Will the Real Republican Please Stand Up?

"I am not beholden to any party."
California Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, candidate for governor

That must be true given Steve Poizner’s history of political donations. Poizner has given, and generously at that, to both Republican and Democrat candidates for office in addition to several Democrat controlled committees, this based on he and his wife’s publicly reported accounts, anyway. Oddly, Poizner's wife happens to be a registered Democrat who Poizner has “blamed” for many of the Democrat contributions that have his signature affixed. Such donations include: a $10,000 contribution to the Democratic National Committee on 10/02/00; $1,000 to John Forbes Kerry on 02/15/01; and a $10,000 donation he made to the '00 Gore/Lieberman Recount Committee.

In fact, there is quite a lot of chatter out there that seems to point to Poizner's less than stellar Republican credentials. He has been termed everything but a conservative for the last 5 years.

Poizner himself has been eager to play down his Republican designation. For instance, Poizner once told the San Mateo County Times, "I am a frustrated moderate Republican." Poizner seems to be a RINO poster child who is frustrated because his billion dollar fortune can’t buy him the stature, no pun intended, of the current Governor. Poizner ran for the State Assembly in a liberal Bay Area district, spent millions of dollars of his own money and still lost. He ran that race as the "model of a liberal GOPer" according to press accounts then. "Poizner's major donations have gone to candidates who oppose equal pay for women. He has donated thousands of dollars to candidates endorsed by the National Pro-Life Council and then he sends out tons of literature pretending to be pro-choice," wrote the San Mateo County Times (San Mateo, CA), October 22, 2004.

These days, now that he's running for governor, he's suddenly trying to sound more "Republican." But past associates and his own past statements don't seem to square well with his the new rhetoric.

Here are a few examples:

• Former deputy mayor of Los Angeles and candidate for Insurance Commissioner Gary Mendoza, a moderate and a decent guy, said, “Less than one-one-hundredth of Republican primary voters supported the 2000 Gore-Lieberman recount, as did Steve Poizner, who is really a Democrat.” (The Hotline, September 16, 2005, The Daily News of Los Angeles, June 26, 2005)
• Poizner has been called an “Arnold Republican,” a label that implies moderate social policies compared to the traditional party platform. (The Stanford Daily October 28, 2004)
• “I don’t think either party in Sacramento does a very good job of representing people like me.” (The Stanford Daily October 28, 2004)

All this explains why he has supported several "open primary" proposals (which he now conveniently opposes) in the past. Perhaps he felt there weren't enough people like him in the party? Does California need more people like him in the GOP? After all, it's the Republican party - not the RINO party!

California needs a real Republican alternative to Democrats and the Arnold Republicans. Is Steve Poizner a real Republican?

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