That’s right – the now famous press release / article in Fortune Magazine… remember???

The Horse – you know, the Brown Horse, lampooned by the Sacramento Bee as should having been white… was rented.

John Wildermuth of the SF Chron spotted a snippet on CNN CNN Money… it details how Whitman rented her horse for the pitcure.

CNN Money quickly pointed out that Whitman does ride as she has a vacation home in Telluride Colorado. They go on to list a laundry of rich people that are supporting her campaign as well.

The rental of the horse for the photo is an indication of a troubling parallel to a situation we find ourselves in currently. We have a Governor that rented the GOP already.

Given that Whitman is a newly converted Republican… one would ask if this is some sort of sick irony. Arnold had a ton of rich people that supported him – given his polling numbers, I am wondering if anyone is still supporting Arnold.

We took a ton of stuff on faith regarding Arnold only to find out nothing was real. Here we go again – is anything about Whitman Real? (other than the problems left behind at Ebay…)

I can’t help but keep thinking about the op-ed detailing the greatest managerial acheivement being getting the servers back on-line at Ebay when they crashed.

California’s servers are crashed – only a War Room isn’t going to fix the problem. Rented Horses, photo opps, rich donors and the like aren’t going to do the job either. There are 50+3 reasons in the Assembly and 25+3 reasons in the State Senate for the State’s fiscal mess.

Republicans deserve a Republican – and the state desperately deserves a real leader that has delivered results.

I want to finish by using AB32 as an example. Arnold signed AB32 into law because he wanted to have a signature item to distinguish himself. There was absolutely no consideration of the consequences. (AB32 was the nebulously written global whining bill that Jerry Brown has been using as the basis to sue development out of existence)

Proof? Arnold’s budget was replete with AB32 exception requests – this is what happens with a rent-a-governor. His own desire to be “different” has left the rented political party holding the bag for a fiscal disaster.

In the words of Roberto Duran: No Mas.

This is the second part of a 2-part blog related to Meg Whitman’s earned media. I railed on Fortune Magazine for basically writing an article that amounts to a Press Release. I wonder if Fortune magazine is aware of Whitman’s baggage from the companies she used to run. (or worked in senior management for)

Not only is Whitman establishing herself to be ideaologically aligned with Arnold, but she is also following his campaign pattern. After disasterous appearances in the San Francisco Chronicle and the Los Angeles Times, it now appears to this blogger and other observers that Whitman has now decided to hop on her horse for photo opportunities.

The problem is that Whitman can not run from her record. Whitman is now the subject of a special employment application that is being circulated around the internet.

I documented how Whitman had the LA Times reporter removed from a meeting she was speaking at at the recent California GOP convention – now, the Fortune Magazine article is out.

The Bee Lampooned her posing with a brown horse for the photos – that part really doesn’t matter to me. What matters to me is that fixing Ebay’s Servers is equated to national security and fretting over a Fallen Oak Tree is equated to cleaning up the Garamendhi mess at the Department of Insurance.

Look at the articles linked above, it shows a disturbing pattern. Like Arnold, Whitman is using her paid staff to create a bubble around her. The voters were fooled by the pretty action hero stuffed shirt – but an Arnold redux is not going to do the job. Whitman is demonstrating that she is out of touch with California.

Running for Mayor of Atherton would not invite such questions. You could campaign to your neighbors – but a state replete with beleagured taxpayers need real answers. Meg Whitman chooses photo opportunities and avoidance – trying her case in the national media.

In Closing – Even Jerry Brown is now saying that we can’t tax California anymore. When a hard-core liberal like Brown (who destroyed our freeway system and even today is suing every development project he can under AB32) says it and Whitman can’t identify anything she’d cut from the budget… we have a problem.

I’m sure Gavin Newsome/Jerry Brown wishes he had as much money as Gray Davis did in 2002 – he’d start advertising on Whitman’s behalf.