Will Whitman and Poizner donations to Democrats sink them in 2010?

Should they decide to enter the 2010 race for governor, former EBay CEO Meg Whitman and State Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner will likely have to explain to Republican voters why in recent years they have donated thousands of dollars to Democratic candidates.

Contribution reports show that Whitman gave former State Controller Steve Westly, with whom she worked at EBay, $20,000 in combined donations for his 2002 run for controller and 2006 campaign for governor. In 2005 she contributed $1,000 to state Sen. Joe Simitian’s 2008 reelection campaign. She made contributions to candidates for national offices as well: $1,000 to U.S. Rep. Mike Honda in 2002, $1,000 to U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell in 2002, $1,000 to U.S. Sen. Ben Nelson in 2006, $2,000 to U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer in 2003, and $1,000 to U.S. Sen. John Kerry in 1999.

Unlike Whitman, a political newcomer, Poizner’s record has been vetted in the course of a previous campaign. In his 2006 run for his current seat, Republicans became acquainted with Poizner’s contributions to Democrats, which included $10,000 to the Democratic National Committee in 2000, $1,000 to Al Gore’s presidential campaign in 2000 and $2,000 to Kerry in 2001.

It’s not entirely surprising that, given their prior careers in the business world, the two have contributed to Democratic causes. Whitman and Poizner both made fortunes in the business world. Whitman headed the online auction giant EBay, and Poizner held the reins at the Silicon Valley technology firms SnapTrak and Strategic Mapping. Working in the California corporate world often means working with leaders in a Democrat-heavy state.

“You can’t just be an ideological and partisan player because you have to do business,” explains Garry South, a veteran California Democratic strategist.

But, as Whitman and Poizner mull bids for the state’s top job, the contributions highlight the perils of running as a perceived moderate in a California Republican primary, where ingratiating oneself with party’s conservative faithful is widely seen as crucial.

Strategists interviewed for this article frequently recalled the last competitive Republican gubernatorial primary, the 2002 race between conservative businessman Bill Simon and moderate Richard Riordan, a former Los Angeles mayor. The White House-backed Riordan was seen as the strongest general election challenger to Democratic Governor Gray Davis, but Simon emerged from the primary as the Republican candidate.

Poizner aides have said in the past that the contributions came out of a joint account the Insurance Commissioner shares with his wife Carole, who is a Democrat.

Aides to Whitman, meanwhile, declined to discuss the Democratic contributions, citing a desire not to participate in political interviews at the time. Whitman is currently serving as chair of the Republican National Committee’s Victory Fund. Last week she hosted a fundraiser at her Atherton home for Republican presidential candidate John McCain that fetched $2.5 million.

Republicans agreed that, because Whitman is a political newcomer and less well known among party activists, she would face a higher hurdle to jump than Poizner, who has already explained his donations.

“It’s less of an issue for Poizner,” said Jon Fleischman, a consultant and publisher of the conservative-leaning Flashreport, a state political news digest.

“Poizner has an advantage in that more Republicans know him,” said Mike Spence, the chair of the California Republican Assembly, an independent organization that promotes conservative policies.

And several strategists mentioned that, in addition to her Democratic donations, Whitman would likely face questions from Republican voters about why until last fall she had been registered as a ‘Decline to State’ voter.

Running as a perceived moderate Republican has its benefits in a general election, allowing a candidate to claim that he or she is electable in a state where Democrats have a voter registration edge of about 1.7 million. But running as a moderate in a Republican primary, for some, has been tumultuous.

That was the case for Rosario Marin, the former U.S. Treasurer who ran a failed 2004 primary bid against former California Secretary of State Bill Jones for the right to challenge incumbent Democratic U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer. The more conservative Jones won the primary but would go on to lose to Boxer by a margin of nearly 20 percent.

The most famous case of a moderate Republican losing a primary bid to a more conservative opponent was in the 2002 gubernatorial race, when Riordan faced off against Simon. Riordan had positioned himself as a pro-abortion rights Republican, a move that immediately caused problems with conservative activists in the party. A little more than a month before the primary, the Davis political team found a counterintuitive way to make Riordan’s relationship with his party’s base even more precarious: they dug up footage of Riordan calling abortion murder and blasted it out through television advertisements.

“We put up spots beating up Riordan on where he was on choice,” recalled Chris Lehane, a Davis adviser who had previously worked as a spokesperson on Al Gore’s presidential team.

Riordan would go on to lose to Simon by an 18 percent margin, and many GOP strategists attribute his loss to the Davis political team’s maneuver.

“It wasn’t about abortion. It was about honesty,” said South, Davis's political chief at the time, who noted that the advertisements, rather than making Riordan more palatable to conservatives, made him look flaky and untrustworthy.

“We went into the Republican base and basically ripped them apart,” said South.

South and Lehane noted that current Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, another Republican moderate, did not have to face the brutal realities of a party primary. Instead, he glided to victory in the 2003 recall election that swept Davis out of office.

“Arnold became governor through a unique set of circumstances,” said Lehane.

Those issues aside, several Republican strategists said they believed Whitman’s and Poizner’s contributions would not necessarily disqualify them in the eyes of Republican voters. “It raises eyebrows among activists but it’s not fatal,” said Kevin Spillane, a consultant.

“It’s the philosophical issues that will matter at the end of the day,” said Wayne Johnson, a veteran consultant who worked on Poizner’s 2006 campaign. Johnson said the contributions an inside-baseball issue that would go over the heads of many.

Without a serious conservative candidate running in the primary, Whitman and Poizner may not have serious problems because of their moderate stance. And, with what is widely seen as a thin bench, there is a real possibility that conservatives could struggle to find that candidate. State Senator and U.S. House candidate Tom McClintock, an obvious choice for party activists, has already said he is unlikely to seek a statewide post in 2010.

But, aware of the complexities of running in a Republican primary, Whitman and Poizner are making early moves to highlight their conservative credentials. Whitman has taken on a visible role as a surrogate for McCain. Poizner, for his part, has been working to give insurance companies a seat at the table in his policy-making process, an approach that, Poizner aides say, is a contrast with his Democratic predecessor John Garamendi.

“Most conservatives identify with Steve Poizner,” said Johnson.