I'm tempted to send some money to the newly announced campaign of former Congressman Tom Campbell for the U.S. Senate seat of incumbent Democrat Barbara Boxer in the 2010 Republican primary. I have been watching Campbell's career of achievement for years. I interviewed him when he ran unsuccessfully against Sen. Dianne Feinstein in 2000 as the GOP nominee.
Campbell was running for the GOP gubernatorial nomination this year until weak fundraising against two billionaires forced him to switch to the Senate race, where he's up against only one billionaire -- fired Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman -- and a far-right conservative, Chuck DeVore. Campbell says he can do better at raising money for a Senate try.
I find Boxer to be an annoying yenta; I don't like her style, though she is a progressive. So if Campbell became the GOP nominee, I'd be tempted to vote for him. And it's not just because Boxer rubs me the wrong way. There are positive reasons: Campbell is impressively smart, personable, soft-spoken. He represented Silicon Valley in Congress for nine years. He has been in the California Senate, he's been Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's state budget director and he has headed UC Berkeley's business school. Currently he's a law professor at conservative Chapman University in Orange County. It's a fine resume.
A fiscal conservative, Campbell is a social moderate -- pro-choice, pro-gay rights. He's hoping that an emphasis on federal deficits and the economy can solve his inherent problems with a rabidly social conservative California GOP primary electorate. I think it's a long shot -- so much so that I probably won't send him money, after all. I think I may wait until California again has an "open primary" allowing voters to cast votes for candidates in any party, giving a leg up to moderates like Campbell and ameliorating the vicious partisanship that has helped paralyze both Sacramento and Washington. The open-primary question may be on the ballot soon. I know Campbell has supported the idea in the past. For his sake, I hope it happens. But 2010 is not looking like Campbell's year.
