Opinion: Inside The Times’ exclusive Meg Whitman interview
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Meg Whitman, the former chief executive of EBay, hit the books months ago to start preparing for this week and the crucial launch of her new career in the minefield of California’s diverse politics with a campaign for governor of the nation’s most populous state.
As The Ticket reported in her profile Tuesday morning, Whitman brings a varied and successful business career to her new aspiration. Wearing a dark-blue pantsuit and sitting in a starkly spartan Silicon Valley office of the company that designed her new campaign website, Whitman alternated between confidence and, at times, hesitancy. She was accompanied by two advisers -- Henry Gomez, a longtime aide from EBay, and Rob Stutzman, a top campaign strategist and former communications director for Gov. Schwarzenegger.
But in an hourlong interview with me on Tuesday, Whitman actually created a new set of challenges for herself, laying out an array of policy positions sure to complicate her run for the 2010 Republican nomination both in the June primary next year and, if she’s successful, then in the subsequent November general election.
Some of her stands seem certain to put off conservatives who dominate her party’s statewide primary contests.
Whitman said, for instance, that she favors allowing same-sex couples to adopt children. She supports abortion rights and embryonic stem-cell research. She declined to take a stand on school vouchers, a touchstone issue for California’s conservatives.
And she said she opposed Proposition 187, the 1994 ballot measure aimed at curbing public services for illegal immigrants.
At the same time, Whitman laid down markers that potentially heightened her difficulties in a general-election race, should she be successful in the Republican primary contest.
She said she’s open to new oil drilling off the California coast after further study of new technology. She suggested California had been too aggressive in fighting climate change, sacrificing jobs for the environment at a time of deep economic distress. And she wants to require hospitals, law-enforcement agencies and possibly schools to report illegal immigrants to federal authorities.
But she confidently addressed the budget crisis. ‘This is something that I’ve done before,’ Whitman said of her fiscal recovery plans. ‘I think maybe it is about time for a governor who has created jobs, who’s managed a budget, who’s led and inspired large organizations, who listens well, and who can drive an agenda.’
All in all, though, the initial discussion out of the gate was a reminder that it’s no easy task for someone with no experience in running for political office at any level to navigate a run for governor the varied length of California –- even a billionaire who once led a hugely successful Internet company.
(The complete Whitman interview story appears here.)
--Michael Finnegan
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