Ebay bid to buy California Governors Mansion
'Buy It Now' FAIL: Former eBay CEO Whitman Is The Biggest Loser
By John C Abell November 3, 2010 | 2:39 pm | Categories: People,
Politics, Silicon Valley
Meg Whitman during visit to her Victory 2010 Headquarters in Temecula,
Monday, Nov. 1, 2010. Photo by Eric Draper/Meg Whitman for Governor
2010. Used with gratitude via a Creative Commons license.
Despite big gains for Republicans at every level in this year's
mid-terms election, former eBay CEO Meg Whitman lost big despite
bidding huge to win California's governorship. The failed attempt cost
Whitman an estimated $160 million, mostly from her own pocket, in what
was by far the biggest chunk of personal fortune any person in the
United States has ever spent trying to get elected to anything.
Don't cry for Meg — Whitman is still a billionaire. She won't be
searching her attic for potential auction items to make ends meet. But
Whitman did outspend once-and-future governor Gerry Brown six-to-one
and now joins the ranks of some pretty wealthy people, many with zero
political cred, who couldn't paper over inexperience and an imperious
CEO's manner with glossy TV ads. On which, by the way, she spent about
$107 million alone, according to California Watch, for nothing nearly
as memorable as the "Demon Sheep" spot that Carly Fiorina put on
YouTube for free.
Whitman may be Queen of the Hill in personally-funded futility, but
she was hardly alone. Former professional wrestling entrepreneur Linda
McMahon spent $47 million of her own moeny losing to Richard
Blumenthal in the Connecticut Senate race. Another techie, former
Microsoft VP Suzan DelBene, spent $2.28 million on a losing bid for
the House seat in Washington's 8th District. In all some $500 million
was spent by 58 candidates who contributed at least $500,000 to their
own campaigns, Bloomberg reports, and 30 lost or dropped out.
Fiorina doled out "only" $5.5 million in her losing bid to unseat Sen.
Barbara Boxer. But the former Hewlett-Packard CEO was up against a
popular incumbent while Whitman's loss was for an open seat. And in
Brown her opponent was a candidate who, though he is the state's
current attorney general, is best known as an ultra-liberal former
California governor whose heyday was in the 1970s, is
not-always-fondly referred to as "Gov. Moonbeam" and didn't even have
enough money to run TV ads until September.
So Whitman's loss has to hurt, just a little. While we'd never be so
crass as to suggest that she was trying to buy the election maybe
Whitman's wondering what she might have spent that $160 million on
instead.
Wired.com is here to help. Here are a five back-of-the-envelope ideas:
Building something like Bill Gates' house. It cost an estimated $100
million. That leaves plenty left over for …
A 767-200 — just like the one Sergy and Larry have. The Google
founders are thought to have paid about $25 million to buy and fix it
up theirs, but a new one goes for as much at $140 million. The landing
rights they have at NASA's Moffett Field? Priceless.
Embarrass that piker Mark Zuckerberg by going 60 per cent better than
the Facebook founder's charitable contribution to the Newark, N.J.
school system.
Commission some "big" and "reasonably expensive" boats, like former
Netscape CEO Jim Clark's Hyperion. Clark denied that his 155-foot
yacht cost as much as $50 million when he got it in 1998, but even if
it was that pricey you could have still funded your own flotilla.
Invent and then sell the iPad for one day — no, wait, that's how to
make $150 million.
Buy your own private island. If you're as savvy as Johnny Depp, you'd
have had about $154 million left over to run for something else.
Got your own ideas? Leave us a comment.
Read More http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/11/the-biggest-loser/comment-page-1/#ixzz14Fnn4V7r
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Tommy
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