Poizner and Whitman declare victory, and the debate continues

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Long-awaited and much-hyped, the first debate between the two Republican candidates for governor is over and, not surprisingly, both candidates declared victory.

Whitman won the battle for the fastest declaration of victory. Her campaign e-mailed its statement to reporters at 6:36 p.m.: ‘Tonight she showed exactly why her policy agenda is continuing to connect with California’s voters. In addition to articulating her vision for California, Meg did an excellent job of holding Steve Poizner to account for his previous positions. This debate underscored exactly why Meg is the strongest candidate to face Jerry Brown and the Democrats in the fall.’

Poizner’s declaration came two minutes later: ‘[Poizner] is the only candidate offering conservative reform. Steve is the only candidate who supports cutting taxes across the board, the only one willing to address illegal immigration, and the only candidate with a clear plan to revitalize our economy.’

Poizner won in terms of sending the most e-mailed rebuttals of his opponent’s statements during the debate, by a margin of 5-1.

Whitman scored points for the most prominent surrogate to spin her positions afterward, in former Gov. Pete Wilson, her campaign chairman. He had to defend his own record, though, when asked why anyone should believe him considering that he supported Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, now considered a failure by many Republicans.

‘I was one of the big backers of Ronald Reagan too,’ Wilson shot back. ‘You can’t be right all the time!’ Then, perhaps anticipating a phone call from Schwarzenegger, he went to a politically safer place – by blaming the Legislature. ‘In fairness to Arnold, he has tried. The Legislature is if anything even more irresponsible than when I was there!’

In the end, neither Poizner nor Whitman fell on his or her face, and neither dramatically outshone the other. Whitman, whom Poizner had long accused of avoiding a debate with him, held her own in her first rhetorical battle as a politician, seeming a bit nervous at the start but becoming steadier. Poizner, in the third campaign of his career, was probably hoping for a clear victory because he trails badly in the polls leading up to the June 8 primary.

The candidates largely repeated the themes that have dominated the campaign heretofore: On taxes, she would impose targeted cuts and he’d cut them across the board. On illegal immigration, she would ‘secure the border’ and he would end state benefits – ‘turn off the magnets’ – that he says draw illegal immigrants here. She would not cut the children of undocumented immigrants off of public education, saying she does not believe in punishing children for their parents’ sins. And each accused each other of being liberal at heart by reversing positions on immigration, abortion, taxes and by supporting such Democrats as U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.).

The debate was not overwhelmingly negative, though the accusations of flip-flopping did continue as the candidates spoke to reporters at the Orange County Performing Arts Center afterward.

Whitman, saying she was glad to have ‘a substantive policy debate,’ then turned back to Poizner’s political evolution.

‘There is one liberal Republican in this race and it is not me,’ she said. ‘I mean, Steve has changed his point of view on virtually every issue.’

Although he has accused her of the same, in Poizner’s view, Whitman’s accusations were ‘nasty’ and ‘misleading.’

‘She kept attacking and attacking and so forth,’ he complained. ‘Of course she’s trying to do this because we have some big differences about where we want to take the state of California. And Meg Whitman, honestly, she’s terrified if this campaign ends up being focused on our differences of where we want to take the state.’

--Michael Rothfeld in Costa Mesa