Whitman
Chris Cillizza’s snarky dismissal of, along with Chuck Todd’s more ambiguous but similar statement about, the “Did Meg Whitman vote?” issue feels a little odd to me. Whitman, former eBay CEO, recently announced that she is seeking the governor’s office in California, by way of the Republican primary.
But, then, according to The San Francisco Chronicle:
A year ago, The Chronicle reported that Whitman, 53, had not registered as a Republican in California until 2007 and had a spotty voting history for several years in the state before that. Last week, a Sacramento Bee investigation found no evidence of Whitman’s voting before 2002 in several other states where she lived previously.
If a person has been completely unengaged personally in the political electoral process that surrounded him or her, then I think a fair question can be raised about the genuineness of that person’s interest in running for elective office. This is particularly so when, as a business executive, that person is talking about and acting on political and legislative issues constantly as they occurred and impacted the person’s business. I don’t think it says something real about the person’s fitness for office, but I think it legitimately raises questions about their interest in office.
[Andrew concurs: "It shows a lack of interest in the political process, which is a bad thing for a governor to have."]
It’s interesting how media folks choose sometimes to keep a topic in the middle of debate — no matter how clean an answer there might be (ahem, birthers) — and other times determine that something isn’t worthy of discussion and just brush it off the table.
One of Whitman’s Republican opponents is hitting on the un-voting record … and in a tough ad:
Popularity: 11% [?]
Chris Geidner is the award-winning senior political editor at D.C.'s Metro Weekly and has written for The Atlantic Online, The American Prospect, Advocate.com, Salon and other publications, as well as at his blog, Law Dork. In 2011, he received the Excellence in News Writing Award from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his coverage of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" repeal. Prior to moving to D.C. in 2009, he served as an attorney on the senior staff at the Ohio Attorney General's Office and had earlier worked for a leading Columbus law firm. An extended biography can be found
When politicians fail to exercise the, most fundamental right of every citizen…the right to vote…it leads me to question how serious they are about the poltical process.
Many Americans take time to study the issues, read the voter pamplets, take off work to cast their ballots and eagerly watch the results to see how their vote played out.
I guess Meg Whitmen didn’t feel any of this was worth the effort otherwise she would have taken time out of her busy life making money to cast her ballots on important issues affecting most Americans.
Maybe really wealthy people don’t have to worry about most issue facing voters.
Or maybe she just didn’t want to be called for jury duty.
Whatever her motives, she’s already lost a lot of credibility with me….and I don’t even know what her campaign positions are.
Funny that she should fail to register to vote until 2007…probably just about the time she started thinking of running for office
“Or maybe she just didn’t want to be called for jury duty.”
I don’t think that’s how it works anymore. My dad used to not vote because he didn’t want to take off from work for jury duty, but he started voting about a decade ago after they started picking jurors off the driver’s license registration rolls instead.