The current Governor's election of California is taking place as we speak. Ofcourse, as the citizen's of California go about watching TV, reading newspapers, and surfing the internet, they are bombarded with propaganda from the opposing parties of Meg Whitman and Jerry Brown. Each canidate slams the other with startling accusations, which leaves the citizens of California not really sure what to believe! At first, I decided to google both of their names because depending on the popularity of the various sites concerning the current nominees, the ranking of popularity would be apparent on the google website. Ofcourse, when I googled both of their names, both of their own personal sites popped up first, followed by a wikipedia site that went into depth about each of the canidates. After checking out both of their own personal websites and the wikipedia's information, I decided to search further and check out common media outlets such as the blog of LA Weekly, the Mercury News, Rasmussen Reports, and the Huffington Post.
On the personal canidate's websites, there were certain similarites between the two, as well as dissimilarities. Both websites covered their own personal solutions to California, and provided a biography about their lives, and had a media center. Besides these basic coverages, the websites were drastically different! For example, in my opinion, Meg Whitman's website was more organized and well thought out. Her main coverages were a Biography, popular California issues, a media center, different topics about Californians, and uniting her party and supporters. Personally I thought it was a classy website that thoroughly addressed how she felt on issues, however bias her website may be... Jerry Brown's website immediately had a pop-up add asking for donations for personal information before you could see his official website. Although my opinion was subjective once I was bombarded by this add, I viewed this pop-up add strategy to be a bit tacky... Brown's website had a home section, a bio, various solutions to California's crisis, a media center, how Californians can act now, a contact for his political party, and even a store! Even though Brown was more forward about asking for donations in an almost desperate sort of way, people have to keep in mind that Meg Whitman is the fourth wealthiest woman in California!! Although she does not mention that in her website, it is a good fact to keep in mind when deciding who to vote for in this race.
The site for Wikipedia contained limitted biases, but one has to keep in mind that Wikipedia can be edited by anyone at any moment in time, and who ever edits the site may be in favor or opposition for the government canidees. However overall, I thought that it was a highly informative site for both canidates. For example, Wikipedia talked about Meg Whitman being an American business woman, a republican canidate for Governor, the chief executive officer and president of ebay, and being the fourth wealthiest woman in the state of California. The website had an adequate analysis of her early life and education, her carreer (ebay and director), political positions (edu, environment, marriage, abortion, illegal immigration, marijuana, voting record, 2010 campaign for CA governor), accolades, ties to Goldman, and her charitable foundation to saving the environment. For Jerry Brown, Wikipedia mentioned him as being an American politician, attorney general for the state of California, the former governor of CA, and him having a lengthy career in politics. He was the CA secretary of state, governor of CA, mayor of Oakland, Chairman of CA democratic party, unsuccessful Democratic nominee for US senate and US president. In addition to all of this quantitative and qualitative information regarding his accomplishments and lack there of, the site also goes into depth about his early life and educaton, legal carrier and entrance into politics, governship (moonbeam nickname), electoral history, '76 presidential campaign, '80 presidential campaign, defeat and return to politics, '92 presidential campaign, radio show host, mayor of Oakland and campaign, his personal life, and his critics. Jerry Brown's section on wikipedia was much more in depth and negative, but this could have been due to his long political carreer. Because Jerry Brown's section had more of a negative spin, this observation could be subjective to the information that is displayed on the wikipedia website. Just to make sure I had all of the facts correct, I decided to browse on the online sites of daily news papers including the LA Times, Rasmussen Reports, the Huffington Post, and the Mercury News.
Although I looked at four different Newspapers, they were all shockingly similar!! They all contained horse race and hoopola. Specifically, they talked about who was ahead in the polls and each canidates campaign money situation,
Overall, I think that in order to be an informed citizen to vote for a government canidee, one needs to look at various types of media that cover both Jerry Brown and Meg Whitman. The types of media that I found most informative were Wikipedia, the Canidates websites, and various newspapers. I found that if you look too much into the online blogs, the information is misguided and taken out of context. If one sticks to offical newspapers, the canidates websites, and a common accesible encyclopedia such as Wikipedia, a California can be an informed voter ready to decide who to vote for!
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