CA Gov: Despite What You Heard on ‘Meet the Press,’ Meg Whitman Did Not Win Registered Independents

Calbuzz is one of the go-to sites for straight-shooting journalists’ insight into California politics. Earlier this month, they nailed the campaign of Republican Meg Whitman — who lost by a whopping 13 points on Nov. 2 — for what they referred to as post-election “bullshit” coming from the campaign’s top operative, Mike Murphy:

[When] we saw meathead David Gregory interviewing our friend Mike Murphy, the $90,000-a-month campaign guru for Meg “Biggest Loser” Whitman, on “Press the Meat” the other day, we felt compelled to get up off the floor and say something.

“We got beat and, you know, I ran the campaign, and I take responsibility for it,” Murphy said, at least acknowledging that he had been in the neighborhood. But then came excuse, No. 1: “It’s a very blue state and it’s getting bluer. As the red, you know, wave kind of went one way, there was a bit of a blue riptide coming the other way.”

And then, excuse No. 2: “CEO candidates who are doing kind of a tough medicine message . . . Meg and Carly Fiorina in California, they weren’t buying it. So we just couldn’t get there. We could win the Republicans, win the independents, but in California if you don’t win a lot of Democrats — you don’t win and we did not.”

Whoa there, big fella. “Win the independents?” If Meg and Carly had actually won the actual independents, they would be governor- and senator-elect.

Now it’s Murph’s job to spin. And when you make $2 million off a political client … you have good reason to try to convince the world that it was an impossible task. But it’s Gregory’s job — and since he didn’t do it, ours — to question his spin.

What you have to ask, though, is what was Murphy doing telling the California and national media — the day before the election — that his polling showed the race to be essentially tied and that Meg’s GOTV program was going to put her over the top?

Consultants have an obligation to work as hard as they can for their clients, but they also ought to consider their credibility with the reporters who will be covering them in the future. There are a lot of ways of doing both: “Look, it’s going to be close. This is a heavily Democratic state. But we think we’re going to do well.” Whatever…

Jerry Brown carried the independents in California even though the National Election Pool exit poll by Edison Research showed Whitman winning them 47-43 percent. That’s only because the NEP exit poll didn’t actually survey actual independents — or “Decline to State” voters as they’re known in California. They called “independent” anyone who didn’t think of him- or herself as a Democrat or a Republican.

We harp on this because we want to bust the myth that Whitman carried the independents in California BEFORE it becomes part of the historical narrative about the 2010 election…

Here’s the point: Brown won the moderates 60-35 percent and he beat Whitman in the polls that surveyed actual DTS — independent — voters. To win statewide in California you have to carry your party, win the independents and make some inroads into the other party. That’s what Brown did.

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