rssA Tea Party Candidate Promises Fiorina a Fight
Monday, November 16, 2009 at 6:00 am
- 37 Comments
Chuck DeVore and Carly Fiorina (Photos courtesy of Chuck DeVore, Agencia Brasil)
Carly Fiorina announced her 2010 campaign for California’s U.S. Senate seat in the usual way. She rolled out a new Website. She bounded across a stage at a “green detergents” factory to the strains of “Surfin’ U.S.A.” and gave a short speech about “solutions that work.” Then she added a step that has become more-or-less essential for serious Republicans–a conference call with conservative bloggers. Over 23 minutes, she fielded some of the friendlier questions she’d get all day, such as whether she’d learned anything from 2009′s successful Republican candidates that could help her in her challenge to Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.).
“My team knows very well how to run a campaign against a nasty Democrat,” said Fiorina.
[GOP1]Halfway through the call, however, conservative blogger Dan Riehl awoke the elephant in the room. Did Fiorina have anything to say to Chuck DeVore? One day earlier, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) had endorsed DeVore, a Republican assemblyman from Irvine, Calif., who had been running against Boxer for months, and had pre-emptively attacked Fiorina for her allegedly liberal positions.
“I am a pro-life conservative,” said Fiorina. “I believe in the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman. I am a fiscal conservative. In other words, I share the conservative values that many Republican voters share, and have been public about that for a very long time.”
Riehl stayed on the line, posing more questions from the right about McCain-Feingold campaign legislation, and about regulation of the internet. “I’m just picking up on things that I’ve seen,” he said, “that have been used to come after you from the conservative base.” And Fiorina, who had not brought up DeVore, went after him for accepting DeMint’s endorsement. “I find it interesting,” she said, “that Chuck DeVore, a couple weeks ago, was claiming that he is an anti-establishment candidate and perhaps he isn’t quite so much.”
It was a punchy debut for a candidate who, if national Republicans had their way, would not be worrying about a primary. Getting Fiorina, the multi-millionaire former CEO of Hewlett-Packard, to join the race, was a coup for the National Republican Senatorial Committee. And in other public appearances, Fiorina has brushed DeVore aside. Her opponent, she says, is Boxer. The man who got into this race in November 2008 should be an afterthought. As DeVore ties Fiorina in the polls and turns conservative activists against her–as he talks bluntly about fascism and even about Barack Obama’s birth records–he’s forced Republicans to pay attention.
In the wake of the NY-23 special election debacle, where Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman united the national conservative movement against a liberal Republican candidate and let a Democrat sneak in to win a key congressional seat, Republican strategists are looking at more contested primaries than they’d like. While the Senate primary between Marco Rubio and Gov. Charlie Crist (R-Fla.) has gotten the most attention, there are primaries in Ohio, Kentucky, New Hampshire and to a lesser extent Illinois that pit experienced Republican politicians against more ideological activist candidates–some with deep pockets. Democrats who are running defense on their control of Congress are making all they can out of primary battles that, so far, have driven candidates such as Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) to dent their moderate credentials as they try to win over the party’s base.
The California primary is something of an aberration. DeVore has a longer political resume than Fiorina. Her political baptism came as an adviser to the McCain-Palin campaign. He worked for the Reagan administration and has been a member of the California legislature since 2005. He has a lengthy voting record and a longer rhetoric of conservative speeches and blog posts. Ever since it became clear that Fiorina might jump in the race, his small campaign staff has laid traps for her by portraying her as a closet moderate–the kind of candidate many Republicans believe they need in blue California, but not one the base should have to settle for.
“I’m a movement conservative,” DeVore told TWI. “I’ve been in the conservative movement since 1981. I was head of the College Republicans at Cal State-Fullerton.”
DeVore’s case to national activists has been bolstered by unexpectedly strong showings in the polls. According to a Field Poll conducted in October, Fiorina, who had once led DeVore 31-20 in trial heats, had fallen into a 21-20 tie. That Field Poll showed Boxer leading Fiorina by 14 points and DeVore by 17 points; a Rasmussen Poll conducted in September, before both candidates were in the race, showed the race closer, with DeVore outperforming Fiorina. And a November Los Angeles Times poll had DeVore and Fiorina tied at 27 percent each.
One Democratic strategist suggested that if DeVore and Fiorina were on equal financial footing, DeVore would be the stronger candidate. An October FEC report revealed that DeVore, having raised around $700,000, had blown through all but $60,000 of it. DeVore argues that this is more than previous candidates against Boxer have raised; other Republicans look at that as more proof that Fiorina’s potential to raise millions of dollars is another reason to back her. (When one blogger suggested that DeVore’s low fundraising numbers ruled him out as a serious candidate, he dove into the comment section to pronounce “DeVore Derangement Syndrome.”) One Republican strategist suggested to TWI that California Republicans, tired of watching obscure conservative candidates loose statewide elections, are ready to get behind Fiorina. They just didn’t want to throw DeVore under the bus while doing it.
DeVore, well aware of the buzz, has responded by keeping up aggressive web-driven campaigns against Fiorina and Boxer and holding out the possibility that he can raise more money. He told TWI that he’d had conversations with the Club for Growth, the conservative 527 whose money, according to the campaign, “put gas in the tank” for Doug Hoffman.
“I get dozens of emails from him every week, as do other activists,” said Ray McNalley, a Republican strategist in Sacramento. “He’s running a race that’s more aggressive, I think, than what you’ve seen from some of the last statewide Republican challenges. If he comes in with a couple bucks in the bank, if he exceeds expectations, he could light a fire out there.”
From the conservative activist’s perspective, DeVore’s an ideal candidate. After writing a war novel, “China Attacks,” in 2000, DeVore became a frequent reviewer at Amazon.com. His take-outs on action novels and political texts reveal more about his political thinking than most candidates would be comfortable divulging. On a Tom Clancy novel about the threat posed by Japan Devore wrote: “Replace “Japan” with “China” and the thesis holds together rather well in 2005.” On Jonah Goldberg’s “Liberal Fascism”: “Roosevelt’s New Deal had much in common with Mussolini’s fascism.” On the libertarian lessons of his state’s economic meltdown: “Gazing at California, [libertarian economist Friedrich von] Hayek would surely shake his head sadly.”
When he speaks at length about politics, DeVore reveals a sober view of his state’s constitutional woes. He was aware, he said, that liberals view California’s supermajority requirements for passing budgets and raising taxes as factors that wrecked the state. He disagrees.
“We’ve had this system in place for quite a while,” said DeVore, “but if you go back before these innovations of term limits, gerrymandering and donation limits, what you find is a remarkable amount of bipartisanship, of budgets getting passed on time. This kind of hyperpartisanship, I think, is a relatively modern invention.”
Asked about the use of the filibuster and senatorial holds in the body he wanted to join, DeVore suggested that presidents might deserve more deference than President Obama is currently getting. He recoiled at the idea of filibustering judges unless there was a reason to. Instead, he talked about issues he wanted to work on with Democrats, such as prison reform.
The quiet campaign against DeVore hasn’t really gotten into those issues. Republican strategists have heavily advertised DeVore’s friendship and connections with Floyd Brown, a Republican strategist who has “disputed” the president’s birth certificate–some of the most unpleasant material wound up in The Huffington Post, credited to a “Republican source.” DeVore acknowledged that Fiorina would cast him as an out-of-the-mainstream radical and make issues out of his connections.
“She’s going to do that,” said DeVore, “just like I’m going to remind people that John McCain and Olympia Snowe and Lindsay Graham are backing her.”
Nonetheless, asked what he thought of Brown’s ideas, DeVore didn’t take the chance to denounce “birther” rumors or the movement itself–which has been heavily active in California.
“The president is doing himself no favors by spending millions of dollars to block the release of documents surrounding his birth certificate,” said DeVore. “As long as the president keeps fighting tooth and nail to prevent the release of such things, people are going to remain skeptical.” The door was left open, said DeVore, because Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign didn’t go after Obama’s qualifications when it had the chance, and because there were no statutory requirements for verifying a candidate’s citizenship.
Answers like that give ammunition to Fiorina’s supporters; they also ensure that the would-be-frontrunner can’t ignore the conservative movement’s preferred candidate. A week after the Fiorina conference call, her campaign created a Website, CallMeBarbara.com, dedicated to a June incident in which Boxer told a military witness to call her “senator” instead of “ma’am.” DeVore’s campaign made great hay out of the Boxer remarks in June, producing a parody Web video, milking the incident for all it was worth. When they saw Fiorina treading the same turf, they blasted out an email to reporters.
“If the Fiorina campaign intends to send out breathless asks with five-month lags,” wrote DeVore media adviser Joshua Trevino, “then I look forward to [a] March 2010 e-mail beginning, “How ’bout them Saints?”
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37 Comments
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Comment posted November 16, 2009 @ 3:09 pm
That's pretty hilarious. All those words, and not a single one about Fiorina's weakest issue (note: that's not an endorsement of DeVore, just opposition to CF.)
Comment posted November 16, 2009 @ 3:30 pm
“The president is doing himself no favors by spending millions of dollars to block the release of documents surrounding his birth certificate”
Millions of dollars? Where does this claim of DeVore's come from?
Comment posted November 16, 2009 @ 4:05 pm
That's the best California Republicans can do? Either a birther detached from reality, or a former spinmaster who made her name driving HP into the ground before the company was saved by firing her. Wow.
Comment posted November 16, 2009 @ 4:11 pm
Maybe from Oily Taitz? The 70th district covers Orange County…
Comment posted November 16, 2009 @ 4:26 pm
I don't get something here… Dave, did you conduct an interview here? Or are you just piecing together things from other sources? I don't understand why there was no pushback on that “million dollar” claim, even if it did come from Taitz.
Come to think of it, why no questions about Taitz at all?
Pingback posted November 16, 2009 @ 7:53 pm
[...] Fiorina versus the right. [...]
Comment posted November 16, 2009 @ 10:14 pm
there seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding in the gop about what a conservative is.
The dominate movement has become a catchall phrase for anyone who is republican. But, what a conservative is, seems to be where the divide is.
The purity patrol that insists on 100 percent ivory soapiness seems to define conservative as mostly being religious and social rather then policy.
that is why old guard, Reagan type conservatives are being drummed out as too moderate and not pure enough and why people like Fiorina, ect., are being primaried.
This leads me to assume that purging will go on until the gop becomes not just the southern old white man's party but, a religious one as well.
Maybe those jokes about the American Taliban is not such a joke after all.
Comment posted November 17, 2009 @ 12:17 pm
This IS, pitifully, the best repubs can do. Smarter politicians, people who want to advance into the future, become democrats. Glad to see that Barbara Boxer's seat is safe.
Comment posted November 18, 2009 @ 3:04 pm
It's true. Obama has spent tons of money fighting this.
Comment posted November 18, 2009 @ 6:24 pm
Go Chuck Devore. If the GOP wants to survive, they must stop supporting RINO losers like McCain and his clones. They do not need another elitist plutocrat like Carly Fiorina who will not go after Boxer.
Comment posted November 18, 2009 @ 7:54 pm
There seems to be some confusion in both parties. Though the Dems are more focused as a party, they do have their “problem children”.
The GOP, on the other hand, have forsaken all sense of common sense when it comes to party unity. They will end up as Lindsey Graham said:”You'll be just a club”.
This country doesn't need more of the last decade. The GOP doesn't, either. That's why you'll soon hear a call that the Constitution is a failed document from the baggers, sometime soon. Heck, Bill O'Reilly has already stated he doesn't care about the Constitution, and there will be his loyal lemmings to believe every bit of his anti-American sentiment.
Comment posted November 19, 2009 @ 12:02 pm
Birther B.S.
Show credible evidence or STFU.
Comment posted November 19, 2009 @ 2:54 pm
Just like a liberal. No code of conduct. I didn't say the birther thing was true, just the fact that he's spent a boatload of funds on this. Stop being a lazy lib, do your own research.
Comment posted November 21, 2009 @ 8:55 pm
YES THE [2020] END OF THE EMPIRE IS FOR REAL!!
[Embrace It!!]
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[The Great Wheel Turns]
The great wheel of fortune has turned against The American-Israeli Empire, The Bell Has Tolled for you the Dreamers, Thinkers, and Workers of the [21st] Century, it is out with the old and in with the new. The American Israeli Empire by having chosen to walk the path of the tyranny of the bottom line; Stimulus, Blood for Oil, Resource and Markets Wars, their Empire once victorious has forgotten the instability of earthly things, their success has been great but the wheel of fortune has turned and the Empire is falling into the dust of history. The fall has created your perfect set of waves to ridden, it is now time to mount your board, and ride your wave of history, the energy of the wave of change is beneath your feet, its up to you the Dreamers, Thinkers and Workers of the [21st] Century, The Wave it yours, its your time, its yours to make history with.
[IT’S FOR REAL]
This is no dream, it’s for real, its your time its your wave, its your era, don’t allow anyone to turn your dreams, your taught, your hard work to be held up by clinging to the past, into a nightmare of reliving the age of the American-Israeli Empire, push anxiety aside, and get up on the board and ride, leave those who fear the wave of history stay dead in the waters of doubt, feel fair winds and energy of following power seas beneath your feet. The End of The American-Israeli Empire is a VERY GOOD THING! Have faith in yourselves; show the courage you have, go forth with determination not to cling to the past, IT IS YOUR TIME EMBRACE IT!!
HERCULE TRIATHLON SAVINIEN
Comment posted November 22, 2009 @ 8:34 pm
HASTENING THE END OF EMPIRE
What can you do as a Dreamer, Thinker and Worker of the [21st] Century to hasten the fall of the American-Israeli Empire? What many other of your Era are doing now;
1. BOYCOTT ACTION: Boycott all made in The United States products, services, and business organizations within your area. The New McDonalds in Moscow not only don’t use it, call for its boycott, picket in front of its stores until the Empire removes all troops not only from the Islamic Crescent but closes all its [700] Seven Hundred bases in [300] bases around the globe. Widening the present trade imbalance.
2. PATRIOTIC COORDINATED CYBER ATTACKS: Over [58K] Fifty-Eight Thousand Cyber Patriotic attacks upon the [MIC] Military Industrial Complex, and their Pentagon have been traced to the Peoples Republic of China alone, [WHAT IF] patriotic cyber attacks were coordinated between patriots of the Global Community of Nations citizens, were not talking about government sanctioned attacks but cyber community of citizens, [1] One day the Pentagon, the next all offices of the [DC/544] Crooks and Criminals of the American-Israeli Empire, the next cyber coordinated community of citizens attacks upon Wall St., the next upon the Federal Reserve, the next all companies listed on the [NYSE] New York Stock Exchange, [WHAT IF], only the cyber community of dreamers, thinker, and workers, can make this decision and choice, its your Era its your decision to make.
3. REFUSE DOLLAR TRANSACTIONS: For those community of citizens living outside of North American, refuse to deal in any and all dollar based transactions, demand Euros, Pound Sterling, or the local currency within the [EU] European Spheres of Influence, and those in the Asia Sphere of Influence [10] Ten, [ASEAN] Association of Southeast Asian Nations, countries, who already want a single currency by [2020] the generally accepted end of the American-Israeli Empire, member would include; Japan, China, Australia, South Korea, New Zealand and India, demand transactions in the Chinese Yuan. Within the Brazilian/South American Sphere of Influence, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, and Venezuela, demand the Brazilian Real, or the local currency.
4. POLITICAL HOUSE CLEANING: If means are available within your community, your Sphere to remove all those politicians who desire back rubs, and dance lessons from the Imperial President of the American-Israeli Empire, take those steps necessary to remove them, they support the continued Empire and its Wars of Economic Empire Stimulus, of Markets and Resources, by Blood for Resources Wars around the globe, taking millions of lives, bring grief and destruction of untold amounts, that must be ended. Any who support any further support or stand in the way of the withdrawal of all [NATO] North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and [EU] troops from any part of Western or Eastern Europe, but be removed from office.
[ONE SHOE]
Some things simply can’t be fixed, and the American-Israeli Empire is beyond repair, it along with so many of its parts simply needs to be completely dismantled. [1] One man in Iraq threw a shoe, what if [10] ten men had thrown them, a [100] hundred, a [1K] a Thousand, give me [10] good men and I will give you [10K] ten thousand more. Will you throw just [1] one Cyber Shoe, [1] One Economic Shoe, to stop the tyranny of the bottom line American-Israeli Empire? Japan has stood up and said NO! No, to any refueling of Empire ships in the Indian Ocean, NO! To the continue presence of [48K] Forty-Eight Thousand Foothold Troops to Asia, in Japan, calling for an [ASEAN] based economic Sphere of Influence. China has said NO, to advance military weapons being sold to the Nationalist Chinese on the break away province of Taiwan. What will you do, what can you do, to [Hasten the Fall of The Empire], you’re the Dreamers, the Thinkers, The Workers of the [21st] Century, were sure you’ll think of something.
HERCULE TRIATHLON SAVINIEN
Comment posted November 22, 2009 @ 9:51 pm
No, doofus. YOU made the claim.
“Obama has spent tons of money fighting this.”
Put up or STFU. Lazy? You want me to prove your claim?
You're delusional, hypocritical and dishonest.
“Just like a liberal.”
Another baseless assumption.
Comment posted November 23, 2009 @ 9:44 am
No, you unintelligent, ummm, doofus! I didn't make the claim. Like some individuals who make statements of fact, I've confirmed the claim someone else made. Unfortunately, there are too many people who will make blatant statements because of hearsay. Although it you are probably one of those types of people, I am not.
Good luck with your reasearch. It's pretty easy to confirm…for most people anyway.
Comment posted November 24, 2009 @ 6:12 pm
Ah. Good. They both got the “I'm prepared to trample on the rights of homosexuals” part out there because they need the cash that position generates. It's nice to know as a conservative whom I'm not going to be voting for and I've just added two more to the list.
Comment posted November 24, 2009 @ 11:12 pm
Ah. Good. They both got the “I'm prepared to trample on the rights of homosexuals” part out there because they need the cash that position generates. It's nice to know as a conservative whom I'm not going to be voting for and I've just added two more to the list.
Pingback posted January 7, 2010 @ 11:10 am
[...] that there will be at least a few strong independent or even tea party candidates that will make a few elections interesting. We were told by the politicians that 2008 was a year of change but if we get a good number of [...]
Comment posted May 8, 2010 @ 5:14 pm
Homosexuals have to stop suffering under the dillusion that they have some sort of “special rights” beyond what other citizens enjoy by virtue of being sodomites.
Pingback posted May 10, 2010 @ 2:40 am
[...] There are a any number of reasons why DeVore simply didn’t get traction. Most of it can be narrowed down to the fact that he ran a poor campaign The DeVore campaign had trouble raising money, and even more trouble managing money. [...]
Pingback posted May 11, 2010 @ 12:17 am
[...] There are a any number of reasons why DeVore simply didn’t get traction. Most of it can be narrowed down to the fact that he ran a poor campaign The DeVore campaign had trouble raising money, and even more trouble managing money. [...]
Pingback posted May 24, 2010 @ 10:12 pm
[...] some pity, if you will, for longshot conservative GOP Senate contender Chuck DeVore. DeVore is no recent convert to the whole teabagger thing, and he has watched while teabagger candidates have been ascendant in [...]
Pingback posted May 25, 2010 @ 4:20 am
[...] some pity, if you will, for longshot conservative GOP Senate contender Chuck DeVore. DeVore is no recent convert to the whole teabagger thing, and he has watched while teabagger candidates have been ascendant in [...]
Comment posted August 20, 2010 @ 3:07 am
It's nice to know as a conservative whom I'm not going to be voting for and I've just added two more to the list.
Comment posted August 21, 2010 @ 6:11 am
Maybe from Oily Taitz? The 70th district covers Orange County…
Comment posted September 12, 2010 @ 5:28 pm
That's the best California Republicans can do? Either a birther detached from reality, or a former spinmaster who made her name driving HP into the ground before the company was saved by firing her. Wow.
Comment posted September 13, 2010 @ 8:25 pm
The GOP, on the other hand, have forsaken all sense of common sense when it comes to party unity. They will end up as Lindsey Graham said:”You'll be just a club”.
Comment posted September 14, 2010 @ 9:16 pm
“The president is doing himself no favors by spending millions of dollars to block the release of documents surrounding his birth certificate”
Millions of dollars? Where does this claim of DeVore's come from?
Pingback posted December 11, 2010 @ 6:07 am
[...] Washington Independent’s David Weigel has a good profile today of Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, who’s running as the conservative candidate in the [...]
Pingback posted May 21, 2011 @ 8:56 am
[...] Washington Independent’s David Weigel has a good profile today of Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, who’s running as the conservative candidate in the [...]
Comment posted May 23, 2011 @ 7:26 am
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