abandon the conservative stands she took in defeating Poizner.

"If she were to drift away from the conservatism she talked about in the primary and started sounding like (Republican Gov.) Arnold Schwarzenegger, that would be a bad thing to do," said Sally Zelikovsky, a leading California Tea Party organizer.

The hardest challenge for Whitman has nothing to do with her wallet. Nearly 45 percent of California's voters are registered Democrats, compared with 31 percent who are Republican. To pull even, she will need to capture all the GOP voters and woo half of the 20 percent of Californians who decline to state a party affiliation. Party registration is a leading indicator of how someone will vote.

"Getting those decline-to-state voters will be key,"

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The Comicle is already campaigning for Moonbeam.