It’s a tired cliché in politics that money buys elections. After all, more money means more ad time, more avenues to get your message across and therefore secure voter interest. Right?

Tell that to Meg Whitman and her $141 million, now lost in her failed bid to be governor of California. Despite her record personal spending in this election, she lost by 12% to former governor and governor-elect Jerry Brown, who, given his McCainesque age, isn’t exactly the most charismatic figure out there. Keep in mind that this happened in a time of historic discontent with Democrats specifically and old-boy politicians in general. Why did all the money not have an effect on the election?

First, the citizens are not just fed up with Big Government; they’re fed up with big anything: Big Business, big banks, the Big Three in Miami. Therefore, reminding people that you have a big personal account by spending so much money is probably not the wisest political decision. It easily allowed Jerry Brown to portray her as an elitist out-of-touch woman that would not work for the interests of the common man. Who, last time I checked, made up more of the electorate than people who had $141 million to spare on an election.

Her actions did nothing to convince the voters otherwise either. In a visit to the diner, she chose to cut apart a hot dog with a fork and knife rather than eat it medieval-style like us non-billionaires. She came across in debates and speeches as bitter and mean, spending the majority of her time throwing potshots at Brown rather than outlining her plans for California’s recovery (not that Brown did much more than attack Whitman either). She was convinced with her idea that her experience growing a company would appeal to the voter automatically. However, she missed one point: voters, unlike investors, respond to not just the numbers and facts. They want to feel a personal connection with the candidate, know that he or she stands for them, and not for Big _______. Whitman failed to do that. The housekeeper incident did not help much either.

But what really set Whitman back is the way she ran her campaign and spent all her money. She spent most of her cash in expensive TV and other traditional media ads that have blanketed the state since April or May. Like any ad that gets replayed over and over again, these attack ads were tuned out by voters before long, which proved to be crucial during October and November. Most of the rest of the cash was spent towards hiring an entourage of GOP consultants who controlled her message and her actions. As a result, she sounded just like any other Republican, like, say, governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Brown used this to his advantage in a devastatingly effective attack ad that showed Whitman utter almost word for word quotes by Schwarzenegger, who has Bushian approval ratings in California at the present.

In other words, Whitman ran her campaign like a marketing promotion. She launched her media advertisements, followed her consultants’ advice, and believed that that was enough for customers- in this case, voters- to buy what she was selling. However, she missed one key point: eBay auction items do not demand that their buyer be able to have a beer with them or understand their plight. Unlike marketing a product, marketing a person, as a political campaign requires, needs much more personal interaction and “getting your hands dirty” than crunching numbers and giving orders as a CEO. Whitman failed to understand this, and this is why she lost.

As Freakonomics author Steven D. Levitt once said, money is perceived to win elections because it is an indicator of voter support (the more likeable and viable candidate you are, the more likely people will donate to your campaign). Perhaps it is not the money itself that decides the best candidate- it is the best candidate that pulls in the money. This brings us to one final interesting tidbit- although Whitman vastly outspent Brown in the California gubernational race, Brown managed to raise more money in campaign donations than Whitman.


(Photo: Dru Bloomfield - At Home in Scottsdale)