Poiz scores more conservative love despite Whitman's "aggressive" courting of conservatives, hard-right turn
Source: Joe Garofoli/San Francisco Chronicle
California Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner is smiling as he holds the weekend endorsement of the California Republican Assembly -- for those who don't follow this level of minutiae, call them the state's conservative cousins. And he's about to announce the endorsement Tuesday of conservative SoCal Rep. Dana Rohrabacher.
But scoring the CRA love wasn't easy. Poiz holds the laurels despite some "aggressive" courting of the CRA's delegates by former eBay CEO Meg Whitman.
Poiz eventually -- on the second ballot -- scored the required 2/3 level of support from the delegates required to get the love hug from the red-meaters. We had heard word that high-level Whitman operatives were pulling delegates into her suite for one-on-one sitdowns with Meg. (A one-on-one conversation with Meg? Wow. Wonder what THAT would be like...)
So we asked CRA president Ken Mettler about whether there was anything unusual about Team Whitman's behavior at the confab.
"Now that (having one-on-one meetings) is not that unusual at a convention," Mettler told us. "But it was very aggressive. There was a high level of operative here."
Mettler also noticed that Whitman sounded a lot more conservative in her speech that he would have predicted. "A lot of candidates do that before they speak to us," Mettler said. "But her speech was much more conservative than anything I expected. She's moved quite a bit to the right."
Especially on immigration, Mettler said. In her speech, Whitman called for a crackdown on sanctuary cities like San Francisco (applause line!)then added "when I am governor, we have to stop the in-state tuition break for illegal immigrants."
She also said she'd ask House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to "use the purse strings that she controls to reimburse California for the costs of incarcerating illegal immigrants.
Just as Whitman steers right on immigration, on Tuesday the Commish will announce that Prop 187 sponsor -- and ex-Reagan speechwriter Rohrabacher is in his camp.
UPDATE: Camp Whitman's Sarah Pompei weighs in on her CRA weekend:
"Meg went to the CRA to speak about her beliefs and her policy positions that will allow her to be the most effective leader for California. She made sure to explain to them that while they may not always agree on the issues, they would always know there she stands, which is an important quality for the next leader for California," said Sarah Pompei.