If we are tired of driving our car by looking into the rear-view mirror, maybe someone needs to change the viewpoint. We’ve talked voting records and checks to Democrats; “What can we say about Steve Poizner that should earn conservative respect for the gubernatorial primary in June of 2010?”

What can we reference to change the current discussion surrounding our gubernatorial cadidates; ‘proving a positive’ for the current Republican Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, who desires to be your choice for Governor?

For both Meg Whitman and Steve Poizner, the career political resume is thin. But there are some hooks that we can hang our conservative bonnets on as it relates to Steve Poizner.

Personally I believe Poizner’s biggest victory was his individual efforts efforts against Prop 93.

The term limits extension was headed by Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez and the LA Times – not to mention the millions of dollars coming from the public employee unions of California who saw this as a chance to remove the private sector from any discussion in California’s future.

Early on there was nobody running the “No on 93″ campaign; then along came IC Steve Poizner.

He contributed $2.3 million of his personal funds. It was 90-days out from the election and Poizner made the contrinution from his commissioner power-seat, and personally invested himself in the effort – not just contributing, but campaigning statewide.

Poizner raised the money, handled the radio and TV interviews; he was, in all essence, the voice, energy and fuel behind the defeat of Proposition 93.

Nobody picked up the fight until Poizner deposited his money and efforts. Steve should be soley praised for his efforts against Prop 93.

For Poizner, much of his propositional involvement goes back to 2005 and his efforts with Prop 77; the redistricting initiative that many conservative Congressional Republican hated.

Prop 77 was one of the four major initiatives that Governor Schwarzenegger campaigned on for government reform. As much as we hate to look back at that poorly operated campaign, it was the ‘fix’ that California needed. From pension reform, teacher’s merit pay and redistricting, and a ‘real’ spending cap for the budget.

Arnold was right – and Poizner was right on time with his involvement in Prop 77.

Locally, the proposition was defeated by a powerful GOP Congressional incumbent who is now forever scorned with scandal and embarrassment. John Doolittle was the biggest foe for Poizner during the signature gathering and election season of Proposition 77.

Today, time has placed Steve Poizner on the right side of this argument.

Poizner invested $1.25 million in the Prop 77 campaign, and he campaigned heavily for its support. In the end it was defeated by the unions, the majority party and a few self interested Republicans; for this Poizner cannot be blamed.

In the end, 77 lost, but a future Proposition called 11 passed – much of the credit for our new redistricting initiave should find its way to Poizner’s GPS locale.

These are two examples of Steve Poizner’s recent, GOP statewide political DNA samples; they are solid contributions.

Personally Poizner touts his love affairs with education. Steve taught 12^th Grade American Government for a year in a school in a low income area inside of the Los Angeles area, From his tenure he became a proud supporter of the Charter School effort.

Poizner was one of a few ‘key pioneers’ behind the California Charter School movement.

Poizner was up against a massive teacher’s union opposition when he pushed Charter Schools. Undaunted, Poizner helped build many charter schools in low income areas throughout California. There were nearly 200 charter schools when Steve got involved, now there are over 800 statewide.

The final reference for Steve Poizner comes within his tenure as the state’s Insurance Commissioner.

After he was elected, Poizner immediately inherited a large structural budget deficit at Department of Insurance.

During the cash-crunching budgets of 2008-09, Poiznerperformed a top down review and cut expenses by 15-percent expense.  Now the Department of Insurance has a surplus and passed the savings back into the marketplace with tax cuts on insurance agents and insurance brokers.

On the “tough on crime” front, the department has also arrested close to two-thousands people for insurance fraud – the most ever by the Department of Insurance.

In the near future we’ll take a look at Meg Whitman’s positive credentials for her political resume.

My intent in offering this piece today; there are items for the GOP voters to be debating as it relates to Poizner and Whitman – even Campbell for that matter – that don’t involve checks, the lack of voter registeration, Van Jones, Al Gore and Barbara Boxer.

Again, there are no pure-wool conservatives in this gubernatorial gig for the GOP. Time to debate what we know about these candidates, their osmosis into politically involvement and there ‘out-of-the-closet’ announced conservativism.

Just my attempt to add some healthy carbs to our political diet inside of this GOP Gubernatorial marathon.

* Footnote: There is a new initiative that desires to adjust term limits. Steve Poizner was quoted by Capitol Weekly on his past efforts in stopping Prop 93, and his continued refusal to adjust term limits with this new proposal.