Meg Whitman’s Donations: Barbara Boxer, Tom DeLay

Meg Whitman, the former eBay CEO who’s now running as a Republican for governor of California, donated $4,000 to Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) in her 2004 Senate race. The news of this, being pushed hard by Whitman’s credible Republican opponents, is the latest minor stumble in a well-funded but naive gubernatorial campaign. It’s also sort of out of character for Whitman. A search at Opensecrets.org reveals $236,986 in political donations from Whitman over 10 years, with only $8,000 of it going to Democrats. The totals:

$1,000 in 1999 for Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.)

$2,000 in 2002 for Rep. Mike Honda (D-Calif.)

$4,000 in 2003 for Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.)

$1,000 in 2005 for Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-N.Y.)

The rest — $228,986 of it — went either to Republicans or to eBay’s PAC. And the politically tricky donation from the Republican side of Whitman’s ledger is a 2002 donation of $5,000 to Americans for a Republican Majority, the PAC of former Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas).