UPDATE:

Congresswoman Mary Bono’s strict overlaps with much of the districts of Senator Benoit and Assemblyman Nestande.  She has been a leader in the Whitman Campaign for some time now.  We asked her for comment on this latest news…

"I applaud the decision by Sen. John Benoit and Assemblyman Brian Nestande to endorse Meg Whitman for Governor.  Their endorsements show that support for Meg Whitman is coalescing from all segments of our party, and that her ideas to return California to its rightful place as a land of opportunity and prosperity resonate with voters and members of our party across our great state."

ORIGINAL POST: 8:07am

Last year when Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner was out picking up legislative endorsements, he was the only candidate running for the GOP nomination for Governor (ok, well, I guess former Congressman Tom Campbell had been talking about it).  Meg Whitman had been talked about as a potential candidate, but had not made anything official.   Poizner was successful in grabbing up the vast majority of endorsements from California State Legislators in an impressive display of aggressive, early campaigning.

That said, recently Poizner’s campaign has been hit with some of those early endorsers, simply put, changing their minds.   Congressman John Campbell and Assemblyman Jim Nielsen both recently announced their support of Whitman.  Both had been early endorsers of Poizner.

Today it will be announced that two GOP legislators from the Southern California desert communities — State Senator John Benoit and Assemblyman Brian Nestande — are "unendorsing" Poizner, and throwing their support behind Meg Whitman.

What does eMeg have to say about it?

“John Benoit and Brian Nestande are distinguished public servants who are respected by their constituents for the tireless work they do to better their local communities.   Our campaign to fix California is invigorated by their support and I am honored to have their endorsements.”

No doubt there is a smirk hidden behind her words.  After all, politics is a "contact sport" and snatching endorsements from yor primary opponent is, well, fun stuff!

Politically it isn’t that big of a "hit" on Poizner to lose a handful of his dozens of GOP legislative endorsers.  That said, if this trend continues, we’ll be back to you with further analysis.

In closing this is a good opportunity to also mention that recently California Congressman Dan Lungren endorsed Whitman.  He had previous been neutral in the race.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 24th, 2009 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.