Mad Dog Poizner Strikes Again
Steve Poizner has yet to spend a dime from his multi-million-dollar bank account opposing Proposition 1A on TV, but the Insurance Commissioner was once again seeking free media Monday, attacking Attorney General Jerry Brown and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa for backing the May 19 election measure.
“Jerry’s endorsement has reminded us that the tired Sacramento status quo offers insincere excuses instead of real results when it comes to ending the state’s structural budget deficit,” said Poizner, who so far not has not articulated a genuine solution of his own to California’s budget mess.
“Using bankruptcy as a scare tactic is just an excuse for lack of leadership,” Poizner added, in attacking Villaraigosa, who predicted Friday that the state could go broke if Prop.1A fails. “The financial integrity and budgeting process of this state is already bankrupt.”
Pretty boilerplate stuff except for one thing:
How come Poizner skipped over San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, who also supports Prop.1A? Was this an oversight, a tactical decision or a snub?
None of the above, insisted Poizner spokesmouth Kevin Spillane, citing the timeliness of Villaraigosa’s comments, made Friday, and Brown’s, reported Saturday in calbuzz.
Besides, he said, “At this point, they (Brown and Villaraigosa) are the top two Democratic candidates. We’ll be having fun with Gavin in the future. And we just wanted to get out there and promote calbuzz.” (Sounds okay to us).
So the omission of Newsom was a kind of a snub. And given that the Field Poll shows nearly four in 10 Democrats and independents have no opinion about Newsom, why waste too much time making him better known?
But why hasn’t Poizner or Megabucks Meg Whitman , the former eBay auctioneer in chief, spent any of their millions to rail against Prop. 1A – and get themselves known statewide — on TV?
“Everyone’s in such a hurry! All in due time,” Whitman mouthpiece Rob Stutzman told us in an email. “Keeping our options open in 1A.”
Said Spillane: “It’s still up in the air. A million here, a million there – it adds up. . . At the end of the day, it’s not my money.”
All of which lends credence to speculation by estimable SacB columnizer Dan Walters who wondered in print the other day: “Could it be that Whitman and Poizner are denouncing the measures to gain traction with GOP conservatives but secretly want them to pass to make their hoped-for governorships easier? An old saying reveals the answer: Money talks while B.S. walks.”
Not to put too fine a point on it, big guy.
I have been disappointed that candidates (particularly Republicans) don’t seem to have a serious chance of winning big races without putting in some big money of their own. Now we have upped the ante. Candidates don’t have serious positions unless they put big money into it.
The fundamental and unsolvable problem for Whitpoizbell is that whatever it takes to win the primary will cost them the general.
In the primary we have three bay area moderate Republicans running all over California spewing right-wing bumper stickers in an effort to capture the disaffected but decisive conservative vote. In doing so they are giving the Democrats plenty of ammunition for the fall campaign. (Remember Arnold’s skillful use of Angelides’ tax increase quote…)
My favorite ad would be the one splicing clips of candidate Meg and candidate Arnold saying nearly identical sentences about bloated budgets, government waste, no new taxes, run it like a business, etc. etc. The tag line should be “amateur hour is over.”
Of course the real question is whether a self-financing bona fide conservative from Southern California will walk in – and walk away – with the Republican primary. 59% of the state’s registered Republicans live in the seven Southern California counties. (Nearly half live in the LA media market.) Elsewhere you have Central Valley, rural and mountain Republicans, who make Texas look liberal.
So the important question remains, “Issa” a real conservative going to run?