Carly Fiorina’s new anti-Tom Campbell video may be one of the most bizarre (baaa-zare?) campaign hit pieces the state has ever seen, but since it has people talking about the GOP Senate race, it’s mission at least partially accomplished for the former Hewlett-Packard CEO.
But behind the low-end effects, the ovine-metaphor overkill, and the cheesiest red-eyed sheep suit in history, there’s a real gamble taking place, one that could decide who will challenge Democrat Barbara Boxer in November.
Fiorina and her team are betting just about everything on their conviction that California Republicans are so vehemently anti-tax that even a hint of support for new levies spells doom for a GOP candidate.
That’s why the tough-talking three-minute-long video, available on Fiorina’s new website, FCINO.COM, depicts Campbell as “Taxin’ Tom,” a liberal-leaning career politician whose only solution to California’s fiscal problems is more taxes.
Campbell gets slammed for helping, as state finance director, put together a 2005 state budget the video charges was “bloated” with increased spending and borrowing; for supporting last May’s Prop. 1A, which would have combined a state spending cap with $16 billion in new and extended taxes; for calling for a 32-cent boost in the gasoline tax to balance the state budget and for refusing to sign a GOP-friendly pledge to never raise taxes.
Campbell is a FCINO, a Fiscal Conservative in Name Only, the video charges. He “literally helped put the state of California on the path to bankruptcy and higher taxes.”
The video just builds on the tale Fiorina’s team has told non-stop since that January day when Campbell quit his campaign for governor and muscled into the Senate race.
Campbell is not the fiscal conservative he claims to be, Fiorina’s story goes, but is actually a big government career politician who will raise taxes every chance he gets.
That’s a narrative that resonates with the conservatives who typically hold the whip hand in a GOP primary and Team Fiorina is confident they can use what’s likely to be a huge cash advantage to pound that message home from now until election day.
Still, not every Republican is a hard-core, no-taxes-ever conservative and there’s a lot of “yes, but” in the charges Fiorina’s dumping on Campbell.
The video shows that “Carly’s campaign is hitting the panic button,” Campbell’s people said in a statement Wednesday. “Tom’s looking forward to a mature and substantive debate on serious issues, not silly antics.”
Fiorina’s own back-up material for the video actually gives a fair statement of Campbell’s position on many of the charges.
He’s refused to sign the no-tax pledge because “no one can anticipate every situation that might arise.” As a congressman, he supported a state sales tax on Internet purchases because “otherwise, where do you get your money for police and fire departments?” And while he called for the gas tax hike to prevent firing teachers, increasing class size and trimming community college courses, he balanced that with support for permanent cuts in welfare and social services.
Campbell has said he’s willing to take unpopular stands if he believes they are best for California and he’s convinced there are plenty of Republicans out there who agree with him. But that’s not the way Fiorina is betting.
Fiorina wasn’t the only one rolling the dice Wednesday. California Democrats took a gamble of their own when they launched a website, CarlyFailorina.com, aimed at trashing the former business executive.
The CarlyFailorina site portrays Fiorina as a flop during her tenure at H-P and invites people to send in their own accounts of the candidate’s business career. People with positive, up-beat stories need not apply.
While Democratic Party officials say this is just the first in a series of websites that will “profile” GOP candidates, it’s interesting that they are starting with Fiorina, who’s running well behind Campbell in the most recent polls.
It suggests that Democrats see Fiorina – and the millions she can put into her campaign – as a bigger threat to Boxer’s re-election than Campbell, despite the former congressman’s likely appeal to moderate and independent voters in a general election.
Bottom line is that while party insiders see Fiorina as a wild card who needs to be stomped on fast, the Democrats managed to trash Campbell once, when he was slaughtered by Sen. Dianne Feinstein in 2000, and they figure they can do it again.
John Wildermuth is a longtime writer on California politics.