CA: 40 Years

Seema Mehta of the Los Angeles Times reports that Meg Whitman addressed reports of a 2007 shoving incident at eBay, saying it was a mere "verbal misunderstanding." And she found a way to remind people of how long Jerry Brown has been in politics, dismissing his comment that the Goebbels gaffe was off the record.

"Jerry Brown has been in politics for 40 years," Whitman said, chuckling. "Jerry Brown knows exactly how this game works."

Whitman is hitting the "40 years" theme in a new ad:

Whitman mentioned the "40 years" during her primary-night speech, and expect to hear the phrase "40 years" many times in the months ahead. Not only does it remind people that Brown is a longtime insider, but it even has a biblical resonance.

At Politico, Maggie Haberman says that Democrats are worried that Brown is still campaigning like it's 1970, with no real field operation in place yet.

Republicans are quickly seizing on the sense of inactivity to convey a sense of creakiness.

“A lot has changed since Brown was last governor — like the invention of movable-type printing, the Internet, cell phones and the end of the Cold War — but we are not taking anything for granted,” said Nick Ayers, executive director of the Republican Governors Association.

“Meg is prepared to counter his blast-fax offensive and Burma-Shave billboard blitzes,” he said. “We are also on the lookout for a serious snail-mail pen-pal campaign that we are hearing he and the unions might mount. But I am most concerned about the reports of his mass-production of campaign buttons. Now, that has me losing sleep.”

Haberman also reports:

Whitman’s spending is particularly noteworthy in Spanish-language media, where the free press has blasted her over her immigration stand in the primary. [see another ad here]

Still, she’s following a model that many likened to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s early spending in his first successful race in 2001: investing heavily out of the gate in Spanish-language paid media.

Bloomberg split the Hispanic vote down the middle with his white Democratic rival — an astonishing feat for a Republican in New York City at the time.

While Whitman won’t split or even come close to splitting the Hispanic vote with Brown, who has a strong relationship with the state’s Latino voters, if she can siphon off some voters, it could make a difference.