Yesterday, Carly Fiorina was in the business of praising Sen. Feinstein. Then only hours later, she got all up into the business of trashing one of her main policy prerogatives, the assault weapons ban.  Oh, and she went further, pretty much pretending that she was still in the Republican primary.  

Republican Senate candidate Carly Fiorina said Tuesday that she opposes a ban on assault weapons and supports a U.S. Supreme Court decision this week affirming a constitutional right to bear arms.

In a 45-minute question-and-answer session with reporters here, the former Hewlett-Packard CEO also repeated her backing of Arizona’s controversial immigration law and said she would support efforts to repeal the federal health care reform measure. But the fundamental issue in the race against three-term Sen. Barbara Boxer, Fiorina contended, will be whom voters trust more on the economy, and she said the contrast between the two could not be more stark. (SJ Merc)

Wow, I certainly hope for her sake that getting a bunch of Latino votes wasn’t a part of her electoral strategy, because this repeated outpouring of support for Arizona’s law won’t win her that support.  While Carly might criticize Whitman for appearing on Hannity the day after the primary, at least eMeg has the smarts to quit it with the anti-immigrant talk.  Perhaps Carly thinks it will bring in some money from the anti-immigrant crowd, but will it really be enough money to make up for the loss of the votes she’s going to get from that part of the interview?

At any rate, back to the assault weapons ban, Carly might want to take a look at who wrote that legislation. And who has been its strongest supporter throughout the last 20 years. Yup, that would be Dianne Feinstein. The very same senator that she was so effusive about yesterday.

It’s funny how facts can unmask a candidate.

Sen. Feinstein isn’t always our favorite around here, but she hardly resembles Carly Fiorina. Yet, in comments today, Fiorina tried to snuggle up to Feinstein:

And she also continued a tradition of past Boxer opponents – she talked about how great senior Sen. Dianne Feinstein is and attempted to drive a wedge between the two. By the way, Feinstein is Boxer’s campaign chairman.

“I think Dianne Feinstein has accomplished a great deal on behalf of the people of California and I admire and respect her for that,” Fiorina said. She called Feinstein “a pragmatic voice on issues that matter to the people of California.”

In comparing California’s two senators, Fiorina said “if you look at her voting record verses Barbara Boxer’s you’ll see that they disagree on virtually everything.”

When it was suggested to Fiorina that the two actually voted the same most of the time – Boxer says it’s 90 percent – Fiorina backed down a bit.

“Well virtually everything is an overstatement,” she said. (OC Register)

Well, facts are annoying, aren’t they?  At any rate, Sen Feinstein put out a statement in full support of Sen. Boxer today after the comments:

Senator Boxer and I have worked together for 18 years, as partners, in Washington — and there is no daylight between us on the issues that matter most to Californians. We have worked together to create jobs and keep them in California.  We have strongly defended a woman’s right to choose.  We believe that urgent action is necessary to halt climate change and create clean energy jobs, and we support permanently protecting California’s coast from offshore oil drilling.  In a time of serious terrorist threats to the homeland, we believe it is important to keep guns out of the hands of people whose names are on the terrorist watch list.  And we both worked to get more water transfers in the Central Valley so that farmers could plant, hire and harvest this year.  Let there be no doubt that I believe California needs Barbara Boxer in the Senate, now more than ever.

Have you ever wondered about those intense sessions with Carly Fiorina and her team right before she goes on TV? Do you think she’s brushing up on the issues of the day? Mulling over tax proposals or possible changes to the health care system?  

Well, you would be wrong.

Caught on an open mic, we learn that Carly likes to discuss the close relationship between Sean Hannity and Meg Whitman, Cheeseburgers, and, most importantly, Barbara Boxer’s hair.

God, what was that hair? Soooo yesterday.

That was her actual quote.  “Soooo” yesterday.  Check out the clip to the right, and watch five minutes up close and personal with the failed HP CEO.

Hat tip to Muley63.

Check out Carly. She’s still a loose canon. Fired from HP. Fired from the McCain campaign. And soon to be fired from California politics.

I think she’s set the record in the least amount of time to lose a campaign after winning a nomination..10 hours.

I hope Boxer has some good oppo going because Carly’s has plenty of videos of her supporting unpopular California opinions. In the vid below (4 min mark), Carly supports both drilling and Arizona’s anti-Latino law. Come’on, Barbra, don’t mess around. Hit her hard. Something like: “While I don’t have the latest hairdo, I do represent the fairest and most democratic solutions to blah, blah, blah….

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics…

Well, it looks like all the polling showing Carly Failorina pulling ahead in the Senate primary has put a beating on Campbell’s fundraising efforts. He’s now pretty much conceding the race:

Capitulating to his dwindling campaign treasury, Republican Senate candidate Tom Campbell pulled his television advertising Tuesday and in the closing days of the primary race will rely on Internet appeals and telephone calls to make his case to GOP voters. (LAT)

You just can’t win on phonecalls and internet appeals alone. That might be enough in Rhode Island, but in a state where millions of votes are required, you simply need more than just the internet.  I know, you might not expect to hear that from an internet-type, but there it is.  

To be frank, Campbell kind of scared me. He does this faux-moderate thing really well, and then yanks the rug out from under Californians who really need help.  If Fiorina can continue to loan her campaign a few million of seed money, her campaign won’t be completely hapless. However, she has an Achilles heal, her tenure at HP, that is her qualification for running.  

I’m not calling anything yet, but this is the surest sign of any yet.

The Demon Sheep are back in this CDP/DSCC web ad. And they are sporting some zany hair dos and even some pearls:

Remember 2008? Those halcyon days where there was discussion of a McCain-Fiorina ticket.  Well, McCain ended up being quite thankful for that. Let’s start with the clip to the right, where Fiorina says that McCain wouldn’t be qualified to run HP. She says that

It is a fallacy to suggest that the country is like a company.

Of course, while this would also suggest that perhaps Fiorina doesn’t have the necessary experience to be Senator for such a large state as California, she’s not talking about that now.  But, of course, there’s more.  When the campaign turned to executive compensation, McCain came out swinging, saying that some of the golden parachutes were absurd and way too high.

Well, yesterday the duo were back at it.  Oh, and the subject of that Fiorina comment came up:

She was permanently sidelined two months before the election when she told a radio host that Sarah Palin, McCain’s vice presidential pick, lacked the experience to lead a major corporation. She made the situation worse when she sought to clarify her remarks  by adding that McCain and then-Sens. Obama and Joe Biden also were unqualified.

When asked about those remarks on Tuesday, McCain joked, “Did she say that?” Fiorina added, “I was making a general comment about all politicians, by the way, not John McCain specifically.”

Ahh, such fun times. Two unqualified people, together again.

Tom Campbell was totally in it to win it.  It’s just that he was in it to win another “it.”  But his heart is totally in the Senate race now, though:

“What we’ve seen in the last year is a tremendous growth of the federal government, tripling the deficit and an expansion of the federal role in health care and financial services,” Campbell told The Bee. “The federal issues are just exploding in the last year.” (SacBee)

You see, it’s just now that he realized that federal issues are important. Not when 12 months ago when Barack Obama inherited the worst economy in a generation. Not 6 months ago, when the vitriol around health care reached its crescendo. Not when President Obama was struggling with Afghanistan decisions.  Now. When it looked like he was about to buried under a mountain of Whitman’s cash.

Not to be a cynic twice over, but, well, I’m going to be a cynic again.  Not only did Campbell wait, but he was also preening for the cameras in a perhaps more visible campaign. And one more thing, under state finance laws, one is allowed to raise a lot more than you are allowed to raise per contributor under federal laws. I wasn’t able to determine how many big donors Campbell had, mostly because his funding was so anemic and the second half numbers haven’t been filed yet. But, if one were to really, really need to raise his name ID, I’d think some additional time in the Gov race would be appealing

Not that I’m a cynic or anything…

Image by generic

This has been brewing in the rumor mill for a few months now it seems.  It looks like tomorrow will be the day that Tom Campbell makes it official. He’s going to run in the GOP Senate Primary rather than for Governor.

In a move that will rock the state’s political landscape, former Silicon Valley Congressman Tom Campbell will announce Thursday that he is dropping out of the California governor’s race to run for the U.S. Senate, the Mercury News has learned.

Campbell has scheduled two news conferences to make the announcement: one at 9 a.m. in Los Angeles, the other at 2:30 p.m. at the San Jose Fairmont hotel, according to an e-mail from Campbell’s campaign that was sent Monday to his major supporters. The e-mail referred to a “soon to be announced new venture” – confirmed by campaign sources to be a Senate run. (SJ Merc)

I think in order to rock the state’s political landscape, you sort have to a) not telegraph the move months ahead of time and b) have a clear path to victory.  

Tom Campbell would be a pretty tough race for Barbara Boxer.  I think the betting line would still lean Boxer, but he’s a more polished candidate than either Fiorina or DeVore. And he has the whole, not crazy thing going for him over DeVore. The trouble for Campbell is the same in the Senate race as it was in the Governor’s race, except with a lot less money sloshing around. Basically, he’s trying to run a campaign for the general electorate of the state in a primary.  And given that the only people really excited to come out and vote in the GOP primary will be the right-wingers, the primary will be really, really tough for Campbell.

I suppose on the bright side for him, he won’t be fighting Whitman’s crazy dollars in this race. But the real winner here has to be Chuck DeVore. The “I can play sane on TV” vote just got split between Fiorina and Campbell.  DeVore just might be able to somehow grab this nomination.

Come on, admit it, that would be hilariously fun.

On the Larry Mantle Show on KPCC, Carly Fiorina had this to say:

I believe that life begins at conception.  I would certainly that there are exceptions for the health of the mother.  I support stem-cell research.  But let me just say that on these very difficult social issues, I recognize that not everyone shares my views.  I also recognize that these social issues are not whats on the table today.

Not sure what to say to this other than these two words: Stupak Amendment.