California Governor Race: Whitman Campaign Email Pressures Poizner to Quit

One campaign trying to convince another to drop out is hardly a new strategy. It's common knowledge that a bruising and expensive primary battle can hurt the victorious candidate in the general election. Whitman has a massive war chest, strong polling, and is within the margin of error when pitted against Democratic candidate Jerry Brown, according to Rasmussen (Poizner, meanwhile, gets beaten by 10 points). Whitman's campaign has made the argument that, if Poizner drops out, he will be the natural GOP front-runner to take Sen. Diane Feinstein's senate seat in 2012 and will leave the California Republican party in much better shape.

Unfortunately for Steve Poizner, it's not that irrational of a proposition.

For months, Steve Poizner's campaign has failed to gain any sort of traction with California Republican voters. In every 2009 poll, according to Real Clear Politics, Poizner grabbed no higher than 10 percent of the vote, while Whitman captured as high as 37 percent. When Tom Campbell, a star of the conservative movement, dropped out of the race to run for senate instead, Whitman exploded to as high as 45 percent while Poizner remained stagnant. The latest PPIC poll puts Whitman 30 points ahead.

Of course, primary numbers can always change -- look at the turning tables in Florida's race between Charlie Crist and Marco Rubio, which has seen Rubio's campaign turn a 22-point deficit into a 12-point lead. Although Poizner is a millionaire as well, he hopes the campaign emails will help paint Whitman as an entitled, self-funded, establishment candidate, which could be particularly damaging in the current economic environment.

But Meg Whitman has already survived two disasters practically unscathed. In October, it surfaced that Whitman had endorsed Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer in 2003 (a cardinal sin in California Republican circles), and in September, an investigation by the Sacramento Bee sparked an attack on her poor voting record.

As the Washington Post pointed out, "Will voters who are worried about the morass that is California's economy be deeply affected by the fact that one candidate tried to push the other out of a race? VERY doubtful."

This blow-up doesn't make either candidate look good; Whitman looks like a bully, and Poizner looks like a whiner. But it may only draw more attention to Poizner's stalled campaign and persuade more operatives to ask him to leave.

The bottom line is that Republican and even independent voters (which current polling shows are breaking to Whitman) in California are wary of the prospect of a Democratic governor leading a Democratic legislature through the state's economic crisis. Republicans in this deep blue state gravitate toward potential winners, and Whitman has successfully portrayed herself as that winner. On top of that, the argument that Poizner could take the GOP nomination for Feinstein's seat in 2012 is a strong one given the state's lack of other recognizable Republicans.

Of course, no one can make Steve Poizner quit. But don't be surprised if a growing number of state Republicans start believing that they will be better off if he does.