Whitman Has No Second Thoughts Over Brown Attack Ads
SACRAMENTO (AP) - California GOP gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman said Wednesday that she has no second thoughts about airing attack ads during the final week of her campaign, a day after she was booed for refusing a truce in the increasingly negative campaign.
Whitman said she would continue to highlight Democrat Jerry Brown's record as governor from 1975 to 1983 and as mayor of Oakland from 1998 to 2006, echoing her remarks a day earlier at a joint appearance with her rival.
"What I said yesterday is, Californians need to have a choice in this election, they need to understand Jerry Brown's record versus mine, Jerry Brown's lack of a plan for California versus my very specific plan," she told reporters Wednesday. "I wouldn't have handled it any differently."
"Today" show host Matt Lauer asked the candidates Tuesday at California first lady Maria Shriver's annual women's conference in Long Beach if they would agree to pull negative ads. Many in the audience booed when Whitman demurred after Brown accepted the challenge.
Whitman insisted her ads about Brown focus on his record in office, not personal attacks that she says he has used against her.
"He and his campaign have called me a whore, they have called me a liar, they have called me a Nazi, so it's been a very ugly campaign," she said.
Last summer, when Brown chatted with a radio reporter he met on a jogging path, he compared Whitman's advertising campaign to Nazi propaganda in a conversation he thought was off the record. He apologized after the comments appeared on the station's blog.
In a recording that surfaced this month, a female Brown campaign aide overheard on a leaked audio tape called Whitman a "whore" for cutting a deal with a police union for its endorsement.
Brown on Wednesday renewed his call for a truce on negative advertising and said all third parties and independent expenditure groups should abide by any agreement that the candidates reach.
"Just as I did yesterday, I am pledging again today to run only positive ads through Election Day if my opponent agrees to do the same," Brown said. "Meg Whitman has now had a full day to consult with her image makers and political handlers, and it's time for each of us to put our best foot forward and end this campaign on a high note."
His campaign then released a new 30-second ad featuring clips from Tuesday's event, ending with the audience boos and the message "Tell Meg Whitman: Let's Get Positive."
Whitman's campaign unveiled a positive spot featuring upbeat music, images of California sand and surf and soft-focus pictures of Whitman shaking hands and hugging babies.
Going all positive is an easier gamble for Brown, though, as polls show him leading the race.
Whitman has spent $142 million of her personal fortune on her $162 million campaign—most of it blanketing the airwaves with TV spots in a race that has featured dozens of attack ads on both sides.
Brown's campaign has tried to undermine Whitman's character with ads that included references to Whitman's forced admission last month that her former housekeeper of nine years was an illegal immigrant from Mexico, and attacked her corporate record and her proposal to eliminate the capital gains tax.
The Democrat has also benefited from nearly $24 million in union-backed independent expenditure spending. One of the groups, the California Labor Federation, released an ad Tuesday highlighting Whitman's failure to vote for most of her adult life.
Whitman's campaign also has aggressively attacked Brown in TV ads, including some that distort his record and position on the death penalty, education reform and his records as mayor of Oakland and as governor. Whitman's campaign has used selected facts to inflate unemployment, spending and taxes during Brown's tenure.
Whitman stumped Wednesday at the San Diego warehouse of Sneaks Kicks, a small business that got its start by selling sneakers through eBay Inc., the online marketplace operator that Whitman led.
"We have polls that show a very close race," Whitman told the audience of about 50 people. "Some polls I'm actually up. Some polls I'm down one or two points. We are going to win this."
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