Schwarzenegger not ‘schvitzing’ over Poizner ad

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Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner is using Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s image and record as a tool to try to bludgeon Meg Whitman in the GOP primary for governor.

“After Arnold, don’t we deserve a Republican?” the narrator concludes in Poizner’s latest ad. An onscreen quote attributed to conservative Rep. Tom McClintock warns that a Whitman governorship would be akin to “Arnold’s third term.”

Schwarzenegger himself brushed aside any thoughts on the ad Tuesday afternoon. ”I have not seen the latest ad, but, in general, I’d rather keep out of commenting about anything that has to do with the candidates that are out there campaigning for governor,” Schwarzenegger said.

“No schvitzing governor, OK?” he added. “So I don’t worry about those things.”

His staff, however, have certainly noticed the spot.

“It was a good reminder that’s he’s still in the race, I had totally forgot about that,” Aaron McLear, Schwarzenegger’s press secretary, said of Poizner, who has trailed Whitman by as much as 50 points in polls. “We understand he’s desperate to be relevant but extending his anti-immigrant campaign to Austrians, that’s just mean.”

-- Shane Goldmacher in Sacramento