The three GOP Senate candidates will get together for an hour-long radio debate this afternoon and listeners hoping for a reasoned and thoughtful discussion of national and international affairs probably should stick to NPR.
But if you’re looking for some political hardball and an early indication of what that Senate campaign’s going to look like from now until June, the Eric Hogue Show on Sacramento’s KTKZ 1380 (streaming live at www.ktkz.com from noon to 1 p.m.) will be worth a listen.
First off, kudos to Hogue, a veteran of hot talk radio, for putting the event together in a warp-speed hurry. But it never would have happened if it weren’t for last week’s flurry of reports, cheerfully forwarded by the Carly Fiorina campaign, showing that Tom Campbell had taken campaign money from donors linked to terrorist organization.
Suddenly, everyone had a reason to debate. For Fiorina, it’s a chance to suggest to a conservative statewide audience that Campbell hates Israel and trades Christmas cards with Osama bin Laden. Campbell wants to stop the bleeding by listing all the Jewish friends he’s ever had and coming across as the only real wonk in the race. As for Chuck DeVore, he gets to share the airwaves with Fiorina and Campbell and argue that they’re both a pair of closet liberals, unworthy to be called Republicans.
But in any live event, there are plenty of potential risks.
Fiorina, for example, is a political rookie and no one knows how she will handle the rapid-fire, give-and-take of a campaign debate. And when she attacks Campbell for what her campaign coyly says are actions “widely regarded as being ‘anti-Israel,’” she has to be careful she doesn’t look like she’s guaranteeing Israel – or any other country, for that matter – a free pass if she’s in the Senate.
DeVore, running third in a three-person race, doesn’t have anything to lose, which means he’ll be coming in with guns a blazing. But when the Irvine assemblyman tries to shove Campbell and Fiorina to the left, he has to make sure he isn’t isolating himself way out in the wing-nut right where the birthers, survivalists and conspiracy freaks roam.
But it’s Campbell who has the most to lose in this debate. His quiet, professorial style is going to get a serious test this afternoon, because it’s a guarantee that neither his opponents nor Hogue are going to be asking about the consequences Greece’s financial problems will have on the world currency market.
Nope, it’s going to be Israel, terrorists and taxes and those are tough subjects for Campbell.
It’s not that he doesn’t have answers for all of those questions, but they’re long, nuanced answers. That doesn’t play well in a debate, where short, pithy sound bytes rule the day – and the newspaper headlines.
For example, Campbell can argue that he became involved with Palestinian activist Sami Al-Arian as an academic freedom issue when the professor was fighting his dismissal from the University of South Florida. Or that he was concerned about the constitutional issue of secret evidence when he visited Al-Arian’s brother while he was awaiting deportation. It’s also true that Al-Arian had never faced any criminal charges when he gave $1,300 to Campbell’s 2000 Senate campaign.
But all listeners are going to hear is that Al-Arian pleaded guilty in 2006 to conspiracy to provide services to a designated terrorist organization and was sentenced to more than four years in prison.
Campbell can fire back by asking Fiorina why Hewlett-Packard apparently went around the U.S. ban on technology sales to Iran when she was the company’s CEO. But in the world of politics, millions of dollars in printer sales to an outlaw state don’t come close to equaling a $1,300 contribution from a convicted terrorist.
It’s the same on the tax question. There are plenty of reasons it would have made good economic sense to boost the state gas tax by 32-cents a gallon to bridge California’s budget gap. But try explaining that in one minute to people who are only hearing “raise the gas tax by 32-cents.”
The good news for Campbell is that there’s still three months left before the June primary, which means there’s plenty of time for other issues to rise center stage.
But terrorism is a life-and-death concern, and not just to Republicans. The questions about Campbell and Al-Arian aren’t going away, so Californians will get a chance today to see just how well Campbell can answer them.
John Wildermuth is a longtime writer on California politics.