Smut Peddler, Guv Hopeful Meg Whitman Waffles on Porn Subsidies

Gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman, who as eBay CEO proved her mettle as a hardcore fetish pornography entrepreneur, did not respond to an inquiry Wednesday about whether as governor she would seek to continue a California program that, until recently, subsidized the production of smut.

Next week's SF Weekly includes an exclusive report about a California economic development program that has routed tens of thousands of dollars in subsidies to an Internet pornography producer. Continuing -- or even bolstering -- this practice would seem a tailor-made campaign issue for Whitman, who bills herself as a business whiz ready to revive the California economy. She backs her economic talk with real chops: In 1998, just as eBay was preparing an initial stock offering, Whitman oversaw the creation of a special eBay site exclusively for the sale of pornography. The move was prescient -- though much porn consumption has shifted to streaming Internet video, there's still a market for specialized fetish material best sold in DVD -- or otherwise physically-shippable form.