Creative Commons

Meg Whitman’s media blitzkrieg is now one for the history books. 

Whitman has shattered the record for the most spent on an American political campaign in history. 

The astonishing $119 million she has lent her campaign recently passed the previous record holder, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The three-term mayor spent $109 million of his own money on his reelection campaign.

To anyone who owns a television in California, this should not come as any surprise. Whitman’s ads are inescapable no matter what channel you turn on, and her billboards are a common fixture on our freeways.

However, it’s her most recent ad that’s has everyone talking. The ad features footage from the 1992 Democratic presidential primary debate between Jerry Brown and former president Bill Clinton. 

In the 18-year-old footage, Clinton claims Brown ran up a tax deficit while governor of California and “doesn’t tell people the truth.” The screen then flashes to an ominous message, “Jerry Brown, Same Story, Different Decade.”

Faced with this prime opportunity to discredit Whitman’s statements and cast himself in a good light, Brown somehow managed to make the situation worse for himself.

When asked about the ad at an event, Brown dropped this brilliant statement, “"I mean Clinton's a nice guy, but who ever said he always told the truth? You remember, right? There's that whole story there about did he or didn't he."

Yikes, Jerry. Don’t you know that no good Democrat brings up the whole Monica Lewinsky thing? He has since of course apologized for the remarks, but the incident can’t be helping his already barely-there campaign. 

The ad isn’t really helping Whitman out much either, however. As has been the case with a few of her recent ads,  the claims in the Clinton ad are being called into question. 

The Jerry Brown campaign is claiming that the statistics Clinton quotes in the ad are false, and the the Whitman campaign knowingly included them anyway.

Of course, then there's the pesky fact that the ad has seemingly inspired Clinton to publicly support Jerry Brown for governor, and claims that the ad is "misleading." 

I still listen to a morning show from my hometown, San Diego, and the other day they were talking about the gubernatorial race. One of the people on the show remarked that they were seeing so many ads that were being proven to be false, or contradicted each other that they honestly had no idea what the truth was anymore.

I think this is the way a lot of Californians are beginning to feel. Whitman’s ads are so omnipresent in our lives, but can they really be trusted? 

And when Brown is just starting to defend himself in a sea of Meg, how will his voice be heard? And how reliable are his ads?

It's getting a little too confusing. 

Reach reporter Stephanie McNeal here. Follow her on Twitter here.

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