2010 Campaign For California Governor
On February 10, 2009, Whitman announced she would run for governor of California in the 2010 election. Her campaign was largely self-funded. She spent more of her own money on this effort than any other self-funded political candidate in U.S. history and ultimately lost to Jerry Brown.
According to final reports, Whitman spent $144 million from her own personal funds. The Daily Caller said that her "penchant for throwing money around is well known in California political circles". The comment came in connection with the disclosure that her campaign had paid far above market rates for advertising on a conservative political blog. The blog's founder, addressing the issue of a possible attempt to influence the blog's content, said he had made clear to the Whitman campaign that "advertising and editorial are two very different things".
In June 2010, Whitman released a political ad, A Lifetime in Politics A Legacy of Failure, which seemingly contained one image of the FAIL Blog website, making it appear in the ad as if Jerry Brown had been the subject of one of the website's namesake "fails". Ben Huh, founder of the Cheezburger Network, of which failblog.org is a part, demanded an apology and the removal of the video, stating that the image was faked, and that the website is non-partisan and has never endorsed a particular political candidate or party.
On November 2, 2010, at 11:35 pm, Whitman conceded the election to her opponent, Jerry Brown, stating "We've come up a little short."
Read more about this topic: Meg Whitman
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