The personal sniping between the three Republican candidates for the US Senate nomination obscures a very important truth – they are ALL very right-wing candidates who share the same extremist views on the important issues of the day. Yesterday’s televised debate made that quite clear:
In their only on-camera debate, the three Republicans seeking to replace U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer did their best to run to the right, as each supported Arizona’s new immigration law and opposed California’s restriction on greenhouse gas emissions.
On major topics, Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina and former Rep. Tom Campbell were often in alignment Thursday. They all, for example, said hedge-fund managers shouldn’t pay higher tax rates.
Sure, they had a minor disagreement on whether people on the no-fly list should be allowed to buy guns (DeVore and Fiorina think yes, Campbell no), but that shouldn’t mask the fact that they are all basically singing from the same right-wing song sheet.
After all, they each believe we shouldn’t be taxing hedge fund managers more money. In case you needed any further evidence that today’s Republican Party is nothing more than the organized protection racket for the wealthy.
Tom Campbell still wants people to believe he’s some sort of moderate, but that’s nonsense. Rick Jacobs, chair of the Courage Campaign (where I work as Public Policy Director), put it well in a front page article in today’s SF Chronicle:
“Tom Campbell pretends he’s a mainstream moderate,” said Rick Jacobs, founder of the liberal online activism hub the Courage Campaign. “But any time he gets a chance to pander to the Tea Party base of his party, he’s done it.”
In fact, all three candidates have said they’d vote to repeal the recent health care reform bill, and would likely support a reckless scaling back of federal spending, the primary reason why there has been job growth and the hint of economic recovery over these last few months.
What Californians see in the Republican field of candidates is three more right-wing candidates who don’t share our values. And these candidates aren’t shy about letting us know it. Let’s not by shy in letting them know what we think of their right-wing extremism.
Tom Campbell opposed Prop 8 when he knew he would be running in a statewide Republican primary. He understood that support of gay marriage was going to bring the right wing out and in fact they have run effective ads against him on that issue.
I think it takes courage to stand up in front of a bunch of right wingers and tell them you support gay marriage, just as it takes courage to stand up and say that you support abortion rights.
Republicans who are willing to do that are very, very rare and deserve kudos. Tom Campbell might not be a moderate (I’ll leave it to others to define that term), but he is NOT your standard right-wing Republican.