It isn’t really clear if a candidate for Governor can suffer a “significant campaign setback” if they aren’t even a candidate yet, but that is what has happened to ersatz Gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman, the former CEO of eBay who, relatively new to the GOP, has had high profile roles with the Presidential campaigns of Mitt Romney (with whom she was once a co-worker) and Senator John McCain – with the confirmation that her top two most prominent advisors are no longer engaged professionally on Whitman’s behalf.

For most of this year, Whitman has been rumored to be looking at a run for Governor, and she moved quite a bit past the rumor stage with a series of meetings around the state with GOP stakeholders, where she made it clear that she was, indeed, contemplating a run.  In fact, she reached out to bring on some pretty highly respected political operatives – perhaps some of the best – in Steve Schmidt and Adam Mendelsohn of Mercury Public Affairs to give her strategic counsel as she weighed her options.

That said, going back to last summer’s Republican National Convention, I had heard rumors that Schmidt/Mendelsohn and Whitman had parted ways.  When I checked into it though last month, I determined that at the time, it was just the political rumor-mill.

After hearing it come up again in the last day or so, I spoke last night with both Schmidt and Mendelsohn who both confirmed that they are no longer engaged professionally in assisting Whitman in her assessing and/or gearing up for a run for Governor.

In a lengthy chat, Schmidt (pictured right), who has just finished running the McCain for President campaign, and before that, the 2006 re-election campaign of Governor Schwarzenegger, was candid in sharing that his decision to not engage in yet another major campaign was a personal one.   Schmidt is ready to try a normal life for a while having been in “permanent campaign mode” now for over five years, when you add in his key role in President Bush’s re-election and his work in the administration which included jockeying for the confirmations of Supreme Court Justices Roberts and Alito, and a month-long trip to Iraq.

Schmidt told me that there was no animus in the decision, and that he considers Whitman to be a friend.  Has added that, “if she decides to run, she will be a formidable candidate.”

I spoke with Adam Mendelsohn (pictured left) as well, who reemphasized that his and Steve’s decision was one of setting personal priorities, and also being very engaged in political matters for Governor Schwarzenegger, “I have to spend almost all of my time working on the Governor’s budget reform and lottery initiative.   Meg is dynamic and should she choose to run is going to be a strong candidate in a Republican primary and more importantly in the general election.”

While Schmidt and Mendelsohn may hold Whitman in high esteem, the reality of this breaking news is not good for Whitman, who as a newcomer to the political scene has been, by many to whom I have spoken, been making a lot of entrees using the gravitas of Schmidt and Mendelsohn as a calling card.  Their departure from her ‘kitchen cabinet’ of advisors leaves a big hole to fill.  Assuming that Whitman intends to move forward with a campaign, the road will be harder.   Not only is momentum important in politics (this is what we call in the business a “buzz-kill”), but the actual strategic and tactical skills of Schmidt and Mendelsohn will be difficult, if not impossible to replace. 

That said, Whitman is not without professional political team members – we blogged not too long ago about the key and growing roll that Jeff Randle (a veteran of the Wilson and Schwarzenegger gubernatorial campaigns) is playing with Whitman.  When I conducted an interview with Whitman last month, she was accompanied by Randle.  And, of course, Whitman still has a pretty incredible story to tell about her wild business success with eBay – and to the extent she is willing to spend from her considerable wealth, that matters, too.

I caught up with Randle just as I was finishing up this story, who had this to say on behalf of Whitman, "Steve Schmidt and Adam Mendelsohn are extremely talented individuals and we greatly respect their decision to focus on their businesses and family."

If one presumes that Whitman still plans on running for Governor, she will have to move out of the back rooms soon enough, and formally announce her candidacy, and with that announcement start to take public positions on a myriad of issues where she has been noticeably quiet (such as her thoughts on proposals by the Governor to raise taxes to balance the state’s books).  That said, her formidable primary foe, Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner (pictured right), has already been waging a very public campaign, locking down scores of key GOP endorsements around the state, including most of the Republican State Legislators, past Chairmen of the State GOP, current County Chairmen, and more.   His lead role in stopping Proposition 93, the term-limits weakening measure placed on the ballot by former Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, (including the writing of a seven-figure contribution to oppose it) brought a lot of cache to Poizner with GOP donors and activists around the state.  Today, Poizner has launched his new campaign website.

As we are now clearly in the midst of the 2010 election cycle, we’ll be continuing to reach out to Poizner, Campbell, Whitman and others looking at running for the GOP nominations for statewide office in 2010, to have a public dialogue about the complex policy issues and political questions facing California.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, December 4th, 2008 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.