SACRAMENTO — Democrats can only hope that last week's dust-up between Meg Whitman and Steve Poizner is a sign of things to come in the Republican gubernatorial primary. The accusations and counterattacks — all starting with Poizner, the state's insurance commissioner, charging that Whitman, the billionaire former CEO of eBay, had tried to intimidate him into leaving the campaign — appeared to set a course for a brutal and nasty slugfest that could last all the way to the June 8 primary. A damaging exchange over the next four months — if both Republicans are still around — is precisely...