This just in from longtime FR friend (and fellow Vin Scully devotee) Rob Stutzman, Main thing you should know about Rob before reading the following is that his name does appear on the list of "well compensated" consultants to Meg Whitman’s campaign for Governor. 

Who ever said politics wasn’t a contact sport?

Rob Stutzman: Poizner Can’t Win The War

I can just imagine last Monday morning’s staff meeting at Poizner for Governor HQ.
 
“Boss wants to do a ‘major announcement’ press conference.”
 
“What’s he announcing?”
 
“He’s going to accuse the Whitman campaign of a felony because they back-channeled a suggestion that he should get out of the race and preserve his political future before they launch their media campaign against us.”
 
“Felony?”
 
“Yeah, we sent a letter to the FBI.”
 
Awkward silence.
 
More awkward silence.
 
“Any cheese Danish left?”
 
For the record, and to spare another misplaced Poizner call to the FBI, the Whitman campaign has not bugged Poizner HQ. But this conversation can’t be far from the truth.  Steve Poizner’s bizarre rant and claims on Monday has brought into focus the real elephant in the room in the GOP primary.
 
Let’s be truthful here. He doesn’t have any viable path to victory. His continued candidacy pleases no one more than Jerry Brown and John Burton.  And his antics will very likely lead most Californians to conclude he is unfit to lead California.  The dude’s unhinged.
 
Or in the words of a columnist in his hometown newspaper: “His reservoir of common sense has deserted him completely.”
 
In fact, there has been no single analysis in the media or by political professionals on either side of the aisle that has described Poizner’s performance on Monday as anything other than an exercise in self-combustion.  He’s lost it. I’m not saying he’s gone crazy, but he’s lost all perspective and, what’s worse, he’s engaging in a reckless self-delusional path that weakens his party’s chances for success in November.
 
By any reasonable measure, and despite planning his run for years, Poizner has not met the challenge of positioning himself for victory against Whitman.
 
He cannot raise serious money to lead the party to victory.  She can.  And not solely with her own largesse, but also with the broad donor support that is coalescing behind a top-of-the-ticket candidate who can lead the party to multiple victories.
 
Whitman is heavily supporting critical party-building efforts, including voter registration programs, while Poizner calls the FBI and California’s Democratic AG and Secretary of State to investigate. What is he thinking?

Now we know why he has had only a couple serious endorsements since Whitman announced her candidacy a year ago while Whitman has won the support of the most influential party leaders.
 
Poizner may have a lot of money to spend, but not enough to win a war of attrition with Whitman.  All he can assure with his money is a very expensive battle that will leave Jerry Brown and the Democrats chortling. That was Mike Murphy’s point in his very reasonable outreach to Team Poizner.
 
This must be a very uncomfortable week for those who have endorsed Poizner and for much of his political team.  And the hits keep coming: Poizner took to the airwaves Tuesday to keep calling Murphy names and insisting that the colorful metaphor used by Murphy to convey political contrasting somehow was actually a physical threat. 
 
Seriously here, someone in his camp should convince him to stop embarrassing himself and those who have lent him their good name. And more importantly, tell him it’s time to take a gut check and both preserve what’s left of his political future and do what’s right for the greater Republican cause.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.