Whitman tweaks campaign ad to fix inconsistency
Gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman stumbled out of the gate this week with the campaign’s first TV commercial fudging how long the Republican candidate has lived in the state.
“The state is in the worst shape that I’ve seen in the 30 years that I have lived in California,” Whitman says in the ad.
One problem: Though the former EBay chief first moved to California nearly 30 years ago, in 1981, she hasn’t continuously lived here since then.
Whitman was out of the state from roughly 1992 to March 1998.
The Whitman campaign declined to specify when she moved out of state.
After The Times and others reported the inconsistency, California Democratic Party Chairman John Burton called on her to pull the ad.
“The relevant point isn’t whether she’s lived here for 20 or 30 years . . ., “ Burton said in a statement, “it’s whether or not she’s once again misleading voters.”
Whitman pulled the original ad and replaced the words “30 years” with “many years” quietly on Friday as the ad was set to begin airing statewide.
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