peter-foy.thumbnail.jpgPeter Foy of Simi Valley (of Reagan sepulcher fame), a Ventura County Supervisor, told a reporter on Friday that he is considering a run for the GOP gubernatorial nomination, as an anti-tax challenger to Silicon Valley billionaires eMeg Whitman and Steve Poizner.

A Ventura County Supervisor and leader of a state anti-tax group is plotting a conservative challenge in the 2010 gubernatorial primary to deep-pocketed GOP moderates Meg Whitman and Steve Poizner.

In an interview, Peter Foy, state director for Americans for Prosperity, said the state party should have a strong conservative candidate and he may be just what it needs in the gubernatorial field.

"There’s no question we need some leadership up in Sacramento," Foy said at Friday night reception hosted by the anti-tax group at the state Republican convention in Sacramento. "I am thinking about it." 

Americans for Properity‘s current national issues are an anti-Employee Free Choice Act campaign, a bunch of pro-global warming commercials in Virginia, and an anti-stimulus petition. The California chapter’s website boasts links to the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. They seem consumed with "keeping California competitive," presumably by allowing its bridges to fall down and infrastructure to decay into nothingness as taxes are lowered to zero.

Peter Foy is good at earning attention from the gimmick-starved and entertainment-driven California political media:

"I don’t have the ability to write those $20,000 checks," Foy said. "But I do think the people of California are looking for a true conservative that believes in true conservative values."

Last year, Foy helped erect a giant, inflatable ATM machine in front of the Capitol to dramatize opposition to unbridled government spending.

And Foy knows what to say to be competitive in a statewide, closed GOP primary, too:

While Poizner and Whitman support legal abortion, Foy is pro-life. But he said he would run primarily on fiscal issues, namely his belief that he is the party’s best bet to hold firm on taxes and spending.

The leading candidates – who along with Rep. Tom Campbell have formed exploratory gubernatorial committees – both sharply criticized the state budget plan imposing new taxes. But Foy said he feared they would be more likely to cut deals with Democrats on state spending.

Can a non-rich unknown win a California primary against two mega-rich opponents? It has happened before.

Whenever two wealthy candidates get into a primary, there is always an opportunity for a third candidate to steal the nomination, because it sets up the possibility for a "murder-suicide" scenario in which the two wealthy candidates spend big money attacking the other. In 1998, that’s what happened in the Democratic primary when underdog Gray Davis benefitted from the mutual destruction of Al Checchi and Jane Harman.

In a billionaire bake-off between the charmless eMeg (whose national GOP debut this summer was underwhelming) and Steve Poizner (who projects technocratic know-how but lacks the anti-tax credentials desperately sought by the GOP faithful) you have to wonder if there’s room for a "real Republican" to charm the base who vote in primaries.

Who also like the forced-birth proponents, of course. Did I mention this is a closed Republican primary?