Poizner's past support of taxes could haunt him

Contra Costa Times ^ | 8/27/09 | Steven Harmon

[NormsRevenge]

SACRAMENTO — Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner would just as well bury his past support for taxes as he seeks the Republican gubernatorial nomination amid fears that levies could be on the table as the state remains mired in an economic funk.

The problem for him is that his previous life as a moderate who considered taxes as a way to improve education is making it hard for conservative talk radio hosts and red-state bloggers — and presumably grass-roots followers — to swallow Poizner's newfound conservative pitch.

"I absolutely do not buy his sudden fiscal conservatism," conservative blogger Warner Todd Huston said. "His entire history suggests otherwise."

Poizner's campaign went so far as to erase a passage earlier this month from his campaign Web site indicating his association with EdVoice, an education advocacy group he cofounded in 2006 that backed a losing ballot initiative, Proposition 88. The measure would have raised parcel taxes by $500 million.

Poizner, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, insists that he had resigned from the EdVoice advisory board over his opposition to the parcel tax, an assertion backed by Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, who cofounded EdVoice.

"After about a few months' argument, (Poizner) decided to resign from EdVoice rather than be a part of something he fundamentally didn't agree with," Hastings ... "I was very disappointed he was unwilling to break with the orthodoxy of no new taxes, even though Prop. 88 was quite modest and all focused on education funding."

The Poizner campaign, blaming the Web site scrubbing on a young staff member, restored the EdVoice reference Wednesday to his campaign biographical section.

Critics remain skeptical, given Poizner's earlier contributions of nearly $200,000 for Proposition 39, a successful 2000 ballot measure that lowered the threshold on local education taxes from a two-thirds vote to 55 percent.

[Tennessee Nana]

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[Wiseghy]

Poizner is actually an OK guy. However, he is a rich guy who decided to go into politics relatively recently. I don’t think he grasped how important it is to be consistent in principles over time.

Like a lot of conservative urbanites, he figured that moderation was the way to go in a liberal state. But flipping ends up looking inconsistant, and the state is far more conservative that even Republican leaders realize.