This morning, Meg Whitman proudly announced an endorsement from the California Peace Officers' Association.
It must be a pretty big deal. Because she also proudly announced their endorsement last March.
Things must be awfully slow around the Meg 2010 campaign.
If you haven't heard of the California Peace Officers Association, don't blame yourself. You're only supposed to have sort of heard of it. Like a Rolux watch or Rey-Bon sunglasses, or a lot of other crap you get on eBay, the name is designed to remind you of a brand you know.
There are over 75,000 peace officers in California. Meg Whitman's press release boasts that the CPOA ("one of the state's most respected and influential groups representing law enforcement") represents a staggering "more than 3000."
(This is down from March. Back then, the landmark groundbreaking first time they endorsed her, they represented "more than 3,400." So they're even more exclusive now. And that exclusivity is what makes them so very influential. You can't put a price tag on it. Although I'm thinking Meg probably has.)
Who are the missing 400 members of this organization so picky it hardly exists at all? One of them is its former president, Randy Adams.
Now, there's a name that rings a bell. But where have you heard it before? Randy Adams... Bell... Randy Adams...
Oh, of course!
Randy Adams was the police chief of Bell. His name is in the news because he just resigned, because it turns out he was making $457,000 a year. To serve and protect a city of 40,000. Where the average income was $24,800.
And $457,000 was just his salary. With benefits he was making $770,046.
Minus benefits he was making barely two and a half times what you get to be attorney general of the United States.
But now, in his disgrace, all he has to look forward to is his $400,000 yearly pension.
That Randy Adams.
Randy Adams is exactly the kind of hard working rich person Meg Whitman needs to keep in California if it's not going to fail, like she refuses to let it.
So it makes sense that he's the former president of the tiny, semi-existent police group that endorses her every five months.