There’s the old math, there’s the new math, and then there’s California Republican gubernatorial primary math.
So if you read Steve Poizner campaign chair Jim Brulte’s April 23 memo to supporters of the state insurance commissioner’s gubernatorial campaign, you’d learn where this race really stands:
Poizner’s got this primary in the bag.
What’s the evidence? Well, a SurveyUSA poll shows Whitman, the former eBay chief, holding onto a precarious 22-point lead.
That’s how you know her goose cooked.
Under Republican math, which was fully certified by the gubernatorial primary election of 2002, there’s a massive, hidden, late-swinging vote to the most conservative, boring white guy in the field – and away from the more moderate (and thus electable) opponent.
In that election, Richard Riordan, the moderate, led Bill Simon, the conservative white guy, by 30 points a little more than a month before the election. But then, as Brulte writes, the Republican math kicked in:
"In the last month, Simon overcame that deficit and ending up beating Riordan by 18 points," writes Brulte. "It happened then, and we will see the same results in this primary."
Could it be any simpler? Given the 48-point conservative-and-boring-white-guy swing built into GOP primary models, Whitman’s 22-point lead is actually a 26-point deficit.
Let’s give Whitman credit: she’s doing a good job at keeping a lid on the panic in her camp.
Some politicians, when facing all but certain defeat, do crazy things, like having their campaigns issue memos based on crazy mathematical projections based on long-ago elections.