Failed 2010 Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman on Tuesday indicated that she will donate big dollars to, fundraise for, vote for, and promote 2016 Democratic Party nominee Hillary Clinton for president.
Whitman expressed her support for Clinton and disdain for Republican nominee Donald Trump during a Tuesday conference call. The New York Times reported the words of Whitman assailing Trump as a “dishonest demagogue” and reaffirming her comparison of Trump to Hitler and Mussolini, which she made at a private Republican donor #NeverTrump meeting in June. She also revealed that Clinton reached out to her last month and that Clinton’s choice of Sen. Tim Kaine as a running mate “was a positive.”
Whitman is a close ally of anti-Trumper Mitt Romney who lost big to President Barack Obama’s bid for re-election in 2012. She served as a leading fundraiser for twice-failed presidential candidate Romney’s 2008 campaign for the office. She was also a chairwoman for New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s 2016 bid for president.
Clinton shares in the losing trend as, like Romney, she too lost her bid for the presidency during the 2008 primary elections.
Whitman also shares commonalities with unsuccessful 2016 presidential candidate Carly Fiorina — employment as an executive at Hewlett Packard and 2010 Republican runs for statewide office in California. Fiorina ran for U.S. Senate and Whitman ran for governor. Whitman dropped $144 million of her own money into her campaign according to the San Francisco Chronicle and still lost to Democrat incumbent Jerry Brown 54 to 41 percent. Fiorina, who endorsed Sen. Ted Cruz for President after leaving the race herself, has focused on a continued anti-Hillary Clinton mantra. Whitman was critical of Fiorina during the former Senate candidate’s 2016 run for the Republican presidential nomination.
A 2008 article in the New York Times, just two years before Whitman’s 2010 California campaign to become governor, marked her among the most likely women to become the first female President of the United States.
An aide to Whitman said the mega-donor would throw personal funds in the mid-six figures behind putting Clinton in the White House in this year’s election according to the Times. Whitman said that she would give money both to Clinton and pro-Clinton superPACs. She also said that she would work to get others to donate to the campaign.
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