Whitman campaign goes looking for votes in Bay Area

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Meg Whitman is taking her campaign for governor into Jerry Brown’s backyard.

In a conference call with reporters Friday, the Republican’s chief strategist, Mike Murphy, said the campaign planned to target swing voters in the Bay Area through direct mail, radio and TV ads, though he didn’t say when it would launch the effort.

Murphy said the campaign would focus intensely on Brown’s record as mayor of Oakland, which it has already used in mailers and radio ads in the Los Angeles area trying to tie the Democrat to the city of Bell and its salary scandal.

‘We think we have a message to go after that media market,’ he said, citing recent internal polling and focus groups. ‘He’s got real problems.... He’s vulnerable in his backyard.’ A Field poll last month showed Brown with a commanding lead in the Bay Area, one of the state’s key Democratic strongholds. He led Whitman 58% to 32%, with 10% undecided.

Murphy said the goal was to trim Brown’s margins. Brown campaign spokesman Sterling Clifford responded with laughter when asked about the effort. ‘When they say they’re pushing into the Bay Area to mess with Jerry Brown’s numbers, what they mean is they’ve spent $100 million and they’ve gotten nothing,’ he said.

‘They’ve gotten a tie. They have to do something different, so they are trying this.’

--Michael J. Mishak in Sacramento