There were the travails of embattled coach Tom Cable – he avoided prosecution after allegedly breaking an assistant coach’s jaw – and the growing pains of quarterback JaMarcus Russell – he was benched after throwing multiple interceptions.
Another remarkable aspect of the Oakland Raiders’ downbeat 2009 football season was the barrage of Meg Whitman political ads during football games on KSFO radio.
Her rotation of introductory radio messages – “I’m Meg Whitman and I want to talk to you about California” – cropped up on Raiders broadcasts in October and were still being played as the Raiders finished the season with a 5-11 record.
Raiders fan "Skullman"
During some games, the Republican candidate for governor intoned, “Sacramento is out of control” more often than play-by-play man Greg Papa yelled, “Touchdown Raiders!”
Perhaps the ads were overage from the rest of KSFO’s programming, which except for football is conservative talk radio.
Perhaps the former eBay CEO thought her message could gain traction with Raiders fans, whose demographic tends to be blue collar and alienated (the team hasn’t had a winning season since 2002).
But if campaign donations are a measure, Whitman’s ads didn’t produce much interest, state records show. In 2009, only eight donors from Oakland, the capital city of Raider Nation, gave Whitman money.
Among them were Kimberly Edwards, CEO of Stupid Fun Club, an entertainment software concern ($2,500), and T. Gary Rogers, chairman of Levi Strauss & Co. ($10,000).
Whitman’s take from Oakland – $17,250 – ranks the city 109th out of the 501 cities where she collected campaign checks. (Number one was the wealthy Peninsula suburb of Atherton, where Whitman herself lives. She’s given her campaign $39 million.)
But then, the Raiders themselves don’t make a big thing of political contributions, either.
Records shows that donors associated with the team made only three political contributions in all of 2009 – none in the governor’s race.
Star defensive back Nnamdi Asomugha donated $1,500 to San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris’ campaign for California attorney general.
Linebacker Jon Alston gave $1,000 to Los Angeles banker Emanuel Pleitez, who finished third in a Democratic primary to fill the House seat vacated by former Rep. Hilda Solis, now the U.S. Secretary of Labor.
And, just before Christmas, the Oakland Raiders made five donations to a voter-registration committee set up by the AFL-CIO.
The donations were for $5, $5, $5, $5 and $3.50 – $23.50 in all, according to the California Secretary of State's office.
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