What I want to know is why is Meg Whitman so desperate to be governor of California? She has already spent $119 million of her own money on the campaign, more than any other self-funded candidate in history.
But now, Whitman has been caught staging a fake town hall meeting. And it isn’t like she needed to. The meeting was set in Orange County, which is one of the most conservative places in the US. But I guess she just couldn’t take any chances.
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I have the suspicion that no millionaire spends that much money without an expected return on inestment. So what could it be? Well, given her past ties to Goldman Sachs, and GS’s role in Greece’s bailout, I think she wants to get into office and steer California into a Greece-style bailout by GS that will net them and her huge bucks. Only the promise of big money would drive someone to spend upwards of $100 million to buy an office, even a giant ego is probably not a good enough cause unless someone is insane.
In this case, insanity would not surprise me.
I agree with Starluna, who in their right mind would pay that kind of money to expose themselves to the abuse most politicians put up with. Not only would I not spend my own money, but someone would have to pay me, big time.
Her net worth is over a billion so she has plenty more where this money came from. She can prbly make almost all of it by being a CEO again. I think its ego or a polite way to call it is being “fiercely competitive”. She was successful as a CEO and I imagine she regards the governership as another challenge she wants to succeed at. With what women go through in the corporate world I imagine her resolve is much stronger.
Don’t get me wrong. I actually don’t have anything against Meg Whitman. She actually was a successful CEO (unlike some people … cough … Carly Fiorina).
Unfortunately, the record of CEOs who have become politicians isn’t all roses. Here’s a good article in Newsweek about it: http://www.newsweek.com/2010/02/11/america-inc.html
And it doesn’t matter how much money Whitman has. $119 million is still a lot of money to her.
I think the biggest problem with CEO’s becoming politicians is that they run it like a business ie cut expenses and make profits. While the budget is important I think in some cases the businessman(woman) turned politician prioritizes the budget over the welfare of the people they represent. Of course Corzine was an exception.
Well at least they have a budget unlike our federal government.