Money & Politics | Daily Report

Whitman campaign photo

Meg Whitman didn’t just outspend Jerry Brown in her losing campaign for governor.

The billionaire Republican outspent the entire field of 15 other candidates for statewide office combined, Democrats as well as Republicans.

The secretary of state’s totals don’t cover spending after Oct. 16, but final numbers are unlikely to change the trend line.

It looks like this:

So you can’t necessarily get elected governor of California even if you spend $140 million of your own money on the effort.

But that ultimate lesson of the Whitman campaign begs a different question.

What could the former eBay executive have gotten for her $140 million if she hadn’t spent it on television commercials and political consultants?

Many websites track expensive purchases. By consulting The Most Expensive Journal, the Longest List, Sotheby’s International Realty and Supercars.net, California Watch came up some alternative buys that Whitman might have considered:

Markldiaz/FlickrNo. 5, 1948

Jackson Pollock’s “No. 5, 1948.” The world’s most expensive painting, it sold for $140 million in 2006.

Or:

The Phoenix Coyotes pro hockey team: now on sale for $140 million.

Or perhaps:

An F-22 Lockheed Martin Raptor jet fighter.

How about real estate?

Whitman could have bought the 3,000-acre Little Jennie Ranch in Jackson Wyo., including house, barns and gorgeous views of the Gros Ventre range (list price: $69.5 million) AND 1016 Madison Ave., a seven-story, 12,000-square-foot townhouse on Manhattan’s Upper East Side ($72 million).

Or she could have put together a grab bag.

Chuck624/FlickrLady Moura

Let’s start with a yacht like Saudi tycoon Nasser Al-Rashid's 340-foot Lady Moura ($100 million). Add the famed Chopard Blue Diamond ring – nine carats with a white gold band ($16.26 million). Throw in a custom 22-carat gold iPhone ($2.97 million), a Prestige HD custom 55-inch television encrusted with 72 diamonds ($2.3 million), and a Transmission Audio system built from aircraft aluminum with polished granite stands ($2 million). For the garage, there's a Bugatti Veyeron with a top speed of 253 MPH ($1.7 million) and a Lamborghini Reventon, which is almost as fast ($1.6 million).

Ultomatt/FlickrEric with Blackie

Add “Blackie,” Eric Clapton’s 1970s-era Fender Stratocaster electric guitar ($959,000); an 1839 antique Daguerreotype camera ($775,000); a pair of Dussault Apparel’s “trashed denim” jeans, encrusted with rubies and diamonds ($250,000); an unopened bottle of 1787 Chateau Lafite wine, with President Thomas Jefferson’s initials engraved on it ($160,000); and a Hermes “Birkin” handbag ($37,000).

And then, Whitman could have vacationed for a week in the $27,000-per-night Presidential suite of the Hotel Cala di Volpe  on Sardinia’s Costa Smeralda. Sales tax would have eaten up the rest of the money.

Whitman’s election spending was five times what the United Way of the Bay Area charity spent last year to assist people in Northern California.

Finally, her election spending was more than 100 times what her family’s charitable foundation donated to non-profits in 2008, the last year for which records were available.