Breaking News! Goldman Sachs Scandal Tars Whitman as Poizner Slashes Her Lead

 Meg Whitman, Steve Poizner  1 Response »
Apr 202010
 

IT’s under 20 folks and Whitman is going to have to liquidate some more hedge funds from ethically-challenged Goldman-Sachs to buy more support.

Smashmouth politics 101.

This jewel came in from an Industry publication called the Worker’s Comp Executive.

Poizner’s Momentum Builds – Whitman’s Waters Troubled

The investigation by the Federal Government into Goldman Sachs is expected to negatively impact Meg Whitman, billionaire candidate for California governor, say a host of political analysts. The campaign of her opponent in the primary, Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, has been hacking away at her lead.

The investigation stems from activities that happened on her watch. Whitman was a member of the Board of Directors at Goldman until a controversy drove her resignation. The controversy revolved around how she received shares in initial public offerings. She was later fined for her activities.

The scandal also comes close to Attorney General Jerry Brown, the Democratic candidate. Mr. Brown’s sister, Kathleen, is currently a Sachs executive.

Whitman, sometimes dubbed “eMeg” or “nutMeg,” has a compelling but constantly shrinking lead as the result of spending over $46 million in advertising- more than any candidate in state history. But polling shows increasing momentum for insurance commissioner Steve Poizner who has cut her lead in half in recent weeks even though he is spending far less.

Political pundits say she will be impacted by negative publicity from the Goldman Sachs fraud case because her pitch has been that the financially impacted state needs to “be run like a business.” She says her history as CEO of eBay is the reason that she can turn the state around.

Whitman will suffer damage from the scandal, say experts. How much depends upon what unfolds in the press, and how a very trapped Whitman deals with it. Whitman is not noted for transparency nor is she well liked by the media.

“Voters have a very legitimate question to ask of Whitman, which will be difficult for her to answer,” Barbara O’Connor, director of the Institute for the Study of Politics and Media at Sacramento State University told the Christian Science Monitor. “On the one hand, she needs to distance herself from the scandal; on the other hand, it happened on her watch. Given her campaign strategy, how can she tell voters she didn’t know what was going on?”

Poizner, in recent weeks has narrowed her lead from 40 to 20 points and could exploit the Goldman Sachs scandal for the June primary. Whether he has enough time to close the gap will make for an interesting campaign, agree most analysts.

Meg Whitman Losing Ground? Attacks Steve Poizner

 Meg Whitman, Steve Poizner  3 Responses »
Apr 162010
 

Interesting – I heard a Meg Whitman Radio Spot on local conservative talk radio attacking Steve Poizner for supporting Taxpayer-funded abortion.

Funny. Meg is campaigning on that stance, she must think Voters are dumb.

Maybe not so much anymore – she goes after Steve for the usual (Prop 39 and the check to Gore in 2000)  and for raising the Department of Insurance’s Budget 14% in this latest TV Spot.

Problem. Whitman supported Al Gore as well. (And Barbara Boxer)

Problem.

The department of insurance cut fees 15% two years ago and I got an email this week that the fees are being reduced another 6%. Note – the media gave it almost no coverage – suggesting that they are either supporting Whitman or decided that the Weather was bigger news.

The LA Times Blog covered the new Whitman political ad:

Meg Whitman Trains Fire On Steve Poizner As Gop Primary Battle Intensifies

By AnthonyYork
Los Angeles Times’ PolitiCal Blog
April 16, 2010; 9:23am

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/california-politics/2010/04/meg-whitman-steve-poizner-california-governor-republican-primary.html

Looks like Meg Whitman has decided she has a primary race to run after all.

After weeks of introducing herself to voters and trying as much as possible to engage Democrat Jerry Brown directly, the Whitman campaign has launched a new 30-second ad entirely directed at Steve Poizner.

Poizner, the Republican state insurance commissioner, trails Whitman by wide margins in public opinion polls. But he has millions of dollars to spend on the race, and his recent ads have gone after Whitman, accusing her of being nothing more than a continuation of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Whitman’s new ad calls Poizner “desperate, dishonest, and way more liberal that he says he is.”

Interesting. Arnold in a Skirt calling someone liberal – I can’t drink enough to comprehend that one…

Welcome to the Jungle Meg Whitman Part 2 – Faux Billionaire?

 California Governor's Race, Meg Whitman, Steve Poizner  4 Responses »
Apr 122010
 

UPDATE 1: Level the Playing Field attacks Whitman from the Left about her investments in Hedge Funds, Bank Bailout Support, Contributions From Goldman Sachs Executives, and stock spinning.

UPDATE 2: Salon.com launches another attack from the left over Whitman’s relationship with Goldman Sachs – who is a major underwriter of Bonds for the State of CA. They also got a Dig in on the $1.78 million Whitman made from Stock Spinning.

(It would suggest that your humble blogger’s question about the relationship between Whitman, Sachs, and her support of bank bailouts was a really good one…)

Meg Whitman got caught misrepresenting how long she has lived in California, has been caught lying about Steve Poizner’s record in those cartoonish attack ads, has been caught in multiple stories about her non-voting-maybe-I-voted-record for 30 years. Lots of lies – with only disgraced media outlets like the Sacramento Bee to carry her water.

And yet she trudges on with nary a worry about the peasants calls for her to tell the truth.

Could Meg have misrepresented her wealth as well?

Through all of the outrageous, record shattering spending being done by Meg Whitman in an attempt to buy the Governor’s mansion, people assumed Meg’s threats to spend $150 million dollars were real. After all, Meg and her Team have been proudly, even aggressively, telling the press for over a year now that Meg is a “billionaire”.

Then something strange happened. Meg ran out of campaign money, and took almost 2 weeks for her to come up with the latest $20 million dollar infusion into her campaign. During this 2 week period they went off the air as if Meg fell off the face of the campaign earth!

Speculation went from the surreal to the bizarre to total weirdness. Was she losing her lead over Poizner because of a massive backlash against her spending and withering attacks against someone she led by 50 points?

Was Whitman aware her campaign account was empty? Would an effective CEO/leader let their warchest empty out? What did she know, and when did she know it?  What Goldman Sachs hedge fund did she have to sell off to get some more cash?

A Billion Dollars if it were $100 bills would Fill my Garage and then some – that amount of money blows my mind. I can’t imagine what it would be like to hit the atm for $20 million!

I’m a small business owner, and I have a decent handle on investment strategy, tax rates, and basic understanding of finance. Your fearless blogger loves data, so I spent some time this weekend googling Meg Whitman to see if I could get a handle on her finances.

Some very interesting things popped up in Whitman’s Financial Documents.

Meg Whitman was essentially a common peasant when she started at Ebay in 1998, having to take a mortgage out on her house so she could scrape up some money to buy her first “friends and family” shares of pre-IPO Ebay stock.

So let’s assume that Meg had zero dollars in 1998. All news reports, and publicly available SEC reports from 1998-2009 show that Meg Whitman sold about $550 million gross in Ebay stock that she vested. Let’s assume for a moment that Meg Whitman doesn’t use tax shelters, doesn’t use shenanigans to avoid paying taxes, that Meg Whitman paid what she should have paid in Capital Gains on her stock sales. Not Likely, but we will assume as such for sake of fairness.

Rough math suggests that between 1998-2009, Meg pocketed, liquid, after taxes, something around $350 million bucks. (Nice wad…)

So she has $350 million liquid dollars? What does one do? You invest it! And invest Meg did. In looking at her Form 700, her investment strategy certainly would make headlines if the media did it’s job.

Meg’s investment portfolio is rooted almost totally in Goldman Sachs (hedge) dirty money funds built off the backs of foreclosed homes, toxic banks, and unemployed workers’ credit card debt.

Meg Whitman as recently as a few weeks ago, supported and advocated for the Bank Bailout. Things that make you go hmmm… Sachs has benefitted big time from the Bush-McCain-Obama bailouts.

Here’s the catch: Many of these funds have had very limited growth over the last few years, and while they are loaded to take advantage of the economic upturn, whenever that may be, it’s hard to see where Meg could have made OVER a half a billion dollars within her investment portfolio.

So how again is Meg Whitman a “billionaire”?

Well hey, they say, Meg is a billionaire based on the estimates of her Ebay wealth, not cash position. Ok, so I looked up Meg’s SEC filings for her Ebay position, and was shocked to see that she owns over 20 million shares of Ebay stock, which is vested over the next 4-5 years, and almost every single one of those stock option strike prices is UNDER WATER.

In other words, her Ebay stock is currently toilet paper. Ebay stock today is at $26 a share. Meg’s stock options that will dribble toward her over the next 5 years, are all at a strike price over $30 a share.

It suggests that the TV ads touting EBay may have had a dual purpose?

Then there is this article that the press refuses to follow up on that
clearly proves the assumption above:

http://images.businessweek.com/ss/08/12/1217_biggest_losers/13.htm

I can do basic math. Meg Whitman can not be a billionaire, nowhere close. And the only way you to get cash is to sell off those “dirty” Goldman Sachs hedge funds. No wonder why the freight train stalled.

Apparently, Billionaire polls well – hence the use of the term. Tossing money around like water seems to also suggest that was the tactic du’jour of the campaign to butress the appearance.

* Given the fact that Whitman has been out of state constantly fundraising recently suggests that she may have burnt up her available cash.

* All that’s left is for the disgraced media and purchased blogs to whine about Poizner’s counter-attack.

* We’ve heard platitudes – and the one of the few things we really supposedly know about Whitman may indeed be an utter falsehood.

P.S. Meg Whitman is a huge fan of Van Jones

Welcome to the Jungle Meg Whitman

 California Governor's Race, Meg Whitman, Steve Poizner  1 Response »
Apr 092010
 

Steve Poizner finally did what we’ve all waited for… he lit Meg Whitman up like a Christmas tree.

$59 million down the drain. Purchased endorsements, torched. Endorsement flippers – humiliated. Meg Whitman has now been welcomed in to the wonderful world of politics.

I have told you for 16 months that she is Arnold in a Skirt.

Sacramento will eat meg Whitman alive. Whether you have a pretty face and celebrity or a Goldman-Sachs wad in your purse… it consumes all but the most principled operators.

Is Whitman Arnold?

1. Meg Whitman is surrounded by Schwarzenegger’s  advisory team. Richard Costigan just wrote Megs policy magazine for her.  It includes people like Rob Stutzman, Sara Pompei, Todd Cranney and my buddy Mitch Zak.

They and her most senior political advisor, Schwarzenegger’s mastermind of the 2005 special election train-wreck, Mike Murphy, all produce and direct Meg on a daily basis.

2. Meg Whitman’s chief of staff, most senior and private confidant, Henry Gomez, is a registered democrat former DNC staffer, who wrote a maximum contribution to Barack Obama while sitting on Meg’s private jet, with John McCain sitting 5 feet away. Schwarzenegger has Susan Kennedy, Meg has Henry Gomez.

3. My Primary Concern is that Whitman is as much of a rookie as Arnold is. Perhaps even more so – Arnold voted. Whitman did not. When Whitman did involve herself in the process – Boxer, Gore et al.

There is a reason why Meg Whitman went negative on someone she led by 50 points in the polls – her handlers knew her support was shallow and that they had to “package the product” so to speak. (see also lipstick)

The Poizner Ad is the first real daylight voters get in to who Whitman really is.

She Supports Amnesty – like Obama
She Supports Obamacare
She Supported Barbara Boxer, endorsing her publicly and maxing out to her – like Obama
She Supports Taxpayer Funded Abortion – Like Obama
She Supported the Federal Bank Bailouts – Like Obama

And for the first time – Arnold becomes the issue in a campaign.

Since it was always all about Arnold at the expense of everyone and everything – how fitting it is that he is an albatross that is hung around the bank vault.

She has refused to be clear on the AB32 repeal, the Citizen Power Initiative or anything else that really matters to mainstream voters – even saying in public that the initiative process has outlived its’ usefulness.

The initiative process is the only hope we have to save the state from AB32 – Arnold’s self-serving legacy. While Arnold has gone all over the world as some sort of global warming hero – thousands of illegal aliens Arnold and Whitman want to spend tax dollars on have left for the greener pastures of Mexico because there is no water.

And it goes on and on and on. California needs a Republican. We haven’t had one since George Deukmejian. Only Steve Poizner represents that opportunity now.

How will Whitman respond?

While Running for US Senate – DeVore Attacks Conservatives

 California U.S. Senate Race, Carly Fiorina, Chuck DeVore, Red County Blog System, Sgt.York  3 Responses »
Apr 062010
 

Yup. The negative opinion many in the CRA have of Carly Fiorina is because of Chuck DeVore’s characterization of her.

Having met Fiorina in person – she has been groosly underestimated and mis-characterized by the DeVore campaign. But, that’s politics, right? Jam the truth in a corner when it interferes with strategy.

I think Chuck DeVore is a fraud. He is not the Conservative Icon he wants to portray himself as. He is running a taxpayer-subsidized campaign and flip-flopped on tax increases when it became apparent that Chuck DeVore was going to face Carly Fiorina in the primary.

He even chickened out on a campaign promise to oppose Uber-Liberal Republican Abel Maldonado’s confirmation to Lt. Governor.

DeVore had his friends at the Meg County Blog take a shot today – the same blog that has taken $65,000 from Meg Whitman… because I (GASP) asked Chuck DeVore for a job…

DeVore’s responses since then have been vicious and vindictive to say the least and I believe are primarily because I told him no when he asked me to work for him for free. (Which highlights the absurdity of his staff’s “Part-Time” arrangement with the taxpayers)

At the CRA Convention Chuck DeVore told people that I attempted to extort money from him. The evidence? An email I sent to he and Joshua Trevino – which was posted on the Meg County Blog.

The email was on November 8 – and was forwarded to Meg County by DeVore and used in their basis to eject me from their blog.

The money quote: “To that end – I can be retained at a quite reasonable rate or for “projects”. I assume you’re both familiar with my work (ask Doug Ose or Meg Whitman how effective it is)…”

Sounds like extortion, right?

If you read the entire email – you’ll realize that DeVore’s current Placer County Chairman was recruited by yours truly! – Even though I refused to help DeVore for free, I found him a volunteer chair.

Despite knowing that DeVore played a role in the attempt by Meg County to destroy my credibility – I approached the DeVore camp in late January in an attempt to reconcile: (I have redacted some of the info and have the original available for proof)

On Jan 29, 2010, at 5:28 PM, Aaron Park wrote:

Several of my friends in the Tea Party movement are excited about your campaign. Multiple people, not just tea party and CRA have asked me to help… which I am willing to do.

When I was thrown out of Red County – several people reported back to me that you had made several phone calls relating to people about our conversation in November.

Is it possible for us to patch things up between us? Does it merit any consideration that I went and recruited you a County Chairman?

I would like to help your campaign – and do not take this email to mean I am asking for a paycheck… however, I need to know where you guys stand.

My cell if you don’t have it anymore is 916-316-9570.

BTW – my new site is www.rightondaily.com

From: “Joshua Treviño (TSM)”
To: Aaron Park
Sent: Jan 29, 2010 7:36 PM
Subject: Re: Email me your #

Aaron,

There’s nothing to patch up, from our perspective. If you’d like to help Chuck’s campaign, we welcome that — the volunteer infrastructure is active and growing. Thanks for it, Aaron.

Josh

On Jan 29, 2010, at 7:40 PM, aaron——-@yahoo.com wrote:

Josh – chuck made several phone calls to several people around the time of my ejection from red county. In those calls, he went out of his way to tell people how upset he was with me and how inappropriate our conversation was, etc… Funny, the whole story on that red county deal has not been told… And I will tell my side when I choose to.

Suffice to say, the news of chuck’s phone calls came to me from several people – and even this week, I got called again.

Does it seem unreasonable that I would draw the conclusion that Chuck was getting even with me for some perceived offense? Hence my contact – maybe I was not specific enough in the first email.

Thanks again for the reply, Joshua.

From: “Joshua Treviño (TSM)”
Subject: Re: Email me your #
To: aaronfpark71@yahoo.com
Date: Friday, January 29, 2010, 7:52 PM

Aaron,

With respect, I have a hard time crediting he-said, she-said reports. The idea that Chuck DeVore would be anything less than direct and forthright rings false — and I’m quite sure he has things on his mind other than your Red County fracas.

All the best,
Josh

Chuck DeVore obviously had the Red County Fracas on his mind at the CRA Convention.

Joshua Trevino basically told this blogger “Up Yours”.

Quoting a previous Blog about DeVore’s Campaign (Referring to State Employees working half time so they can help him):

DeVore says he’s lucky to have supporters like this, he says a “grassroots” campaign like his would never succeed without talented volunteers because he could never afford their services on his budget. He says this is a shining example of democracy.

Because if you ask DeVore for pay – you’ll get accused of extortion.

If that is direct and forthright – then the Meg County Blog is objective journalism…


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