The phones were ringing Thursday night in the middle of Tim Lincecum's masterpiece at AT&T Park. "Breaking news" in the campaign. Jerry Brown called Meg Whitman a "whore."
Well... maybe.
Brown called the LA Police Protective League in September to ask for its endorsement. He left a voicemail for a union official and then hung up the phone. Problem was, he really didn't hang up the phone. The voice mail caught him talking to an associate about how Whitman was going to capture the league's endorsement because she was going to exempt law enforcement from her effort at pension reform.
Brown can be heard talking to an associate saying "Do we want to put an ad out?... That I have been warned if I crack down on pensions, I will be--that they'll go to Whitman, and that's where they'll go because they know Whitman will give 'em , will cut them a deal, but I won't."
One curious element to this entire debate is how it positions the two campaigns on the issue of pensions and possibly undercuts the Republican candidate's position as the instrument of change. While Whitman supposedly is the fiscal hardliner she has apparently taken a pass on law enforcement taking their lumps with the rest of us.
And Jerry Brown? Isn't he the tool of the unions? Why then is the police union opposed to his election?
Remember that with the retirement age the way it is most cops and firefighters would spend more years receiving pensions benefits (close to the amount of their salary) than they did actually working on the job. At while usage of the word "whore" can't be ignored... neither can the cost of skyrocketing pension and health benefits of those who "protect and serve."
