The Democratic Governors Association is sending a helping hand to Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown in the form of taking on the two wealthy individuals battling for the Republican candidacy. It’s initiating a research project and dedicated website for starters.
The duo, Meg Whitman and Steve Poizner, are both willing and able to indulge in a great deal of self-financing, and have already been putting money in their campaign piggy banks. According to Politico, Whitman has already kicked in $39M and has promised to go as high as $100M, and Poizner has already countered with $19M.
DGA has decided it’s time to put some negative thoughts into the minds of Californians concerning the two Republicans, and has launched the “California Accountability Project.” It will conduct research on the twosome designed to bridge the alleged gap between what they say and reality. DGA will also create a website to post the results.
DGA did not say how much it plans to spend in California. Last year, it invested $3M in Virginia in a failed effort to aid Democrats. It took on Republican candidate Bob McDonnell while a strong threesome of Democrats battled through a hotly-contested primary. However, the winner of that intramural battle, Creigh Deeds, was not nearly strong enough to defeat McDonnell, even with DGA assistance.
Politico noted that at the moment, polls show Whitman well ahead of Poizner, and show Brown without significant opposition.
RBR-TVBR observation: We don’t have a clue how much money DGA wants to spend here, but this is going to be a very high-profile race. We will be very surprised if it will be content to simply let the results of its research sit on a website. We suspect that some ad buys will emerge from this project sooner or later.
