Whitman Booed for Refusing to Stop Negative Ads

California voters might be just a wee bit fed up with the negative campaign ads spewing from the Meg Whitman and Jerry Brown campaigns. At a joint appearance at the annual Women’s Conference last night, Matt Lauer asked both candidates if they’d agree to pull their negative ads—and the crowd went wild. When Meg Whitman declined, the 14,000 women in attendance booed lustily, the LA Times reports.

At first, Brown seemed to demure. “Sometimes negativity is in the eye of the beholder,” he began, earning a spattering of boos. But he quickly agreed to pull the ads, eventually proposing that they stick to positive spots in which they spoke directly to the camera. But Whitman refused. “I will take down any ads that could be even remotely construed as a personal attack,” she said, “but I don’t think we can take down ads that talk about where Gov. Brown stands on the issues.” (More Jerry Brown Meg Whitman stories.)