California: Meg Whitman

Has Jerry Brown got a secret weapon in next fall's governor's race? Maybe. Eventually the word is going to get out in much broader circles that both Meg Whitman and Steve Poizner have relatively recent histories of supporting two liberal...

Several times a week, I read about how terrible, just terrible it is that Meg Whitman is declining interviews from California reporters, skipping debates, and not behaving like a serious candidate for governor.

Steve Poizner’s campaign has made this almost a daily drumbeat; “If Meg Whitman can't stand up to questions, how can she stand up for California?” read part of a state from Poizner senior advisor Kevin Spillane last week. And over at Calbuzz, Phil Trounstine and Jerry Roberts are “fuming” about Meg’s “ducking serious questions from California political writers for months.”

Expect more of the same today, when her GOP rivals -- Poizner and Tom Campbell--are scheduled to debate the measures on tomorrow’s special election ballot.

I have a bit of advice for the Meg bashers: Take a deep breath. And get a life.

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Sen. Dianne Feinstein, should she run for governor in 2010, would be sitting pretty, with a 22-point lead in the latest Field Poll.

On the Republican side, Meg Whitman, former eBay CEO, has the early lead with 21 percent support, with 54 percent undecided.

Those numbers are for the hypothetical match-ups 460 days from now. Capitol Alert has the exclusive statistical tabulations.

The GOP primary:

Whitman: 21 percent
Campbell: 18 percent
Poizner: 7 percent
Undecided: 54 percent

The Dem primary:

Feinstein: 38 percent
Brown: 16 percent
Villaraigosa: 16 percent
Newsom: 10 percent
Garamendi: 4 percent

Former Controller Steve Westly, schools chief Jack O'Connell and Treasurer Bill Lockyer weigh in at 2 percent or less.

That's California's unemployment rate as of January, a 1.4 percentage point increase (i.e. an enormous leap) over the December numbers, and a big increase over the 6.1% rate as of January 2008.

The Employment Development Department will not release the county-based stats until next week, but based on earlier reports we can assume that the hardest-hit parts of the state are those that happen to be represented by Republicans - the Central Valley, which is suffering from a grapes of wrath kind of economic crisis as well as Sacramento, which is being hit hard by the Republican attack on government. Spending cuts have wide consequences.