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.

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