“Steve Poizner: Shrewd tactician or political oddity? In the long run of the campaign, how will his anti-Whitman allegation play?”

The incident says more about Mike Murphy’s acumen. One of the essential rules of politics: Talk dirty. Write clean.

“Long run”? I’ve already forgotten about it. Looking forward to Round Two of this bout with Meg still being a 2-1 favorite for a TKO.

A question for Poizner: Have you no sense of sanity, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of sanity?

My general rule of thumb is that a candidate should never get into a public pissing match with an opponent’s consultant. Poizner violated that precept.

He’s a goner.

Shrewd, no.  Oddity, yes.  As for the campaign, it’s pretty much over anyway.

It won’t play well for him.  The average voter could care less.  They assume all politicians are heavy handed.  Makes him look like a whiner.

Close call, but in a battle of political lightweights, a slight edge to Poizner in this latest round. To casual observers his complaints reinforce the distrust and disgust they already feel toward politicians -- just more hard ball and gutter warfare.  Murphy’s mental stability comment could ricochet and hit his seldom-voting candidate who is spending millions of her own dollars in a bid to govern a state that is ungovernable.

Steve Poizner is the long-lost political brother of Phil Angelides. He has hit his political ceiling. Sorry, Steve, just the way it is. Man-up and stop whining.

Desperate and sad.  Would say or do anything for his political goals.  Jerry Brown thanks him.

Well, this is one more example of the dynamic that we’ve been seeing among California Republicans for some time now. The Republican primary electorate is such a narrow, unrepresentative slice of California, who take their marching orders from the goose-stepping “heads on a stick” talk-radio guys, that winning over that crowd necessarily means acting crazier than your competition. To gain the primary advantage, Poizner and Whitman are competing to be the looniest. And to the remaining 90 percent of us, Jerry Brown is looking more sensibly gubernatorial by the minute.

It’s desperate gasp that no one cares about in the middle of a recession...

Poizner is both a shrewd tactician and a political oddity. People who are watching closely understand he has been becoming one with the grassroots rank and file Republicans -- those who determine primary winners. He has also done his government job well, cutting 10 percent off of the budget and staff of the Department of Insurance - before it was fashionable. He is a wealthy man who doesn’t own 5 houses around the world, hasn’t bought a new car in years, and who taught in an inner city school and served the U.S. as part of the National Security Agency on 9-11.

Never mind the Poizner-Whitman soap opera. Your question this week should be on the possible confirmation of Abel Maldonado as Lt. Gov… Abel is smart and well positioned to be both the GOP’s Great Brown Hope (at least among moderates) and Democrats’ worst nightmare/budget savior, depending on the timing of his possible confirmation.

Political nitwit. Comes off as the combative whiner, running to the FBI with charges of extortion. The average Joe, if he bothers, will look at Murphy’s email as a reasonable attempt to avoid a costly and damaging brawl -- not as a criminal attempt to bully Poizner out of the race. If this is what passes for “shrewd,” then we’re all in trouble if Poizner becomes governor.

Poizner’s psychotic episode puts to rest any lingering doubts that he is unfit for office.

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