A book could be written about what Meg Whitman doesn’t know about government, the public sector in general and most specifically, public education. But the fact is that she wants the governor’s office and is willing to buy, lie and pander to get it. Unfortunately for Ms. Whitman, the price seems to keep rising. Maybe it’s pressure from Jerry Brown, or perhaps just a desire to overwhelm Californians with media blitz, but whatever the case, billionaire Whitman upped the ante on Friday by adding another $13 million in personal funds to her campaign chest.

Whitman, who has said that she’s willing to spend up to $150 million to buy the top seat in California’s government, has invested $104 million to date. Still $5.2 million short of the self-funding record set by Michael Bloomberg, she is outspending her Democratic opponent at a dramatic rate. Although Jerry Brown has accumulated $24 million in campaign funds, his spending to date is a miserly $700,000.

Some in the Brown camp are concerned about his frugal ways, and believe that he should jump center ring and grapple in the Whitman-financed mud wrestling. Many Brown supporters are concerned that Whitman’s continuous half-truth and distortion based assault may cause irreversible damage. They cite instances like her present illegitimate attempt to associate Brown’s record as Oakland’s mayor with the pension and pay scandals in Bell, CA as evidence that she must be rebutted. They argue that Brown needs to respond to Whitman’s blatant distortions, like her treating as fact, claims made by a fired city controller that City of Oakland employees were paid for thousands of hours that were not worked.

Other Brown supporters find comfort in the fact that even Whitman’s own consultants know that, despite all the money they’re spending, she’s not making any real progress. They contend that there’s plenty of time to explain that crime did not increase in Oakland under Brown, or how the tax increases she blames on Brown were actually approved by 70% of voters. They argue that she may have oversaturated the media with her abundant ads, and that the prudent tack may well be to let her continue the negative campaigning. So, for now, the Brown campaign is waiting and watching Whitman spend her millions, all the while revealing herself as the out-of-touch, mudslinging, wealthy panderer she is.

But just who Meg Whitman is may be a bit difficult to determine. She’s flip-flopped back and forth on offshore drilling, so her position likely depends on when it’s rendered. Her position on immigration is even more ephemeral, seeming to be tailored to whatever she thinks the current audience wants to hear: when interviewed on American Morning News this past July 28, Whitman stated that Arizona’s SB1070 should stand, but her Spanish language media ads that ran earlier said that she was opposed to the Arizona law.

The truth of the matter is that anyone who doesn’t question Whitman’s character must be either ignorant, in denial or as unscrupulous as she. And one does not have to look far for answers. Even at eBay, Whitman’s record was tarnished with claims of dishonesty, where she resigned her post there under charges of insider trading brought by her own shareholders. She denies the allegations, but admits to making money from “spinning” – an activity since rendered explicitly illegal by the SEC. The suit brought by eBay shareholders was settled and along with the others charged, Whitman paid $3 million.

Meg Whitman has a plan for California, but voters need to beware that Meg does what benefits Meg. In large part, she stands for what California stands against and vice versa. She is strongly against Prop-19; she’s neutral on Prop-23, which is sponsored by two Texas Oil giants, but she supports a suspension of AB32, which would have a similar effect in lifting pollution standards. While at Goldman Sachs, she was even a big supporter of the huge bonuses for which Wall Street is now infamous.

In the final analysis, Meg Whitman is a billionaire, and she’s not likely to change her mega-wealthy patterns of behavior —  like hiding profits in the Cayman Islands — just because she becomes Governor of California. She’s used to getting what she wants, and she wants to run this state. The trouble is that from the perspective of an average Californian, she’s likely to run it straight into the ground.

In the latest round of campaign numbers released yesterday, Meg Whitman reported that her spending had topped $99 million. Undoubtedly displeased by the lack of a “Buy It Now” button for the governor’s office, $91 million of that total came from Whitman’s own money. But being a billionaire, with wealth estimated by Forbes at $1.3 billion, there’s no question that the former CEO of eBay can afford the expense. The real question is, “can California afford Meg Whitman?”

With California sitting at over 12% unemployment and facing a $20 billion budget shortfall over the next 18 months, Whitman is running as the person who can cure these economic woes. In order to accomplish this, she intends to focus on three key initiatives: creating jobs, cutting spending, and fixing education.

Having no prior experience in government service, the Whitman campaign is relying mostly upon her record at eBay to substantiate claims that she has the savvy to succeed were others have failed. Spot on is Whitman’s focus on job creation, and her campaign wants voters to believe that she is the person who can make it happen. They claim that since Whitman’s time at eBay resulted in a growth of employees from 170 to over 15,000, she alone has the experienced required.

But is this prima facie evidence that Ms. Whitman can create jobs in California?

Unlike her Republican counterpart running for Senate against Barbara Boxer, there is no doubt that Whitman knows how to run a company. She did preside over a period of extreme growth for eBay, but one has to ask themselves, how much of that growth was due to Whitman. When she arrived at eBay, although small, they had tapped into a previously undiscovered niche in Internet commerce. They already had a successful product and were set to expand. Whitman did a commendable job of overseeing the expansion, but to give her credit over product and timing is naïve.

As CEO, the job is largely strategic, and a sound argument can definitely be made that many of Whitman’s efforts in that area were less than successful. In fact, her single biggest strategic move was the purchase of Skype at a price of $2.6 billion. Yet she pushed this through without a clear concept of how eBay would make money from the endeavor. The company was forced to write down the value of Skype in 2007 to a little more than half of what it had paid — $1.4 billion. Another of Whitman’s acquisitions, StumbleUpon, was left for her successor to lift into the black. But having no real fit with what eBay does, Skype was finally sold and StumbleUpon was spun off.

So, if a candidate has no government experience, has only created jobs in an environment of rapid growth, and is arguably a bit weak in the strategic leadership department, what exactly are voters to believe makes Meg Whitman a good candidate for governor?

More about that in Part 2 — a look at the Whitman job plan.