California GOP gubernatorial candidate Steve Poizner said Monday he's reported "threats" made by the Republican rival Meg Whitman's campaign adviser to law enforcement officials.
Poizner said at a press conference that Whitman campaign strategist Mike Murphy issued "crystal-clear" threats to his staff in an attempt to effectively "cancel the election" by pushing him to drop out of the race.
"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," he said.
The campaign provided a copy of an e-mail in which Murphy asks an unidentified Poizner campaign aide if there is any chance Poizner, who is trailing Whitman in the polls and in campaign funds, 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."
"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, according to the e-mail.
In the e-mail, Murphy offers that the campaign could "unite the entire party behind Steve right now to build a serious race" for U.S. Senate in 2012.
Read more at SacBee.com
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