In reports filed Monday with the secretary of state's office, Brown's campaign reported spending $29 million on TV and radio ads placed by a Georgia-based Democratic advertising firm, LUC Media.

Whitman, the former eBay chief executive, shows she tapped $144 million from her personal fortune and raised the rest from donors.

The 2010 California governor's race was the highest-spending campaign for statewide office in the nation's history.

Brown was aided by at least $26 million in spending by outside groups, mostly labor unions.

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Whitman was occasionally impressive, more engaged and less robotic than in the two previous matches. She's smart, and you sometimes got the feeling that if she'd ever paid attention to government – just by regularly voting, not necessarily making it a career – she might have some novel political and policy ideas. Because she's only recently tuned into politics, though, her actual ideas are sketchy, apart from the GOP mantra of cutting taxes and spending. And the fact that she's spent over $120 million of her own fortune for the job doesn't make her seem more qualified.

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The former New York City mayor and 2008 presidential candidate will appear with his fellow Republican in Los Angeles on Sunday, where they will talk to supporters in the San Fernando Valley.

Giuliani -- who took a beating in his quest for the presidential nomination -- endorsed Whitman last year. But he wasn't Whitman's favorite in the presidential race: She was an economic adviser to candidate Mitt Romney and, later, to GOP nominee John McCain.

Whitman is in a tight race with Democrat Jerry Brown.

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I've always assumed Brown would win anyway, though, because he's got one key asset: He's not Meg Whitman. And during Saturday's Univision debate, I spotted another Brown asset: He knows how to make a moral and emotional appeal to our sense of justice, that California used to be a better place, and can be one again.

Whoever is behind the sudden emergence of Whitman's former maid, Nicky Diaz -- the woman the former eBay CEO says deceived her about having legal immigration status, going so far as to steal a letter from the federal government notifying Whitman about her illegal status (that turned out not to be true), but whom Whitman fired immediately upon "learning" the truth -- it's a defining story for Whitman, and not in a good way. I am sensitive to all the ways women are held to a different and higher standard than men in politics, and I search for descriptors that capture Whitman that are not somehow stereotypical.

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The letter from the Social Security Administration is at the heart of claims by their former maid that Whitman and her husband knew she was in the U.S. illegally but kept her on the job.

Whitman for two days said she and her husband never received the letter.

But she told KNX radio in Los Angeles on Thursday that she suspects writing on the letter is her husband's. Her campaign released a separate statement from her husband -- Dr. Griffith Harsh -- saying he didn't recall the letter but it is possible he wrote on it.

A copy of the letter was released earlier by the maid's attorney.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

SANTA MONICA, Calif. (AP) -- The attorney for Meg Whitman's former housekeeper released a copy Thursday of a purported 2003 letter that she says shows the Republican gubernatorial candidate knew all along that the maid might be an illegal immigrant.

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The researchers studied a high-speed railway linking the German cities of Cologne and Frankfurt and determined that towns connected to the new line "saw their GDP rise by at least 2.7 percent compared to neighbors not on the route." (Hat tip: International Political Zone.)

So Obama was right!

"A major new high-speed rail line will generate many thousands of construction jobs over several years, as well as permanent jobs for rail employees and increased economic activity in the destinations these trains serve." Barack Obama, Apr 16th, 2009

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This year's real conditions for Democrats are certainly threatening, but there are indications that the impending repudiation will not be as devastating as suggested by the current narrative. Whatever ultimately happens in the House, where a Republican takeover appears likely if not inevitable, the Senate will probably remain under Democratic control -- despite enormous spending by "independent" groups such as the Club for Growth, the voice of Wall Street conservatives; American Crossroads, the Karl Rove outfit; and the Chamber of Commerce.

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However, Whitman is still calling for a one-year "moratorium" on the implementation of AB 32, which she remains determined to keep calling a "job killer."

"While Proposition 23 does address the job killing aspects of AB 32, it does not offer a sensible balance between our vital need for good jobs and the desire of all Californians to protect our precious environment. It is too simple of a solution for a complex problem. I believe that my plan to fix AB 32 strikes the right balance for California. I will vote "no" on Proposition 23."

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Whitman's campaign reported another $15 million contribution late Tuesday, bringing her personal donation to $119 million.

The billionaire former eBay chief executive's spending surpasses the previous record of $108 million set by Bloomberg in his bid for a third term last year.

Bloomberg spent about $185 per vote for his re-election, and he did not take donations.

Whitman, however, has spent the summer aggressively fundraising for her general election race against Democratic Attorney General Jerry Brown.

Whitman planned a visit Wednesday to the San Francisco headquarters of Yelp, an online review site.

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To me, the moment that best sums him up came during his 1992 presidential campaign, when he made a speech in Hoboken, N.J., just days before the critical New York primary. "This," Brown told the crowd with the Manhattan skyline behind him, "is the Empire State."

"Garden State!" the crowd shouted back.

"I meant metaphysically," he replied.

Whatever you think of his politics, it's fun to have Jerry Brown in the game. But he's in some serious trouble now, just two months before the finish line in what could be his final campaign, a comeback bid for governor of California.

Polls all year have shown a close race between Brown and Republican Meg Whitman, but this week vividly illustrated two unique obstacles that Brown, who last held the governorship 27 years ago, is facing. It started on Monday, when Brown, who is cash-strapped compared to the free-spending Whitman, launched his first television commercial of the fall campaign, a fairly generic 30-second spot aimed at reframing his political longevity as an asset:

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Harsh is a student at Princeton and, apparently, the president of the rugby team. The story, from a Princeton graduate student:

I play in the summer softball league for graduate students, faculty, and professors at Princeton University. During our softball game yesterday, the president of the Princeton undergraduate rugby team, William W. Harsh, came onto our field and told us that we were not allowed to play on the rugby fields. After explaining to him that we were an official university-sanctioned league and that we had permission to use the fields, he insisted that we had to leave. We told him we were in the middle of a game and were not leaving.

He then called public safety. While waiting for public safety, he came onto the field and started intentionally interfering with the game. He picked up third base and threw it over the fence. He then walked over to second and picked it up and held it. My advisor, a professor, tried to take the base back and Will dared him to tackle him.

Once public safety arrived (campus police), a lieutenant confirmed that we had permission to use the fields.

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Jonathan Strong's Journolist stories demonstrated a propensity for exaggeration and occasional outright invention, so I take this with a grain of salt. But an unnamed campaign operative does call it "standard operating procedure" to pay for good coverage.

According to Strong, a strategist for former California gubernatorial candidate Steve Poizner hired a blogger named Aaron Park as a "consultant," although Park did not disclose this fact at "Red County," the conservative blog he wrote for. Which was smart, considering Red County had, in fact, received $20,000 from the campaign of Poizner's opponent, Meg Whitman.

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"Do you know who's as excited about this election as we are? The people of New York. They have suffered the financial reforms that are going to crimp our ability to raise capital and they want California to turn the corner."

The people of New York? I haven't seen any good polling numbers about how Meg Whitman is regarded by the people of New York, although presumably she still has some fans among the horse-riding set in Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island, where she grew up. And while it's true that a return to strong economic growth in California would be good for the whole country, Whitman's emphasis on those "who have suffered the financial reforms" seems to refer to a specific group of New Yorkers -- the executives of financial institutions with headquarters in Manhattan.

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The ad says Whitman's "the Republican who opposed the Arizona law and opposed Proposition 187." It does not point out that she's also the Republican who claimed she didn't use images of a border fence in her ads, even though she did. It also doesn't point out that Whitman still opposes immigration reform and the naturalization of currently undocumented immigrants.

So once this bullying snob is governor, she will not support racial profiling, but she will also not support any action being taken to help illegal immigrants become legal. I think Mickey Kaus' immigration position is better thought-out.

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The candidate herself has been accused of shoving an employee while she was in charge at eBay. Apparently, a staff member named Young Mi Kim was helping Whitman prepare for an online interview. Whitman seems to have been unhappy with Kim's briefing, and either shoved her, or "physically guided her" out of the room. The resulting lawsuit was settled out of court and included a confidentiality agreement.

As Alex Pareene wrote yesterday, we recently found out that one of Whitman's sons, Griffith Rutherford Harsh V, was arrested in 2006 for battery, after breaking a woman's ankle at a bar in Palo Alto. Harsh, who was 21 at the time, apparently pushed Victoria Sanchez after she knocked off his hat and said, "Fuck your fraternity." Harsh disputed the story, saying she had pushed him and then stumbled, but a security guard corroborated Sanchez's account. Whitman bailed her son out, and charges were eventually dismissed.

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According to police and court records unearthed by Gawker, the fight happened when 22-year-old Valerie Sanchez said "fuck your fraternity" to Griff and knocked his hat off his head. Later, according to Sanchez:

Griff "pushed" her "with two open hands on her chest and shoulder area." She fell down and felt her right ankle "snap." A nearby security guard witnessed the event and corroborated Valerie's version of the events.

Whitman bailed him out (with a $25,000 cashier's check) and, a year later, charges were dismissed. No one is willing or able to explain why. This seems perhaps more serious than shoving someone over a Second Life dispute.

(Younger Whitman son Will Harsh is notable primarily for the time he used the "n-word.")

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