Whitman Defends Attack Ads

Meg Whitman's high-rolling GOP campaign for governor was in San Diego on Wednesday, for the 53rd time since late last year.

Whitman spoke to employees of "Sneak's Kicks," a shoe company that sells its products on eBay, where Whitman was CEO for a decade.

"We have polls that show a very close race," she told a gathering of about 50 workers, urging them to ignore recent surveys of likely voters that show her trailing Brown by five to 13 points. "We are going to win this."

In a Q&A with reporters afterwards, she said she stands by her decision not to pull her campaign commercials attacking her Democratic rival, State Atty. General Jerry Brown.

At a women's "empowerment" forum Tuesday in Long Beach, Whitman was showered with boos after declining to follow Brown's offer to pull his own attack ads during the last week of the campaign.

"He and his campaign have called me a whore, they've called me a liar, they've called me a Nazi," Whitman told the media reps. "And it has been a very ugly campaign. I have had to focus on the issues. I think that's what Californians really want to know about."

In response, Sterling Clifford, a Brown campaign spokesman, said Whitman has run 20 attack ads to Brown's four, releasing 11 of them in the last two weeks.

"All of those spots," Clifford added, "have been partially, mostly or entirely untrue, as determined by numerous qualified, independent fact-checkers."

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