Last week, when the Queen Bee of the Mean Girls — aka Sarah Palin — visited California to rally support for the Mad Hatter Tea Party, California’s Republican Mamma Grizzlies — Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina — were too busy with their own schedules to find time to appear with the Thundra from the Tundra.
Calbuzz is certain this had nothing to do with the Field Poll’s findings that Palin’s favorable-to-unfavorable rating in California is 33-58% or that 53% of voters said they’d be less likely to vote for someone endorsed by the former Alaska governor.
We’re sure they were sorry to miss Sarah, since both of them worked so tirelessly for her election to the White House when she was Arizona Sen. John McCain’s vice-presidential running mate in 2008. But schedules are schedules. Or are they? Calbuzz Editorial Pen Swordsman Tom Meyer has another take on the scene.
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About that enthusiasm gap:There’s been a lot made of how depressed the Democrats are compared to the Republicans and no doubt, that appears to be true in many parts of the country. But not so much in California, according to the new LA Times/USC survey.
According to David Lauter of the Times:
The survey asked respondents to rate on a 10-point scale how enthusiastic they felt about voting this year. In September, when the poll asked that question, Republicans had a big advantage, with 42% of registered Republicans statewide rating their enthusiasm as a 10, compared with 27% of registered Democrats. In the latest survey, conducted statewide Oct. 13-20, that 15-point gap had nearly disappeared: 39% of registered Republicans rated their enthusiasm at 10, compared with 35% of registered Democrats.
The survey also found that Democratic likely voters scored an average 8.2 on a 10-point enthusiasm scale, compared to 8.3 for Republican likely voters and 7.4 for independents. And since the Times/USC survey has squeezed their voter model down to 44% Democrat and 40% Republican — a whopping 9 points below the actual difference in registration (when most pollsters are looking at something more like 43% D and 34% R) — it’s going to be hard to believe the GOP spinners when they argue that enthusiasm means things are breaking their way.
And speaking of spin: We weren’t there, but it sounded to us like Meg Whitman’s head exploded the other day after an event in Los Angeles where she accused Jerry Brown of lying about her record to Latinos — with special emphasis on her stand on Arizona’s immigration law which, by the way, she has said is fine for Arizona but not right for California because of geographic reasons (whatever those are). The LA Times and AP wrote up the story, including this from eMeg:
“Jerry Brown has taken this vote for granted. He’s living on what he did for this community 40 years ago,” Whitman said. “I’m the first Republican in 30 years to open an office in East L.A. I have reached out to this community, I’ve been part of this community…. Our entire Internet site is translated into Spanish. His website — he uses Google to translate it into Spanish. I mean, think about that — it’s not respect for the community.”
What a puta, that Jerry Brown is! No wonder eMeg’s standing with Latinos has dropped 20 points or more. Surely that has nothing to do with her treatment of her housekeeper, Nicky Diaz, whom she fired unceremoniously in the summer of 2009 after learning that Nicky was an illegal immigrant.
Calbuzz was pleased to see, however, that we made the volcanic Sarah Pompei’s mailaround notice from the Whitman campaign with this entry: “Click here to see a link to one such misleading mailer “— actually a link to our Calbuzz exclusive report on labor’s mail campaign to Latinos, including prayer cards showing Brown with Cesar Chavez and with Mother Teresa.
eMeg 3.0: First it was jobs, education and waste. Then it was Jerry’s bad, I’m good. Now — 80,000 commercials later — it’s, I’m a good billionaire who’ll treat you like adults, tell it to you straight and lead you out of the wilderness. Yes, the New and Improved Meg Whitman is now up on the air — a new 60-second quasi Fred Davis biographical spot designed to introduce (or re-introduce) eMeg to the 7% or so of California voters who don’t yet have an opinion about her. At this late stage in the campaign, it seems like a strange move. But who knows? Maybe Meg’s unfavorables are so high they have no choice but to try anything to make her likable. She should have come to dinner with Calbuzz a year ago.
BTW: When we heard about NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg campaigning for eMeg (“She’s my kind of candidate,” he said), it occurred to us that the two of them together have spent at least a quarter of a billion dollars seeking office — $109 million for Bloomberg and $141 million (and counting) for Meg.
