Meg Whitman (R)
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Legal Newsline)-Republicans have a larger plan for Meg Whitman besides just defeating California Attorney General Jerry Brown in this year's governor's race, a report says.
They want the Republican businesswoman to win the California governor's race so the former eBay chief executive can go on to serve as the GOP's vice presidential nominee in 2012 for presidential hopeful Mitt Romney, CalWatchDog reported Sunday, citing an unnamed party source.
The report by former longtime Orange County Register editorial writer John Seiler said that is why top national Republican figures -- including Romney and 2008 GOP presidential nominee Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. -- have been in the Golden State campaigning for Whitman, who has put $45 million of her own money into her gubernatorial campaign.
Seiler noted: "After spending a couple hundred million here in Cal, enriching GOP consultants, she would spend hundreds of millions more dollars in two years on the same consultants, while bankrolling a Mitt-Meg 12 campaign."
But before Whitman can become governor, she must first win the GOP nomination against state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner on June 8, and beat Brown in the November general election in a state where Democrats far outnumber Republicans.
Like Whitman, a billionaire, Romney too has a personal fortune to help bankroll a campaign, just as he did when he was seeking the 2008 Republican presidential nomination.
In 1984, Romney co-founded Bain Capital, the private equity investment giant in Boston he left in 1999 to serve as the CEO of the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympic Games Organizing Committee. He went on to serve as Massachusetts governor for one term, from 2003 to 2007.
CalWatchDog is an affiliate of the Pacific Research Institute, a San Francisco-based non-partisan public policy think tank.
From Legal Newsline: Reach staff reporter Chris Rizo at chrisrizo@legalnewsline.com.