Down by 30 points in the polls? Check.
Being battered by a never-ending barrage of TV and radio ads? Check.
Having trouble raising money? Check.
If you listen to Steve Poizner, all that shows is that he’s got Meg Whitman right where he wants her.
The next four days are Poizner’s best – and possibly last – chance to turn things around if he’s going to make a serious run at victory in June’s GOP primary for governor.
It’s a window of opportunity that opens tonight with the start of the state Republican convention at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Santa Clara and continues through his first face-to-face debate with Whitman Monday evening in Costa Mesa.
Sometime during those four days, Poizner needs a game-changing event, something that can stop his bleeding in the opinion polls and convince his supporters that there’s light at the end of what has been a very, very dark tunnel.
The state insurance commissioner still has the best part of three months to catch Whitman, but unless he can provide his backers with a reason to hope, a growing number of his more pragmatic supporters are going to sidle their way toward the Whitman bandwagon.
Poizner knows his only road to a victory in June goes straight through Whitman, so expect an all attack, all the time strategy over the next four days.
While Poizner isn’t speaking to the convention until dinner on Saturday night, he’s scheduled a press conference for 6:30 tonight, just an hour or so before Whitman gives her own dinnertime speech.
Expect Poizner to spend most of the session stepping on Whitman’s speech and pushing his claim that Whitman is neither a real Republican nor a true conservative.
That’s a story that could have some legs at the convention, which typically is dominated by conservatives from across the state.
For the past three years, Poizner has been trying to become the darling of those grassroots activists, dropping in on GOP chicken dinners in towns large and small. He’s probably had his picture taken with a good number of the delegates who will be in Santa Clara this weekend.
He’s also made a concerted effort to jettison any position that might remind people he started his political career as a moderate protégé of Arnold Schwarzenegger, running in a Bay Area Assembly district.
Poizner’s campaign got a boost last week when he was endorsed by the California Republican Assembly, a stronghold for conservative activists. He’s hoping that if he can bloody Whitman over the long weekend and come across as the poster child for the Republican right, the convention delegates will head back to their home counties and tell their friends that Poizner should be their guy.
But it’s not just the party activists who vote on election day. That’s why Monday’s debate is a chance for Poizner to reach a wider audience, putting his platform in front of people whose only knowledge of the governor’s race comes from the ads Whitman has been running non-stop since September.
Not that the New Majority, the big bucks GOP group sponsoring the debate, is making it any too easy for people to find it. The crowd at the Orange County Performing Arts Center will be invitation only and about the only way to see the showdown will be by live streaming video at NewMajorityDebate.com at 5:30 p.m.
Of course, a good bit of Poizner’s campaign strategy is based on Whitman screwing up, which really hasn’t happened so far.
While there have been a few hiccups, such as her deer-in-the-headlights performance during a press conference at last September’s GOP convention in Indian Wells, most of Whitman’s problems have been limited to the types of fluffs and misstatements every candidate makes sooner or later. More importantly, almost none have moved past the one-day-wonder stage into the type of headline-grabbing event that can sink a campaign.
It’s no accident that Whitman isn’t holding a press conference at the convention this weekend or that she’s ducking impromptu questions from political reporters in favor of more controlled interviews with favored writers and TV types.
But as long as she hangs on to her huge lead, Whitman really has no reason to leave her bubble and join the rough and tumble of the campaign.
That’s why this long weekend is so important to Poizner. If he can start building a buzz with the GOP grassroots and then look and sound like a winner in Monday’s debate, the poll numbers might start to turn as Republicans begin taking a longer look at him. And that could force Whitman to come out and play.
But if he can’t manage to focus the spotlight on himself, Whitman can start turning her attention to Jerry Brown and an early start for the fall campaign.
John Wildermuth is a longtime writer on California politics.