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Whitman says she’ll focus on Brown in convention speech

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Republican gubernatorial nominee Meg Whitman said she planned to spend a significant part of her speech Friday night laying out the record of her Democratic rival, Jerry Brown, who she has painted as a career politician beholden to organized labor.

In a brief interview with The Times Thursday, Whitman continued her attacks on Brown for using a state plane while preaching frugality in state government, calling him a “classic politician.” Though the overwhelming majority of Brown’s travel as attorney general has been on commercial airlines, The Times reported this week that he has taken 10 trips on the state plane since taking office in 2007. On two of those occasions, he attended conferences with connections to political donors. If elected, Whitman said she would mandate that constitutional officers and department heads fly commercial. “We should all be flying commercial,” she said. “And I would absolutely do that.”

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Appearing on KGO-AM (810) Thursday morning, Brown sought to diffuse the controversy, saying he only used the state plane a “handful” of times for official state business and routinely gets senior-citizen fare to fly coach on Southwest Airlines for campaign events and most state business. He contrasted that with the former EBay chief executive’s constant use of costly private planes in the campaign. “That’s the kettle calling the pot black,” Brown said.

-- Michael J. Mishak in Sacramento

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