Campbell really isn't a strong campaigner. I met one of the staffers that worked with him, and he gets weird ideas in his head. Like, he really wanted to make his last senate race all about the illegality of the Clinton war in Kosovo, and couldn't comprehend that no one in California cared about that. I like Campbell a lot fwiw, and I view him as the most intellectually honest GOP politician in CA, and a good person (he also taught at my university)...it's just Boxer has a lot of money and a lot of talent.
Boxer has money and a great campaign staff in California, and the GOP really hasn't been making any headway in CA as far as I can tell in the non-white communities, which are only growing day by day (although will be less represented than they were in 08 obvioustown).
I really disagree with Torie that the Governor's race should be considered lean-R. In an anti-incumbent season, with a retiring, severely unpopular Republican governor in a Democratic state, Whitman still has a large hill to climb. Brown's prospects went up a lot when he completely avoided a primary challenge and could tailer all of his platform to the general election.
Lunar, two thoughts that I have about the CA governor's race: 1) I am now persuaded that Whitman has the right "style" to shave off a big chunk of socially moderate to liberal voters, concerned about fiscal issues, that have been voting Dem for most races in California, and 2) the issue in CA will be about reining in public employee pensions (BK city is looming for many municipalities, and Calpers cf's are now pushing the State itself to the brink), and few will believe Brown is capable of that. I am pretty confident on this one.
Yeah, I would put my money on Whitman at this point. As you said, nobody really cares about social issues right now. And even the hatchet job being done against Poizner is mostly based on fiscal issues rather than any social issues. The only thing Brown has going for him is that Whitman has been running an ugly campaign against Poizner and just this last weekend I saw some ads where Poizner responded in the same manner. Brown on the other hand has not had to get his hands dirty.
