With the free booze flowing, one Republican after another grabbed the microphone to belt out karaoke classics.
The GOP faithful were singing and sipping to their heart's content, all courtesy of the man standing in the corner.
Steve Poizner, a pro-choice Bay Area Republican running for insurance commissioner, was cultivating support from the conservative wing of the GOP.
"People had a really good time," said Poizner, smiling as he recalled the 2006 state GOP convention party in a recent interview. "That was one small part of my relationship-building activities."
A near-billionaire from his days as a Silicon Valley businessman, the karaoke party cost but a fraction of the $12 million Poizner spent in 2006 en route to becoming the only Republican not named Arnold Schwarzenegger to win statewide office.
Now, Poizner is laying the groundwork – dollar by dollar, event by event – for a 2010 run for governor.
He hasn't said the magical words – "I'm running" – yet, but Poizner's carefully plotted course has left little doubt he intends to seek the state's highest office.
In the last 20 months, Poizner has zigzagged the state, lending himself as the headline speaker at fundraisers for more than 60 Republican clubs. The proceeds don't go to Poizner.
"Just by being available as a speaker for events, he has been a huge help to local parties because they can sell tickets, they can get people there, they can raise money," said Luis Buhler, the vice chairman of the California Republican Party in the Bay Area.
His prolific schedule on the speech-giving circuit has built up a reservoir of political chits.
Morgan Kelley, chair of the Marin County Republican Party, a relatively small GOP club, said, "It was pretty easy" to book him.
"I'm not a Johnny-come-lately to them," Poizner said of the party faithful, the potential foot soldiers in a statewide GOP campaign. "This has been going on for years now."
A crowded itinerary
Poizner's travel itinerary is replete with campaign-building events.
Last week, he hobnobbed at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn., as vice chairman of the California delegation. Today, he'll headline a fundraiser for a Republican candidate in a competitive Assembly race.
He traveled to Israel with President Bush this spring. And he seems to find himself on stage whenever Sen. John McCain makes a California campaign swing.
"I'm really serious about considering a run for governor," said Poizner, a 51-year-old with a slim build and a geekish charm.
A social moderate and fiscal conservative, Poizner already appears to be honing a campaign message:
"My mission in life," he said in a wide-ranging interview, "is to help get California back on track. We need to make California the innovation capital of the world again."
State Sen. Joe Simitian, a Democrat whose old Assembly seat Poizner sought in 2004, described him in three words: "Determined, deliberative and disciplined."
Poizner, Simitian said, is the type of "guy who sits down with a legal pad and pen and figures out what needs to get done."
Sold two high-tech companies
Born in Texas and a graduate of Stanford business school, Poizner made his millions building up – and then selling – two high-tech companies, the second of which, SnapTrack, he sold for $1 billion in 2000.
Those close to Poizner say he approaches politics as he did business, refining the merchandise and ensuring he is the first to market.
Only now Poizner is the product.
He didn't jump straight from Silicon Valley into politics, instead opting to flesh out his political résumé.
He completed a one-year White House fellowship, where he worked on anti-terrorism strategies. Then he returned to California to volunteer at a public high school in a rough-and-tumble neighborhood of San Jose.
Buhler, who worked on Poizner's first Assembly campaign, said what distinguished Poizner from many wannabe politicians was his "extent of preparation" to run for office.
Call Shane Goldmacher, Bee Capitol Bureau, (916) 326-5544.
