Steve Poizner came to Western CPAC to talk about his campaign for governor in California, and I got two opportunities to interview the Insurance Commissioner. The first was an exclusive interview that unfortunately competed against a highly enthusiastic group of attendees at an adjacent Mary Kay convention. The applause in the clip comes almost serendipitously when Poizner makes a couple of great points about California’s budget, and fortunately Poizner can easily be heard over the din:

Poizner has the same challenge as Chuck DeVore, in that his primary competition will be a celebrity candidate, Meg Whitman. Unlike DeVore’s presumed competition Carly Fiorina, Whitman did make a brief appearance at a semi-private event at WCPAC, but did not meet with the media or the attendees separately. Poizner argues that California voters will have had enough of celebrity candidates after several years of Arnold Schwarzenegger and outlines his own substantial resume, which includes a stint in national security after 9/11 and a successful term in office as Insurance Commissioner. He echoed others at the conference in insisting that conservatives will win in California not in diluting their principles, but in sticking to them and making them applicable in public policy.

Afterwards, Poizner met with all of the bloggers, myself included, in what was supposed to be just a few minutes. Instead, Poizner stuck around to answer everyone’s questions, and as you will see in the videos below, brought hard data and a detailed plan for rebuilding the California economy: