What ‘World' Are They Living In?

This new web ad, called "World," from the independent expenditure commitee, California Working Families for Jerry Brown, offers the shocking revelation that Meg Whitman is rich and behaved like it (corporate jets, putting some money off-shore). No kidding.

This watcher was left wondering not about Whitman's well-documented spending, but about why money was spent on this ad.

What world are the labor unions and Democrats behind this ad living in? In the real world, no one is paying much attention to these dumb attacks. Whitman and Brown refuse to deliver the one thing that would capture people's attention -- real plans for dealing with the state's budget, economic and schools troubles. So most Californians have tuned them out. 

Yes, the Democrats want to drive up Whitman's negatives and deliver the governorship to Jerry Brown. But what difference will that make? Given the dysfunctional budget system and staunch Republican opposition to tax increases in the legislature, it may well not matter much at all who the governor is. Brown and Whitman each have pledged to cut spending and oppose tax increases.

The interests behind this ad should be focusing their money on changing the broken budget system, which is the culprit in the dminished investment in public services that such left-of-center organizations should be organizing around. Instead, they take a swipe at Whitman that's unlikely to make any impact.

Prop Zero was plenty tough on Whitman's own attack ad, which was full of revisionist historical nonsense. This piece deserves the same scorn.

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