links for 2010-03-13

DeVore also told reporters that he, like Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown, is a student of Sun Tzu, the Chinese military strategist. But the Orange County Assemblyman said that's not all that he and the Democratic gubernatorial candidate have in common. They also apparently share some genes.

"I'm embarrassed to say — and he'll deny it — that I'm a distant cousin of Jerry Brown," DeVore said. "My mom remembers seeing him at a family gathering in the Bay Area when she was 12 and he was 15. She told me he was weird even then." Brown's campaign has yet to respond to an inquiry regarding the alleged relation to DeVore and his childhood demeanor.
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Fancy that……

In conjunction with her speech at today’s luncheon, Carly also released a short movie entitled Hot Air, chronicling Boxer’s failed tenure as a U.S. senator. The creative and attention-grabbing movie describes Boxer’s bitter partisanship, her ineffectiveness and her 18-year long record of support for tax hikes, job-killing legislation and big-government spending. It also contrasts Boxer’s failed tenure with Carly’s record of success as a proven problem-solver, fiscal conservative and the only candidate in this race who has ever created a job, met a payroll or had to cut a budget. A new Web site, www.FailedSenator.com was also launched to not only feature Hot Air, but also to engage voters in learning more about the clear choice in this race.

Wannabe Senator Carly Fiorina rolled out a full-throttle, multi-media extravaganza for her turn in the limelight Saturday, the Republican state convention’s most boffo box office so far.

Taking full advantage of her scheduled time on the convention program, Team Carly essentially relaunched her campaign, with a production that included music by Van Halen, a free-swinging speech delivered by the candidate channeling Miss Scarlet, and a new, mad genius video by gonzo media consultant Fred Davis.

“We call it the announcement on steroids,” Davis told Calbuzz.

In contrast to Meg Whitman, whose Friday night speech to delegates may be found in the dictionary under “somnolent,” Fiorina’s talk was energetic, punchy and well-crafted.
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Carly Fiorina's campaign is starting to gather momentum……

Carly Fiorina unveiled her campaign’s newest strange video production, Hot Air, over lunch at the California Republican convention Saturday. The seven-minute extended commercial, posted below, follows the elongated head of Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) crashing up through the U.S. Capitol dome and traveling west across the country and over California, rambling about electricity, taxes and a host of other issues.

The video was clearly an attempt to replicate the nationwide buzz generated by creator Fred Davis’ other production, Demon Sheep (skewering Fiorina’s Republican opponent Tom Campbell), earlier this election cycle. Davis' new video, while certainly weird, is not as organically off-kilter as Demon Sheep, but its introduction served to highlight the contrast between Fiorina and Meg Whitman, the other female Republican ex-CEO running statewide this year, who spoke in the same room the night before.
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This video is being hailed as artsy, edgy and is creating lots of buzz

The ad man who brought us Demon Sheep — along with King Rat and other strange political fauna — is back with another outlandish production.

Call it Fred’s Zeppelin.

Actually, it’s Barbara Boxer — blown up and distended to grotesque proportion — floating malevolently over a travel-scape of California: vineyards, palm trees, sandy beaches, Victorian homes, the Golden Gate Bridge.

The ad for GOP Senate hopeful Carly Fiorina features plenty of creator Fred Davis’ trademark humor, from the ominous opening scene, which portrays the U.S. Capitol as something out of Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds,” to the finale, in which a pin-pricked Boxer sinks ignominiously into the sea.

But there’s also plenty of venom packed into the seven-minute web spot. “A problem-solver…a problem-causer,” goes one compare-and-contrast between Fiorina and the Democratic incumbent.
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Carly Fiorina knows how to create some buzz now doesn't she?

Mickey Kaus, a political blogger on the Slate website, filed papers Friday to challenge U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer in June's Democratic primary, saying the three-term senator is too tied to liberal interest groups.

"I have no special beef with the incumbent," Kaus said in his announcement. "She is a state-of-the-art Democrat. But to be state-of-the-art" in our party is not such a good thing anymore. State of the art" means the incumbent has learned to please the party's interest groups, often at the expense of the needs of average individuals and the party's own ideals."

Kaus, who lives in Southern California and is the son of former state Supreme Court Justice Otto Kaus, has been especially critical of illegal immigration in his Slate column. He said his status with Slate remains uncertain with his decision to run against Boxer.
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Democratic Party bigwigs are NOT going to be happy with this. But, will it drive more women D/S voters to the Democrat polls?