Some highlights:

• Poizner describes working with former Bush administration counter-terrorism chief Richard Clarke, who went on to become a prominent critic of Bush's anti-terrorism policies. Whitman has criticized Poizner for receiving Clarke's support.

Clarke liked me because I was the person he could turn to for answers concerning emergency communications systems and the potential for terrorism to spread via the Internet.

Poizner also describes receiving a phoned threat during his time at the White House.

One night shortly after September 11, some nut left me a voice mail message on my office phone.

"Steve Poizner, I'm going to kill you!" a gravelly, heavily accented voice had said, "Blow up your car! Shoot your head!"

The Secret Service ultimately analyzed the call for me, which they said came from somewhere in Europe."

• He takes credit for encouraging Bush to reapportion hundreds of millions of dollars for mentoring programs for children. The book includes specific dialogue he had with Bush about the idea.

"We should enter more kids into mentoring relationships," I'd explained to him. Bush had nodded, and I'd gone on with the statistics to support my argument, and what I'd thought was the best approach to creating successful programs. When I had finished, he smiled.

"Good work," the president had told me. "Let's keep going on this. I'd like us to develop some executive orders."

• He also takes credit for helping win a lawsuit that ultimately required volunteer group U.S. Junior Chamber to accept women members. Among other things, Poizner backed the legal battle defending the mixed-gender Palo Alto Jaycees from a lawsuit filed by the national group seeking to stop the Bay Area chapter from accepting women.

I was a twenty-five-year-old kid standing in front of TV cameras, microphones, and a federal courthouse, railing against what at its core was discrimination ...

I don't want to beat my chest too loudly, but I will say that the Supreme Court's ruling against the Jaycees was historic. Other huge national organizations, such as the Rotary, Kiwanis, and Lions clubs, were ultimately forced to follow suit. The decision represented a gigantic victory for women's rights, and was one of my proudest moments.

While Poizner doesn't mention his gubernatorial run in the book, he includes one snippet admitting his plans for the future.

I didn't tell (principal Doug) Purcell something else either: My potential adventures at Mount Pleasant represented only the start of what I anticipated to be a long-term commitment to public services.