California Governor hopeful Jerry Brown slammed his GOP opponent Meg Whitman at a Local UFCW Union 135 member meeting in San Diego. Brown is vying for the state’s top post as a retread. (He served as California’s governor from 1975 to 1983)
Showing up 15 minutes late, Brown received a standing ovation from union employees looking to generate some excitement for the upcoming November election. Brown spoke with his teleprompter in place and took to bashing GOP candidate Whitman right off the bat.
“Whitman’s plans are B.S. and she’ll double the deficit with tax cuts,” Brown said about Whitman’s plan to give Californians $17 billion in tax credits. “California is a rich state…. We need to pull together and make the state great again.”
During the 10- minute pep rally Brown added some levity by reminding the all-union audience that he has already run for president three times and “I’ve got it out of my system. I can level with you this time,” he said about his intentions and age.
Brown pointed out that Whitman plays a great blame game and can offer California no experience, while Democratic candidates still have the ability to pull together and beat Whitman who is spending record amounts of cash to become California’s first female governor.
“This (running for governor) is like collective bargaining, we pull together,” Brown said about running against a candidate who has endless amounts of money.
The 30-year career politician clearly took aim at Whitman’s tremendous wealth. As one of the founders of eBay, Whitman secured large stock options while building the internet-resale business from the bottom up.
While Brown offered no specific plans on how he would close the state’s $20 billion shortfall he did acknowledge he would continue to push for 500,000 new “green jobs” and hold the schools to a higher standard.
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PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE… Get your FACTS straight… Meg Whitman had Zero, Nothing, to do with FOUNDING eBay…. She continues to get credit for things she had NOTHING to do with! She was a DISASTER at eBay. Check out what happened, especially during her last FOUR YEARS there. Please don’t perpetuate the myths about Meg Whitman at eBay… she made TERRIBLE business decisions (SKYPE) and cost the company dearly for all of them. Don’t buy the media hype – do your homework!!!
For the record, Whitman joined eBay in March 1998, when it had 30 employees and revenues of approximately $4 million. Thus, she was not a founder of the company.
Michelle,
Thanks for those corrections. Kimberly appears to shoot from the hip way too much. For this she loses creditability.
Also, in the UT this morning, an analysis on previous governors’ (Jerry Brown, George Deukmejian, Pete Wilson, Gray Davis and Arnold Schwarzenegger) performance on job growth was enlightening. In spite of each of the five governors having various financial challenges within their terms, Jerry Brown actually showed 17.3% of U.S. growth in jobs between 1975-82.
“During her time as CEO, the company grew to approximately 15,000 employees and $8 billion in annual revenue by 2008.” – wikipedia.
Seems kind of an up-hill battle to try and take away her EBAY success. It might be time to stop splitting hairs and start getting behind a candidate.
We don’t believe — in our case — we were splitting hairs by simply stating the fact that she was not a founder, to clarify Ms. Dvorak’s post in which it is stated she was. That aside, it doesn’t appear to us that Michelle is splitting hairs as much as she is trying to undermine Whitman’s success at all costs. But, that may be your point.
That was my point, Mr Admin. If we aren’t careful, we will have the pleasure of complaining about Gov. Brown for 8 long years. Ms. Whitman and I disagree on a great many things…but one thing we both agree on is that she is better than Mr. Brown.
So deciding on if the 31st employee of a website that was almost nothing when she got there makes her a “founding member” provides no substance to the argument. I did not read it as the point of Ms. Dvorak’s piece.
Arguing that California was something special before Brown got his hands on it is far more important. The primary is over and a vote for anyone other than Whitman is a vote for Brown.
You mean, you don’t think Chelene Nightingale has a chance? LOL.
It appears we agree.
This 90th year we women celebrate women’s right to vote. Even though women suffered to win the right to vote, Meg Whitman didn’t bother to vote for nearly 3 decades. In that time she voted only twice!
For someone who wants my vote she has a lot of explaining to do why she has not taken a long fought for right to vote seriously enough to go vote. Would I trust her to be a good governor if she has been so careless about her right to vote? Don’t think so.
And Gwendolyn, by not voting for her, you will help Attorney General Brown get back into the governor’s office. I am sure he has voted in every single election for the last 30+ years. All the wrong way, but at least he voted, right?
There are 2 million more Democrats in California than there are Republicans. Every vote counts.
Michael,
My plan is to vote for Jerry Brown. Want to know why? Yes, Jerry Brown did vote….maybe not the way YOU wanted him to vote. But, he took the time to study the issues, consult with experts and then make an informed decision. He took the time because he cares about California.
Whitman’s lack of voting makes me wonder how much she really cares about us and California.
Think of it this way. Say, you don’t see your dad for three decades. Never put in a word on your upbringing. You did get two birthday cards. Wow. Now he shows up and wants to be all warm and fuzzy and play “Daddy”. How would that make you feel?
Would you trust him?
Michael, you may be assuming you are trying to reason with a fairly conservative person, since she reads and comments on Rostra. Yet, you can’t reason with a liberal that would never, ever vote for Whitman over Brown, even if the former had a stellar voting record. Gwendolyn does comment regularly on Rostra — and she is welcome to do so — but based on her commenting history, she is far from even moderately conservative, using the voting track history now only as an excuse to not appear like a Jerry “Brown-Shirt” ditto-head.
Dear Greg,
Someone has to bring reason to this conversation.
Check out: http://www.lacdp.org/
Hey Greg, don’t you love that moment in a conversation when you realize the other person is nuts?
Yep, that’s right, G, most readers of this site are going to care what the LA County Democrats think. LOL!
Dear Admin,
Congratulations! You actually checked it out!
The ad fits….so “Nutmeg” can wear it anywhere in California.
LOL