Whitman, Poizner meet in second Calif GOP debate

By JULIET WILLIAMS, Associated Press Writer
Sunday, May 2, 2010 at 11 a.m.

SAN JOSE, Calif.— Two wealthy Silicon Valley Republicans who are battling in an increasingly negative campaign for their party's gubernatorial nomination meet for their second debate Sunday, where they are likely to touch on everything from Wall Street to public service.

The front-runner in the race, former eBay chief executive Meg Whitman, is coming off a tough week in which her service as a board member of the embattled Wall Street investment firm Goldman Sachs was highlighted as the firm came under increasing fire in Congress.

Her rival, state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, is trying desperately to catch up with Whitman, who at one point held a 40- to 50-percentage point lead over Poizner in public opinion polls. Poizner says polls now show him narrowing that gap after launching a multimillion-dollar negative ad blitz highlighting Whitman's ties to Wall Street and comparing her to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Poizner has staked out a conservative platform, hammering on issues such as immigration policy, the environment and abortion as he courts the most extreme elements of the Republican Party for the June 8 primary.

But his apparent reversals have led to accusations that Poizner has flip-flopped since his failed 2004 bid for state Assembly, when he received a 100 percent rating from the pro-abortion rights group Planned Parenthood and campaigned as a moderate.

Poizner, who is also a multimillionaire and successful Silicon Valley entrepreneur, held off advertising for nearly a year while Whitman aired dozens of radio and television spots introducing herself to voters. Whitman, a billionaire, has already given her campaign $59 million and has said she could spend as much as $150 million to promote her agenda of running California more like a business.

The winner of the June 8 contest will face state Attorney General Jerry Brown, who was governor from 1975 to 1983.

Because of Whitman's outsized spending, unions that back Brown have already begun attacking her, this week launching a campaign to mobilize 25,000 volunteers against her candidacy.

It also highlighted Whitman's service as a Goldman Sachs board member in 2001-02 and her profits from a now-banned practice called "spinning," in which wealthy investors had preferential access to initial public offerings. The shares were quickly sold for large profits, but some questioned whether officials such as Whitman were given access to the profitable stocks in exchange for steering business to Goldman.

Whitman denied any link in an interview with The Associated Press this week.

"I didn't see the conflict of interest at the time," she said. "I honestly didn't. It was perfectly legal and standard practice back then."

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