SF Examiner: Whitman’s money came "in enormous chunks from wealthy individuals near her power base"

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Chasing the money trail all the way to the statehouse
By: Brent Begin
Examiner Staff Writer
October 17, 2010

For the two candidates for governor, Attorney General Jerry Brown and former eBay Inc. CEO Meg Whitman, their home bases of San Francisco and San Mateo County are like two competing banks battling to invest in the future leader of the nation’s richest state.

Brown, a Democrat, has so far amassed $1.4 million more in San Francisco than Whitman, while Whitman, a Republican, has outearned Brown by about $2 million in her home county. That excludes the $119 million of Whitman’s own money poured into her campaign.

“You may look at Meg Whitman and say she’s put all her own money into this campaign, but that overshadows the fact that her campaign has actually gone out and done a pretty great job of raising money as well,” said Bill Whalen, a research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution.

But Whitman’s money has come in enormous chunks from wealthy individuals near her power base. In her hometown of Atherton, which has just more than 7,000 people, donations have almost hit the $1 million mark as of the most recent reporting period ending Sept. 30.

http://www.sfexaminer.com/local/Chasing-the-money-trail-all-the-way-to-the-statehouse-105073899.html