5/23/00 1:25 p.m.
The Wacky, Left Coast Campaign
And you thought the New York Senate race was weird!

By Arnold Steinberg, author and political strategist from California

onsider Republican Congressman Tom Campbell, whose lackluster Senate primary campaign easily triumphed on March 7th over two little known conservative rivals. Campbell, an articulate Republican nominee who is as intelligent as he is lacking in street smarts, now faces Senator Dianne Feinstein.

The Campbell candidacy has been called "quirky" by the liberal UC-Berkeley analyst Bruce Cain. That was not said with admiration, as when a liberal might praise the "independence" of John McCain, whose youth director, incidentally, Campbell just appointed as his campaign manager. The young woman reportedly is quite capable. And California is, after all, a small state. Campbell pretty much runs the show, anyway, relying occasionally on counsel provided by the same consultant who also advises Republican State Insurance Commissioner Chuck Quackenbush. ("Quack," whose wife says he is being victimized by a Democratic party plot and media conspiracy, has been cast adrift by Republicans weary of his scandals.)

Back to Campbell's bizarre machinations. Consider, for example, that Campbell (like his former teacher, Milton Friedman) would accommodate drug addicts with prescriptions. The problem is not Campbell's arguably reasonable position (it is also Bill Buckley's), but Campbell's self-destructive obsession with the kinds of issues that seem to highlight eccentricities that place him to the left of Feinstein.

This is a Republican who wants a national sales tax. He says it would "replace" the income tax, but somehow most people don't get the "replace" part. After all, what politician ever repeals a tax? For good measure, Campbell has said the Internet should be taxed. He argues coherently for other positions, individually plausible, together strange. For example, he would end the embargo against Saddam Hussein. He also would end all foreign aid to Israel and, for good measure, give the money saved to — Africa? He announced this non-sequitur around Martin Luther King Day. He reportedly is astonished that some construe the pronouncement as writing off Jewish voters and pandering to African-Americans.

Of course, Campbell will get few black or Jewish votes. Perhaps that explains his flirtation with the influential Green party, which has, after all, elected one of California's 120 state legislators. Last week, while that party's lone legislator required the services of the California Highway Patrol to settle an acrimonious staff dispute, Campbell courted the Green party. He held a news conference on the drug issue with Medea Benjamin, that party's candidate for U.S. Senate. Campbell said the joint appearance at the Walden House, a drug rehabilitation center in San Francisco's Mission District, underscored his ability to reach new voters with unusual coalitions. This presumes that the left-of-center Greens would waste their vote on a Republican who flirts with a marginal party, rather than on the marginal party itself. (A funny thing happened at the drug rehab center: A worried drug counselor shooed Campbell out the door and tried to move him across the street. "This press conference has to go," she said. "We have clients here. They can't be filmed.")

Campbell's main problem is a seemingly self-destructive assault on the Republican base. Consider that earlier in the year he was among a handful of elected Republicans who opposed the man-woman marriage measure, Proposition 22, which passed in a landslide. Campbell wreaks mischief, as if he has decided he cannot win, so he figures: Why not say what's on his mind, whenever it comes to his mind? Earlier, he said he would not attack Feinstein's rich husband, wealthy businessman Richard Blum, for his business connections in China. (Campbell: "I don't think it's fair to bring anybody's spouse into the campaign."). Now, attacking Blum, Campbell says he's really attacking Feinstein, because she failed to complete financial-disclosure forms on the China stuff. But Campbell may have misread the disclosure forms. Tom Campbell is having fun, but at those expense? In a departure from recent years, the Republican party's candidate for President, George W., actually may help Republican candidates in California. In turn, a weak Campbell candidacy could hurt George W.