CA Gov: Whitman’s Hypocrisy on ‘Whore’ Issue Evokes Laughter from Debate Audience

The “Whoregate” controversy was front and center in the final California gubernatorial debate between Jerry Brown and Meg Whitman last night. The controversy arose last week after the release of a secretly recorded conversation among Brown and his aides in which an adviser suggested attacking Whitman as a “whore” because she had sold out her own strong opposition to unions in order to receive a union endorsement.

The Whitman campaign has repeatedly portrayed the comment as a misogynist slur. But Brown came to the debate prepared and, in a single deft stroke, he managed to put the gaffe in context, undercut Whitman’s manufactured outrage and expose her as a hypocrite:

WHITMAN: So Jerry, it’s not just me, it’s the people of California who deserve better than slurs and personal attacks. That’s not what California is about. It is not our better selves. And I, um, think people know exact…I think every Californian, and especially women, know exactly what’s going on here. And that is a deeply offensive term to women.

BROWN: Well, can I just interject? Have you chastised your chairman, Pete Wilson, who called Congress “whores” to the public sector unions?

WHITMAN: You know better than that Jerry. That’s a completely different thing. The fact you are defending your campaign…

[Derisive LAUGHTER from audience.]

Predictably, the corporate media, especially the national reporters, watched this exchange and pronounced it a win for Whitman. However, it’s likely California left-leaning independent voters — like the Brown supporters in the audience — will see the posturing as yet more yet more hypocrisy from Whitman, who is best known now for demanding penalties for employers who hired undocumented workers in her stump speeches while simultaneously whining about the lack of accountability for politicians, but then, after it was revealed she had employed an undocumented housekeeper in her mansion for nine years, blamed her criminal behavior on the maid, the maid’s lawyer, the Brown campaign and the media — everyone but herself.

It doesn’t help Whitman’s case that the incident Brown referred to involved Whitman’s chairman, former Gov. Pete Wilson, one of the most reviled figures in California politics. It was Wilson who heavily promoted Proposition 187 — the ballot initiative that would have denied state funded services to undocumented residents, including health-care and education to young children — in order to secure a lopsided reelection victory in 1994. (And, by the way, his opponent that year was then-state Treasurer Kathleen Brown, Jerry Brown’s sister.)

After its initial success as a wedge issue in the 1994 campaign, public opinion turned against Prop 187 as voters came to see that it was not in their enlightened self-interest to have millions of uneducated and unhealthy children — who would by now be unemployable young adults — living amongst them. The initiative was eventually overturned in the courts, but had already backfired on the GOP by driving millions of California Latinos out of the Republican Party, probably forever.

Gov. Wilson was still riding high in 1995, when he took a victory lap to Washington where he was anointed by then-Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich as a top-tier candidate to run against Pres. Bill Clinton in 1996. During that trip, Wilson also said this:

After learning that a federal judge had ruled California might be liable for up to $500 million in damages over its issuance of IOUs during a budget crisis in 1992, Wilson lashed out at Congress for having approved the Depression-era Fair Labor Practices Act.

“I don’t blame the judge; he is interpreting the law,” Wilson said during a speech before the National Association of Wholesalers Wednesday. “I blame the Congress for being such whores to public employees unions that they would pass that kind of legislation.” (Emphasis added.)

During his 1994 reelection campaign, Wilson had promised voters he would not run for president. He decided to run anyway, but ended up dropping out of the race after one month. He has been a pariah in California politics ever since.

In context, the Brown adviser’s gaffe is identical in meaning to what Whitman’s campaign chairman Pete Wilson said:

[The recording] captured an unwitting Brown, thinking he had already hung up the phone after a conversation with a police union official, talking frankly with campaign aides. Brown, at least from what can be discerned from the recording, was fearful that Whitman had cut some kind of deal with the union for support, apparently over pensions, and suggests to his aides putting an ad out that touts his unwillingness to make a deal with the union.

“What about saying she’s a whore?” someone asks.

Yes, it is a slur to refer ad hominen to women as whores. But to refer to a politician who trades principles for support as a prostitute is, as Brown said, a “thing that happens in campaigns.”

Video Transcript

BROKAW: Mr. Brown you did attempt to reach out to the police union. The telephone message was left on. It’s now a notorious part of this campaign. In which somebody in your campaign referred to Ms. Whitman as a “whore.” A campaign spokesman then described that as “salty language” and apologized after a fashion. We’ve heard no outrage from you about the use of that kind of language which to many women is the same as calling an African-American the n-word. Have you been in charge of the investigation in your campaign to find out who is responsible for using that phrase?

BROWN: I don’t agree with that comparison, number one. Number two, this is a five week old private conversation…

WHITMAN: Oh.

BROWN: …picked up on a cellphone, uh, with a garbled transmission. Very hard to detect who it is. This is not, I don’t want to get into the term and how it’s used. But I will say the campaign apologized promptly and I affirm that apology tonight.

BROKAW: You’re repeating it to Ms. Whitman?

BROWN: Yes I am. I do. I, it’s unfortunate. I’m sorry it happened. I apologize.

WHITMAN: So Jerry, it’s not just me, it’s the people of California who deserve better than slurs and personal attacks. That’s not what California is about. It is not our better selves. And I, um, think people know exact…I think every Californian, and especially women, know exactly what’s going on here. And that is a deeply offensive term to women.

BROWN: Well, can I just interject? Have you chastised your chairman, Pete Wilson, who called Congress “whores” to the public sector unions?

WHITMAN: You know better than that Jerry. That’s a completely different thing. The fact you are defending your campaign…

[Derisive LAUGHTER from audience.]

WHITMAN: The fact you are defending your campaign for a slur and, um, you know, a personal attack on me I think it’s not befitting of California. It’s not befitting of the office that you’re running for.

BROWN: It’s unfortunate. Private conversation. I’m not even sure it’s legal because you have to get the consent of all the parties and there’s lots of people talking so, I again, Ms. Whitman I’m sorry it happened. That does not represent anything other than things that happen in a campaign. But the issue there of course is pension reform and the fact that you got the endorsement of that union. I didn’t because they said I’d be too tough on unions and public employee pensions and I’ll take that.

WHITMAN: So that’s actually…

[Audience CHEERS for Brown.]

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