California Watch and the Center for Investigative Reporting have started a website, Politics Verbatim, to provide analysis and primary source material on politics, starting with the California governor's race.
With help from our crack team of interns and freelancers, California Watch staff work each day to catalog every piece of political speech we can find: interviews, articles, YouTube videos, live appearances, direct mail and more. We then break those down one quote, promise or policy point at a time and tag them with subject categories.
Want to see promises Jerry Brown has made about the state budget? Each candidate's specific policy ideas about crime? Statements Meg Whitman has given in your hometown? Use our search tool to drill down into the rhetoric and find out what the candidates have said about the issues that matter to you.
On August 5, for instance, Chase Davis looked at Whitman's spending patterns:
More than half of Whitman's spending so far -- about $55 million -- has gone into TV and radio buys. Payments to consultants are also fast approaching $10 million, with at least 56 different firms getting a cut of the action.
She has spent about $14 million since the June primary -- most of it on media buys.
