The Poizner for Governor campaign has taken advantage of the Van Jones controversy by circulating a video clip of GOP rival Meg Whitman  saying she’s a "huge fan" of the controversial green, extremist lefty.

In the battle for the hearts and minds of GOP activists and regulars, this is good hit by the Poizner campaign that’s received a lot of play. Campaigns aren’t tiddly-winks: Whitman said those words on video, and the Poizner campaign took advantage of that. If the situation were reversed, I’ve no doubt the Whitman campaign would have done the same thing.

Here’s what Whitman said in the clip (recorded in May of this year):

"There’s a guy over in Oakland, I think his name is Van Jones. And he and I were on a cruise last summer in the Arctic, on climate change. And I got to know him very well. And a lot of the work he’s doing to enfranchise broader communities I’m a big fan of. He’s doing a marvelous job… I’m a huge fan of his. He is very bright, very articulate, very passionate. I think he is exactly right."

At the same time, I don’t think it’s accurate to portray the video clip as evidence that Whitman supports Jones’ views. I honestly don’t believe she does.

Here’s the state issued by Meg Whitman:

“My husband and I met him and many others on a cruise sponsored by National Geographic and The Aspen Institute. He talked about supporting job growth in California, but of course I did not do a background check of his past over dinner. As these reports have surfaced, it’s clear that he holds views that I entirely reject; any suggestion otherwise is ridiculous.”

Whitman’s statement doesn’t entirely deal with what she said in the video — for example, in May she said she "got to know him very well" during the cruise and now implies she only met him at dinner during the cruise. And I’d like to about what she thinks he "is exactly right."

That said, Whitman’s words in the video strike me as the imprecision of ordinary conversation, which is not entirely unexpected in a first-time candidate unaccustomed to mentally vetting every word for political implications before allowing them to slip from her lips.

For example, much hay is being made of Whitman pronouncing herself "a huge fan" of Jones. My personal experience leads me to believe "huge fan" is simply an habitual expression she applies to people she likes.

This spring, I attended a Whitman for Governor luncheon in Orange County. An old and dear friend of mine worked with Whitman for several years at eBay, so I caught up with Whitman while she worked the crowd to introduce myself. When I mentioned our mutual friend, Whitman smiled and exclaimed she was a "huge fan" of my pal.

My friend shares some aspects of Whitman’s politics, and opposes others, and my friend definitely doesn’t share Van Jones’ environmental politics.

My point is I don’t believe that when Whitman says she is "a huge fan" of someone,, she is necessarily endorsing that person’s political views. And that’s not unusual in the real world outside campaign politics. I have liberal friends of whom I am a "huge fan" and with whom I entirely disagree when it comes to politics and policy.

I’m sure Whitman deeply regrets here choice of words on that video, and in the future will acquire that rhetorical guardedness that has become a inevtiable component of campaigns.

In the meantime, I’d like to see less gotcha and more policy debate between the two campaigns.