Thursday, February 4, 2010

Whitman '77 accused of bullying competition

Meg Whitman '77, a candidate for the Californian Republican primary, was accused of trying to bully the competition earlier this week. Steve Poizner, who is also a Republican candidate for governor, explained that a member of Whitman's campaign team sent him an e-mail strongly urging him to run for senator in 2012.

Poizner has suggested that the contents of the e-mail constitute an illegal threat and has sent complaints to the F.B.I. and the United States Attorney's Office. The e-mail states that, if Poizner chose to run for the Senate in 2012, Whitman could ensure total party support.

The e-mail also notes that the competition between Whitman and Poizner in the primary would be an unnecessary waste of resources. The e-mail likely was not criminal, especially because it offers support and not money.

A California Field poll in January found that Whitman is leading with 45 percent support to Poizner's 17 percent.

Whitman graduated from the University with an AB in economics in 1977. In 2002, she donated $30 million to the University to build the eponymous residential college. Whitman served as president and CEO of eBay from 1998 until 2008, when she resigned to pursue a career in politics.

The primary election will be on June 8, and the governor will be elected on November 2.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

In 2002 Whitman also gave possibly the worst Baccalaureate address in the University's history. I believe the acronym she chose to give structure to her speech read l-i-b-e-r-t-R-y, and included an example for 'i', integrity, that amounted to her boasting about how incredibly honorable e-bay was for refusing to allow the sale of Nazi memorabilia on the site, thus avoiding a situation in which she would have been profiting from mass death. I mean, tough call, Meg, tough call.

Anonymous said...

i hope she loses. not just because I am a liberal, but also because she seems like a complete idiot. I don't think she has a clue about how to run a government.

Anonymous said...

Unfortunately, neither does Barack Obama.