I talked about this a bit in the Morning Jolt, building on yesterday’s post on Steve Poizner’s accusations against Meg Whitman.

Apparently Mike Murphy, a GOP consultant and adviser to Whitman, reached out to a Poizner associate, trying to see if Poizner could be persuaded to drop out of the gubernatorial race and encouraged to run for Senate in 2012. Some might find his language threatening, others would find it pretty garden-variety for a political consultant: “I hate the idea of us each spending $20 million beating the other in a primary, only to have a damaged nominee. And we can spend $40 million tearing up Steve if we must; bad for him, bad for us, and a crazy waste to tear up a guy with great future statewide potential – really the only guy on the CA GOP bench for the future.”

Based on that, Poizner wrote the state attorney general, secretary of state, and Sacramento FBI, asking them to investigate whether a crime had been committed. (By the way, the state attorney general is . . . Jerry Brown, who is the almost-certain Democratic nominee for governor.)

I thought Californians were supposed to be laid-back, but the Poizner response seems . . . over-caffeinated:

The Steve Poizner for Governor campaign issued the following statement from Communications Director Jarrod Agen: We are pleased to hear that Mr. Murphy ”will fully cooperate” with state and local authorities and will provide “full details of [his] communication with various Poizner consultants.” Although Meg Whitman refuses to speak to California reporters, there are questions that still remain and must be answered: – Did Meg Whitman order Mike Murphy, her Chief Strategist, to do whatever it took to make sure she did not have a serious opponent in the Republican primary? – If Meg Whitman did not authorize Mike Murphy to threaten Steve Poizner, does she approve of his threats? – Did Meg Whitman offer a cash bounty to Mike Murphy to get Steve Poizner out of the race? – Did Meg Whitman authorize her Chief Strategist to try to buy off Steve Poizner by offering him the 2012 U.S. Senate Republican Nomination? – Will Meg Whitman cooperate fully with the authorities, as Mike Murphy has pledged to do? – When will Meg Whitman explain to Californians why she allowed her Chief Strategist to make these threats and use intimidation tactics? – Will Meg Whitman answer reporters’ questions about Mr. Murphy’s threat to use $40+ million of her money to tear Steve up?

Really, guys? Really? Calling the FBI over an e-mail encouraging him to consider another run for another office?

This isn’t even remotely the most threatening comment in California politics in recent years. Back in 2003, during the recall election, California Democratic party spokesman Bob Mulholland said that “Schwarzenegger is going to find out, that unlike a Hollywood movie set, the bullets coming at him in this campaign are going to be real bullets and he is going to have to respond to them.”

Maybe this will rebound to Poizner’s advantage, but I can’t help but suspect that he just put up a big sign that says, “If I’m this apoplectic about a Whitman adviser, just think of what Jerry Brown will do to me.”