Trailing in the polls and getting little media coverage, California's Republican candidate for governor handed out $40,000 in scholarships on Tuesday, just two weeks after offering gift cards to attendees at a campaign event. Neel Kashkari, a former U.S. Treasury official who is challenging popular Democratic Governor Jerry Brown in the lopsidedly Democratic state, is offering the incentives as his campaign trails Brown's by double digits in the weeks before November's election. "Candidates spend money to reach the voters and get support and that’s what he’s doing," said Jessica Levinson, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. "It’s just more in your face than what we typically see." On Tuesday, Kashkari awarded scholarships in the amounts of $25,000, $10,000 and $5,0000 to students who competed to make campaign videos for him. Last month, he gave gas station gift cards at a campaign rally against Brown's proposal to build high-speed rail in California. The first 100 people to come and smash a toy train in symbolic opposition to the project received cards worth $25.
Source: Trailing in polls, California candidate offers scholarships, gift cards | Reuters
