links for 2010-06-11

Conservative Republican Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, who has represented Irvine and the rest of the 70th Assembly District for about six years, lost his race for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate on Tuesday. It wasn't much of a surprise. Carly Fiorina, the winner, is wealthy and well connected to the big political donors in the state.

But DeVore campaigned hard and built an impressive fundraising base of his own, albeit from smaller donors. Many of them saw DeVore, an advocate of nuclear power and a Tea Party favorite, as their only option. DeVore's approach to governing is simple: there ought to be less of it.
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There had been talk of this run for months as his Senate campaign collapsed. But, is it enough?

By winning the Republican primary resoundingly against two tough and skilled opponents, Carly has proven herself to be a tenacious and energetic campaigner whose competitive spirit was on full display Election Night. Having worked with Carly for almost a year, I have learned that you can’t bridle Carly’s energy – you just hold on and go with the flow. Voters will learn soon enough that Carly is the Mohamed Ali of 2010: she’ll “float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.” Most importantly, Carly will defeat Barbara Boxer in November.

How will we achieve this Republican version of the impossible dream? The answer is simple, really. It’s the same way we always win, which is to run a complete campaign that measures itself again four basic elements of successful campaigns: the candidate, the issue environment, organization and money.

I didn’t just make this up; I learned it from the best, Stu Spencer.
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If you want to win in California, read it all.

With all of this as prologue, it's been interesting to see Romney work to repair relationships with his rivals. He not only campaigned for McCain during the general election in 2008, but he has endorsed him in the Arizona Senate primary.

Yesterday, in a USA Today op-ed criticizing Obama's handling of the BP oil spill, Romney slipped in the following two paragraphs:

We saw leadership on Sept. 11, 2001. Then as now, black billows seemed to come from the center of the earth. Lives had been lost. The environmental impact was immeasurable. The looming economic impact from lost tourism was incalculable. Into the crisis walked Rudy Giuliani. While that was an incomparable human tragedy, how the mayor led New York City to recover is a useful model for the president.
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Because Rudy is doing events in New Hampshire. And, head to head with Rudy, Romney will lose the GOP nomination.

Fresh off her decisive victory in the Republican Senate primary this week, Carly Fiorina found herself in the national spotlight Thursday — for criticizing her opponent's hairdo.

Chatting with an aide and having her makeup applied before a TV interview Wednesday, the newly minted GOP nominee was caught dissing Sen. Barbara Boxer's hairstyle — unaware that the camera was rolling. Fiorina said she heard from a friend that day who saw Boxer on TV. The person "said what everyone says, 'God, what is that hair?' " Fiorina said, letting out a long laugh. "So yesterday."

At that point, someone pointed out to Fiorina she was being recorded, and a look of "uh-oh" came over the candidate's face. The four-plus-minute video of Fiorina, in which she also knocks GOP gubernatorial nominee Meg Whitman's decision to appear on conservative Sean Hannity's TV program so soon after the primary, is here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cTk3XIrZ3w.
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A Gaffe or a calculated ploy?

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown has compared billionaire GOP nominee Meg Whitman's saturation campaign effort to that of a Nazi minister of propaganda.

"It's like Goebbels," Brown told Doug Sovern of KCBS radio in the Bay Area, referring to Joseph Goebbels. "Goebbels invented this kind of propaganda. He took control of the whole world. She wants to be president. That's her ambition, the first woman president. That's what this is all about."

A Brown spokesman did not dispute the statement but said Brown does not believe Whitman is comparable to Goebbels. Whitman's campaign manager Jillian Hasner called the remarks "deeply offensive."

The remarks, posted on Sovern's blog Wednesday, were made before Tuesday's primary when Sovern ran into Brown while bike-riding.
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No mudslinging, eh Jerry?