Mike Murphy’s film development company picked up a cool million from Meg Whitman before he signed on to advise her political campaign. Talk about stopping run-away production. News articles suggest that the investment stopped Murphy from running away to Whitman’s opponent in the primary.

I happen to know Murphy is serious about making a go in the movie business. He talked about it with Arnold-the-actor right before he was sworn in as Arnold-the- governor back in 2003 and soon after Murphy declared he was staying in California, taking a break from politics and setting up shop in Hollywood. Murphy is not the first person to come back to his roots while trying a new venture.

Speaking of investments, I see Roger Salazar, spokesman for the union sponsored independent expenditure in support of Jerry Brown, responded to the new Whitman ad, which pointed out Jerry Brown is the public employee unions’ candidate by saying that the IE’s messages must be resonating with voters.

Actually, the real message has not come through to the voters, which is why Whitman cut the ad. The message is the public employee union leaders want Jerry Brown as governor because they think he is the most likely candidate to carry out their wish list of $40 billion in new taxes.

That’s why the unions invested in the independent expenditure – to capture a whole lot of tax money if their guy wins.  That message has not yet been made clear, which is why the Whitman ad was produced.

Hopefully, all these investments are helping the California economy.