The gloves come off in Cali’s governor race.

Its..surprise..the rightwing nutters eating their own! From McClatchy:

  The so-far snooze-inducing GOP gubernatorial primary race heated up Monday, with charges of political extortion leveled at one candidate and questions of mental stability raised about the other.

In what was touted as a “major announcement,” Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner leveled charges that a top adviser to rival Meg Whitman’s campaign attempted to bully him out of the two-way race by issuing “crystal-clear” threats.

Poizner called on state and federal law enforcement officials to investigate what he characterized as potentially criminal intimidation tactics.

“This is not an attempt to be hardball and to be aggressive, but this is an attempt to effectively manipulate the election process, the integrity of the election process, by issuing these threats behind the scenes to get me not to run,” Poizner said.

The campaign cited an e-mail in which Whitman adviser Mike Murphy asked a Poizner campaign consultant if there is any chance Poizner will reconsider his run.

The e-mail, provided by the campaign to reporters and in a letter to law enforcement officials, says the Whitman camp can spend $40 million “tearing up Steve if we must” and suggests that if Poizner were to drop out, Republicans could “unite the entire party” behind him for a 2012 Senate bid.

“I hate the idea of us each spending $20 million beating on the other in the primary, only to have a damaged nominee,” Murphy wrote.

In the letter to law enforcement officials, Poizner also details several other claims, including that Murphy told a senior adviser that the campaign would “put (Poizner) through the wood chipper” if he did not drop out of the race. 

He is gonna go all ‘Fargo’ on Poizner’s ass? wow wee… Pull up a chair and make some popcorn folks! 😉

Gavin Newsom announces run for CA Governor

His site is here. From his post at HuffPo:

I hope you will join me as we set out to build a campaign that does more than win an election. Together we can create the kind of campaign that changes California.

If you want to help us get off to a strong start, please contribute here.

In San Francisco, we’re showing what can be accomplished when we stop looking back and start looking for solutions.

We are the first, and still the only, city in America implementing universal health care. We’re proving what you already knew – it is less expensive to keep people well than it is to treat their sicknesses.

I will work for Gavin Newsom. San Francisco is ahead of all major cities in making things right by and for the people.

The anti-gay crowd will of course work hard against him. They even used one of his press conferences in their Prop 8 commercials. It will be a long, hard road folks..