National narrative begins on Meg Whitman campaign
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It seemed a strange choice for a magazine cover. On this week’s edition of Time, featured on the cover are three Republican candidates for U.S. Senate who have all become darlings of the national ‘tea party’ movement: Florida’s Marco Rubio, Delaware’s Christine O’Donnell and Kentucky’s Rand Paul. Standing in the back is California’s GOP gubernatorial nominee, Meg Whitman.
It’s an odd choice, given Whitman’s efforts to run to the political center. During her primary campaign, she bested fellow Republican Steve Poizner, who ran to the right of Whitman. When Sarah Palin came to town, Whitman was nowhere to be found. And although she’s articulated sympathy for the tea party, it is California’s Republican Senate candidate, Carly Fiorina, who seems to have the most support from the political insurgency.
But the article gave the magazine a chance to weigh in on the Whitman campaign -- Whitman has spent more on her race than any individual has ever spent on an American election. And Time says Whitman’s stumbles can be attributed to the fall of Wall Street.
Whitman’s problem is that the bloom is off the rose of the CEO. If the economic collapse proved anything, it is that having a lot of money doesn’t always make a person wise. What’s more, recent years have shown us that some of the same tycoons who extol small government when it’s time to pay their taxes will dash to Washington on their private jets to beg a bailout the minute things go sour. They admire the creative destruction of the free market only until it’s their turn to be destroyed.
You can read the Time article here.
-- Anthony York