Matt Ortega

McDonnell wrote that ''working women'' were ''detrimental to the family.''

Gubernatorial hopeful Meg Whitman was scheduled to headline a campaign fundraiser for fellow office seeker Bob McDonnell in Virginia but abruptly canceled her appearance this afternoon.

The calendar re-shuffling might be good news for Whitman, who is now seeking the GOP gubernatorial nomination in California and faces a potentially difficult three-way primary. After all, national Democrats have been eager to draw attention to McDonnell's controversial master's thesis that called working women "detrimental" to families, and they have skewered the Republicans who have journeyed to Virginia since the document was uncovered.

Whitman's scheduled appearance, however, begs the question: Why do it? Why would she agree to help raise money for McDonnell?

Her explanation behind her spotty voting record may best answer that:

Whitman is now taking heat for explaining her lack of a voting record by saying she had been “focused on raising a family, on my husband’s career, and we moved many, many times.”

Maybe it did not bother Whitman when, at age 34, McDonnell wrote a vision of the United States that would have prevented Whitman from pursuing her chosen career path as eBay president/CEO and her foray into politics. McDonnell wrote that "working women" were "detrimental to the family."

DNC spokesman Hari Sevugan issued a strong statement upon learning of the cancellation.

Whitman didn't even have to make the trip to be targeted: DNC spokesman Hari Sevugan issued a tough statement on learning that the event was canceled, claiming that Whitman — one of the country's most successful female executives when she stepped down as eBay CEO in in 2007 — wouldn't have had the opportunity to shine "in Bob McDonnell's Virginia.

"With his radical views on women anyone that Bob McDonnell touches is toxic, and now that the closed door event's become public, it's not surprising that she backed out," Sevugan said in an e-mail to CNN. "I'm sure Meg Whitman didn't want Californians to know that she was not only embracing, but was raising money for, a candidate who believes that women working outside the home are a 'detriment to the family' and voted against the principle of equal pay for equal work."

"Indeed, in Bob McDonnell's Virginia, Meg Whitman would not have been able to rise to position she rose to at eBay," he added.