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Did GOP gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman shove an employee when she was CEO of eBay -- resulting in a $200,000 settlement for the employee? Well, she did tell the Los Angeles Times on Thursday that she "physically guided" eBay employee Young Mi Kim "out of the conference room into a hallway." Shortly after Whitman won the GOP primary, The New York Times cited "multiple" unnamed sources to support a report that on June 1, 2007, Whitman and Kim had some sort of spat. According to the story, while there were no witnesses to the event, Kim told "at least one...

WESTMINSTER – After spending more than $80 million and building a major lead in public opinion polls, Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman may finally have met her match Tuesday in the parking lot of the Asian Garden Mall. The billionaire candidate was delivering her stump speech to about 150 people at an open-air rally when about 50 protesters from the California Nurses Association and its schoolteacher allies interrupted by chanting and blowing whistles just a few dozen yards away. Flanked by banners reading "Take Back Sac," Whitman finished her speech without acknowledging the protesters and later said she wouldn't let...

Whitman and Fiorina lead the primaries, according to new poll. "Whitman leads Poizner 53% to 29%, with less than two weeks to go before the June 8 primary, the poll found. But head to head against Brown, she trails 44% to 38%." "In the primary's other highlight, the race for U.S. Senate, Republican Carly Fiorina has vaulted into a clear lead over her main primary opponent Tom Campbell, 38% to 23%. In third was Chuck DeVore at 16%. In March, Campbell had a narrow lead over Fiorina."

Whitman Expands Primary Lead; Fiorina Pulls Out From The Pack In the governor's race Whitman is 24 points ahead of Steve Poizner but 6 points behind Jerry Brown. GOP Senate hopeful Carly Fiorina has clear lead but moderate Tom Campbell fared best against Sen. Barbara Boxer. A recent L.A. Times/USC poll found that more people knew of Meg Whitman in May than in March, yet her favorability rating has stalled with less than a third of voters saying they think well of her. Cathleen Decker May 29, 2010 After plummeting in recent polls, Republican Meg Whitman has regained her commanding...

After seeing her huge lead dwindle to two points in the California GOP gubernatorial primary, Meg Whitman has produced a new ad touting her firm stance against illegal immigration: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VekQ1F9J-C8&feature=player_embedded Whitman's primary opponent Steve Poizner has been attacking her for opposing the Arizona immigration law. In her new ad, Whitman says she wants national guard troops on the border and opposes amnesty and driver's licenses for illegal immigrants, but she doesn't reverse course on the Arizona law.

Madame "Too Busy To Vote Even Though I Had A Household Staff" isn't holding up well now that the people who do vote are paying attention. Meg Whitman would be an absolute disaster for California. At best, she's Arnold Schwarzenegger in drag. At worst, she's a more masculine version of Jerry Brown.

Wow, Tom lets rip on Meg. And check out his radio ad for Steve Poisner as well. I know a bit about Poisner, and Tom endorsing and doing this string defense of him makes me feel a lot better about the crap that Meg has been smearing Poisner with.

"As a band of noisy nurses derided her as "Queen Meg," Republican gubernatorial front-runner Meg Whitman brought a quartet of GOP heavy-hitters to the Peninsula on Friday night to raise a half-million dollars for her candidacy. U.S. Sen. John McCain of Arizona, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and former Secretary of State George Shultz praised the former eBay CEO as a smart and pragmatic woman who would keep California from plunging over a cliff. "She can get the job done," said Shultz, now a fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution."

GOP gubernatorial candidate Steve Poizner, well behind in the polls, has begun airing an ad linking rival Meg Whitman to people and issues unpopular with state Republican voters. Following is the text of the ad and an analysis by Bee Political Editor Amy Chance:TEXT: "Is Meg Whitman your kind of Republican? She supports Obama's amnesty for illegal aliens. Like Schwarzenegger, will continue taxpayer-funded benefits to illegals. A skyrocketing cost under Obamacare. For 28 years Whitman refused to vote Republican. But she contributed to, and campaigned, for Barbara Boxer. Like Boxer, Whitman supports taxpayer-funded abortion. Whitman even supported the disastrous bank...

Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman released a detailed policy agenda Tuesday at an appearance at Leisure World in Seal Beach.Among the new proposals:• Make the Legislature part-time. GOP rival Steve Poizner also advocates such a change. • Provide a $10,000 tax credit for purchasers of new and existing homes.• Provide tax credit for green tech job creation.• Support "an alternative conveyance system" for water supplies.• Cap state spending in a formula tied to the growth of the state's gross domestic product, locking in spending growth unless the state's economy is growing.• Reduce the number of state lawyers.• Institute merit pay...

COSTA MESA – In the first gubernatorial debate of the Republican primary, underdog candidate Steve Poizner sought Monday to establish himself as the true conservative of the race while rival Meg Whitman offered more moderate proposals on core GOP issues such as illegal immigration and the state's climate change law. Poizner, the state's insurance commissioner, declared his candidacy "a game-changer" for California and pushed sweeping proposals such as cutting all illegal immigrants from state-funded public services. Whitman proposed more measured fixes such as prohibiting so-called sanctuary cities that don't report illegal immigrants to federal authorities. She also took a softer...

I can't vote for anyone like this.

Responding to criticism that she has sidestepped media, Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman held an unprecedented, hourlong conversation with news reporters Friday, laying out her positions on state pension reform, prisons and immigration while taking shots at Democrat Jerry Brown and Republican rival Steve Poizner. The billionaire former eBay CEO had her most in-depth exchange with political reporters since she entered the race last year, after arriving to cheers at the state GOP convention at the Santa Clara Hyatt. She later spoke to several hundred delegates after being introduced by former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. Whitman proposed major reforms to...

SANTA CLARA — Seizing on the issue of illegal immigration, Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner stepped up his campaign Friday to persuade California Republicans that he is the true conservative seeking the party’s nomination for governor. At a news conference just prior to former eBay CEO Meg Whitman’s speech to the state GOP convention, Poizner called for the elimination of all public services for illegal immigrants that are under the control of the state and pledged to lobby for federal changes so that schools could turn illegal immigrant children from their doors. “We should move that forward,” he said of the...

Meg Whitman Endorsed Vice President Al Gore For President For over a year, Meg Whitman has masqueraded as a “darn good Republican” while running for governor. However, she’s conveniently avoided telling California’s conservative voters that she endorsed Sen. Barbara Boxer’s 2004 campaign and said she was a “huge fan” of radical activist Van Jones. But the biggest surprise that she’s hidden from voters is her prominent endorsement of Vice President Al Gore’s presidential campaign in 2000. Whitman was among a small group of technology executives who backed the global warming crusader’s campaign against George W. Bush. As early as August...

Democrat Activist Runs Whitman Campaign Meg Whitman’s top campaign aide is Henry Gomez, a former Democratic National Committee operative who worked against President Ronald Reagan’s policies in the 1980s. Gomez, a registered Democrat, has a “front-and-center role” in as the “hands-on campaign gatekeeper” of the Whitman campaign. Placing an ardent liberal in such a high position on the campaign raises serious questions about who is calling the shots on Whitman’s campaign. Raising further skepticism is the timing of Gomez’s political contributions. Gomez already gave $1,000 to Obama’s presidential primary campaign in March 2008. He then proceeded to give $1,800 to...

WALNUT CREEK — Gays and lesbians should be allowed to adopt, but not marry. Illegal immigration is a huge problem, but immigrant children shouldn't be punished for the sins of their parents. And California is a mess, but that doesn't mean it's going to fail. In her first major interview since kicking her campaign into high gear, Meg Whitman, the front-runner for the Republican gubernatorial nomination, revealed her views on issues ranging from the "right to carry" movement to offshore oil drilling, Sarah Palin, the state budget and education reform. Whitman, the former eBay chief, has been under attack by...

Various right-leaning California friends of mine keep telling me that gubernatorial candidate Steve Poizner doesn't have enough name recognition so I figured I'd begin a relentless personal campaign to do my part to change that. I might start painting his name on the door of every registered Republican in the state. Why? Because, if our ballot choices next November are Meg Whitman and Jerry Brown California is screwed in ways I can't describe without turning this into a porn blog. And then my mother would never be able to read this. Which she doesn't anyway, but that's another story. Meg...

No one is calling California insurance commissioner Steve Poizner a "Fiscal Conservative in Name Only" -- not yet. But after U.S. Senate candidate Carly Fiorina of California made mutton meat out of GOP rival Tom Campbell in a much talked about "demon sheep" television ad, Steve Poizner is clearly worried. Both Campbell and Poizner are guys taking on tough, entrepreneurial ladies in GOP primaries: Former Hewlett-Packard chief exec Fiorina is running for the GOP's Senate nomination against Campbell, while eBay founder Meg Whitman is battling Steve Poizner for the GOP's gubernatorial slot. At the moment Poizner is taking a beating,...

SACRAMENTO — Democrats can only hope that last week's dust-up between Meg Whitman and Steve Poizner is a sign of things to come in the Republican gubernatorial primary. The accusations and counterattacks — all starting with Poizner, the state's insurance commissioner, charging that Whitman, the billionaire former CEO of eBay, had tried to intimidate him into leaving the campaign — appeared to set a course for a brutal and nasty slugfest that could last all the way to the June 8 primary. A damaging exchange over the next four months — if both Republicans are still around — is precisely...