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Carly Fiorina Courts Conservatives; Will It Put Her in the Senate?

2 years ago

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Having just officially announced her campaign for U.S. Senate in California against Democratic incumbent Barbara Boxer, former Hewlett Packard Chief Executive Officer Carly Fiorina faces what may be the greatest political challenge of her life. Not ousting Sen. Boxer -- winning over conservatives.

Fiorina can't win the general election until she wins the Republican primary, so as part of the effort to boost her conservative bona fides, she has signed on a top-notch team of blogger-outreach experts, and recently attended a "Newsmaker Breakfast" sponsored by The American Spectator in Washington.

More than 25 journalistic pundits -- most of them center-right, philosophically -- attended the breakfast, which included remarks by Fiorina, followed by a question-and-answer session. Fiorina sat at the end of a conference table, generally giving smart answers, but displaying nothing resembling a poker face, as she sometimes allowed her visage to betray her displeasure with the questions.

As a McCain surrogate in 2008, Fiorina was forced to endure countless blogger interviews and conference calls last year, but she has yet to learn the art of suffering fools gladly. And that's the least of her troubles. The most immediate problem is a charismatic and conservative Republican assemblyman named Chuck DeVore. He'd also like to be the GOP senatorial nominee in 2010, and right now he and Fiorina are running virtually neck-and-neck in the polls.

For Fiorina, then, her recent outreach to conservatives is prudent, and perhaps necessary. Her supporters fear that she may fall into a dangerous narrative -- being cast as "the liberal" and allowing DeVore to become the conservative poster boy. Actually, being perceived as the more moderate Republican would be advantageous in a statewide campaign in California, but only if she manages to get the nomination first -- and does so in a campaign that doesn't leave her bruised and broke.

Clearly, the Fiorina forces worry about what recently happened in the 23^rd Congressional District of New York, where the campaign of a liberal Republican woman named Dede Scozzafava slowly fell apart when national conservatives pumped hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of TV ads into efforts to defeat her in favor of Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman. Fiorina supporters have been quick to say that "she is no Dede Scozzafava," which is true enough, but it underscores the high-stakes nature of the "purity wars" taking place in Republican Party this election cycle.

In California, the rules do not necessarily favor the candidate with the loyalty of the most conservative wing of the party. The state has a "modified" closed primary system that permits registered independents (but not Democrats) to vote in primary elections. If Fiorina ultimately prevails over DeVore with these voters, she could secure the nomination even if the Republican base proves more favorable to him.

DeVore has some baggage, including high-profile supporters who beat the "birther" drum against the president, but he has some advantages over Fiorina, too, including a head start: About a year ago, DeVore assembled his own team of conservative blogger consultants. "We've been working it diligently," he told me. He also long ago began a vigorous direct-mail effort, which has helped his campaign bring in over $1 million. That's not a lot of money for California, where it takes 20 times that amount to compete statewide, and the overhead expenses on mailings are high. But direct mail is an investment that can pay off late in a campaign after a candidate has built up a large "house file" of proven donors.

Interestingly, the narrative that Fiorina has access to great sums of money and DeVore is getting it in $25 increments from little old ladies who write him checks along with their Reader's Digest renewals is one that makes both sides comfortable. Team Fiorina is pursing a kind of Olympian strategy, not talking about DeVore much one way or the other. His camp provided likely attendees to the recent Fiorina breakfast with a handy list of questions to ask her. One of them was: "How large was your loan to your campaign?"

For fun, I actually asked this question. Clearly not amused, Fiorina refused to answer it. During the breakfast, in response to a question posed by John Gizzi of Human Events, Fiorina maintained there is no difference between herself and DeVore on social or fiscal issues (a notion DeVore supporters would laugh at), but that she believed she had a better chance to beat Boxer because Boxer was very good at beating "white men." Before the breakfast ended, DeVore supporters on Twitter were asking whether Republican Matt Fong, whom Boxer defeated in 1998, counted as a white man.

Watching her performance put me in mind of President Truman's famous put-down of Dwight Eisenhower -- as the famous general prepared to assume the Oval Office. "Poor Ike -- it won't be a bit like the Army," Truman said. "He'll sit there all day saying, 'Do this, do that,' and nothing will happen." Maybe I'm wrong, but I got the sense that Fiorina remains more comfortable running the show as CEO than engaging in the kind of back-and-forth with reporters and opponents present on the campaign trail. The DeVore camp is testing to see how Fiorina, a former chief executive at Silicon Valley giant Hewlett Packard, will react to the less structured environment of a political campaign.

Her big breakfast was on Monday, and by Wednesday, at a weekly conservative conclave, the DeVore team distributed a fact sheet on Fiorina. The sheet contained many allegations that Fiorina disputes, such as DeVore's contention that she supported the Obama stimulus; but it also included information that came to light during the breakfast itself, such as her assertion that she probably would have voted to confirm Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court of the United States.

This mini-controversy sparked a flurry of activity that will serve as a microcosm of the entire campaign. DeVore quickly informed Republicans that he definitely would not have voted for Sotomayor. Fiorina supporters shot back with a newspaper article noting DeVore's earlier contention that "presidents might deserve more deference than President Obama is currently getting."

Both campaigns are seeking to round up conservative endorsements. While DeVore has the majority of California endorsements, which may prove most important, the two are also competing for national supporters. Popular conservative Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina recently came out in favor of DeVore, while Fiorina snagged conservative Sens. Tom Coburn and Jim Inhofe, both of Oklahoma.

Considering that California has been inhospitable for statewide Republican candidates in recent years and that DeVore and Fiorina trail Boxer in mock match-ups by nearly double-digit margins, the GOP nomination may ultimately prove not worth having. But DeVore has been term-limited out of his Assembly seat, and Fiorina is in a position where she has to finally run for something or eventually fade out of the conversation. Moreover, both candidates believe the political environment is trending in their party's direction. California's economic situation, with a 12.5 percent unemployment rate and structural budget deficit, is sure to stoke anti-incumbent sentiment in the state. And Republicans are also encouraged by the fact that Boxer can't break the 50 percent mark in the polls – an ominous sign for any incumbent.

Many believe Fiorina's real challenge is to win the GOP nomination without tacking so far to the right that she cannot be elected in the deep blue state of California. DeVore's team disputes this bit of conventional wisdom, noting that with the exception of Arnold Schwarzenegger, California Republicans haven't fared much better in recent statewide elections with moderate-left candidates than with true conservatives.

But others do worry that Fiorina will be forced so far to the right that she cannot win the general election. On the subject of abortion, for instance, Fiorina's campaign has repeatedly stated that she is pro-life, not pro-choice, as DeVore has asserted she was on record as being as recently as 2004. This has led DeVore to observe, as he did in speaking with me, that "her socially conservative rhetoric matches my actual record."

Fiorina, for her part, seems somewhat nonplussed about this, asserting that despite their perceived social liberalism, Californians will be voting on economic, not social, issues in 2010. On those, both candidates agree: Boxer has been a disaster. But will Californians concur?

Tagged: barbara boxer, BarbaraBoxer, carly fiorina, CarlyFiorina, chuck devore, ChuckDevore

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