Nobody threatens Steve "Tattletale" Poizner. Nobody!

So the big news of the day comes from the gubernatorial race, which has thus far been pretty lacking in drama. Mike Murphy, campaign manager for GOP frontrunner Meg Whitman, apparently sent an email to rival candidate Steve Poizner’s campaign team, urging that candidate to drop out of the race, and threatening to spend upwards of $40 million to defeat him if he refused. Now, assuming the email communiqué is legitimate and factual, this isn’t that abnormal an occurrence in California politics, where even intraparty primaries are noted for their brutal, cutthroat quality; there’s a reason state political websites take names like Rough & Tumble and Fox & Hounds. Murphy’s mistake, however, was in assuming that Steve Poizner would just roll over like a trained dog upon receiving such an email.

(Full disclosure: my parents and I both worked, in a volunteer capacity, on Ira Ruskin’s successful 2004 campaign for State Assembly against none other than Steve Poizner. I met Poizner on a handful of occasions and, while I can't honestly say I "know" him, I had many chances to observe his political style throughout that campaign.)

No, Poizner has chosen instead to lodge an official complaint-of-sorts with a number of state and federal entities charged with enforcing or overseeing election laws – the Attorney General, the Secretary of State, the Chairman of the Fair Political Practices Commission, the U.S. Attorney’s Office, and no less than four FBI agents. No kidding; you can view the letter here, in PDF format. (As an aside, the irony is lost on exactly no one that the first person to whom the letter is addressed is Attorney General Jerry Brown, the presumptive Democratic nominee whom either Poizner or Whitman will face in the November general election.)

Now, let’s set aside for a moment the indisputable fact that, if Poizner’s charge is true, then Whitman’s campaign is in serious breach of anyone’s concept of ethics and probably also state election laws. What I’m curious about is the politics of Poizner releasing the email and formally lodging his complaint(s); what does he expect to gain? For one thing, barring a conviction for a serious crime, such as a felony, I’m pretty certain there is no authority under state law for anyone to disqualify a candidate from competing in an election, so there’s no chance Whitman could, say, be found in violation of political ethics laws and removed from the ballot.

No, it looks like Poizner’s just trying to boost his fortunes among likely Republican voters here. After all, he’s 28 points down in the latest Field Poll, and the election ain’t getting any further away. Whitman’s probably got the cash to bury even the ultra-wealthy Poizner with TV and radio ads, and much of the state political press has already dubbed “eMeg” the frontrunner, looking past the primary and speculating about a likely Whitman-Brown matchup in the fall. Poizner probably feels like his only hope left is to convince primary voters that Whitman is unethical, ruthless, obsessed with gaining power at no matter what cost, etc. – much like some of Barack Obama’s supporters did with Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Democratic race.

It’s possible this may hurt Whitman, but keep in mind that she could always just fire Murphy and disavow his attempts to push Poizner out of the race, much like she distanced herself from a racist city councilmember from Southern California this week; she moved quickly enough on that one that Democrats didn’t even have time to make it an issue. Here’s her opportunity to do the same. Hell, she could always fire Murphy and then rehire him if she wins the election (pause for excruciating laughter), like Obama did with Samantha Power.

So my conclusion is that this looks like a desperate grasp for attention by an increasingly desperate candidate who is running out of time to introduce himself to voters and convince them that he’s up to the job he’s applying for. True, Whitman isn’t up to the job either, not by a long shot, and between the two of them, I’d begrudgingly have to give Poizner the edge on competence, but the guy’s polling at 17 percent. My griping about polls aside, 17 percent (compared to Whitman’s 45 percent) is pretty damn low, and at this stage of the game only the severest possible scandal could damage eMeg enough for Poizner to recover. This does not qualify as such a scandal.