Money talks. Money buys and now Money rules completely the State of California.
Both Fiorina and Whitman essentially used the gold-plated steamroller to overcome their primary opposition. Fiorina spent so much for her U.S Senate race that runner-up former U.S. House Member Tom Campbell pulled his TV ads and basically cried uncle. When Whitman was threatened in the polls in her race for governor against state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, she just spent more, and more and more and more until the seat was her’s by title. In one of the most expensive primary races even in U.S. history, Whitman spent $81 million, some $500,000 per day in her campaign.
Fiorina and Whitman are the kind of candidates we’ll be seeing a lot more of in California in the future after Prop 14 passed 54-46. They’re essentially the same as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, bored rich people with money to burn. And now that they don’t have to run in a closed party primary, they don’t have to waste time trying to get the endorsements ... Just more and more TV ads, enough to make for a mini-series worth of programming.
$500,000 per day just to win a primary? That's a lot of money that could have been put to productive use. How many small businesses could have been started? How many starving people could have been fed?
Seriously, we need to readdress our priorities. The political incentive system must be changed.
