Tom Campbell

Fred Davis -- the man who introduced vermin, Paris Hilton, bad hair and now demonic mutton into our political discourse -- is a bit taken aback by the reaction to his latest creation. "More sheep in my day than I was expecting," he said after sorting through messages from reporters across the country, all of them wanting to talk about the online video -- an instant cult classic -- he created for Republican U.S. Senate hopeful Carly Fiorina. "You certainly never know what's going to catch on."

Tom Campbell's Sept. 30 Op-Ed article on the brinkmanship in Washington between Republicans and Democrats prompted an angry reply from reader Marvin J. Wolf of Mar Vista Heights, who wrote that the piece made him wonder whether Campell was "just another Republican liar. " Wolf continued: "His statements that 'Republican leaders in Congress do not want to harm the economic recovery' and that 'neither side will compromise' are demonstrably false. The Republican speaker of the House announced that his legislative goal was to provide jobs.

Tom Campbell Political party: Republican Occupation: Visiting professor of law, Chapman University School of Law Age: 57, born in Chicago City of residence: Irvine Personal: wife Susanne, no children Education: B.A., M.A., PhD. degrees in economics, University of Chicago. Law degree, Harvard Law School. Career highlights: Professor, Stanford Law School, 1983-88. U.S. House of Representatives, 1989-93 and 1995-2001.

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. The move creates an enormous hurdle for the former congressman at a time when his chief rival, Carly Fiorina, has loaned several million dollars to her campaign and, on the strength of a generous round of TV ads, has shot ahead in what was once a close contest to replace Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer.

With former congressman Tom Campbell dropping out of the California governor's race Thursday, Republican voters will now be faced with a sharp choice: either a multimillionaire Silicon Valley businessman who has contributed $19 million toward his own election campaign, or a multimillionaire Silicon Valley businesswoman who has contributed $19 million toward her campaign. Campbell was considered a long shot in large part because the UC Berkeley business school dean couldn't keep up with his deep-pocketed competitors in fundraising.

Tom Campbell is one of those "what if?" political candidates with intriguing potential scenarios. He doesn't appear to stand a prayer of winning the Republican nomination for governor, let alone the job of chief executive itself. But what if: Voters in the Republican primary next June are looking for a new governor who doesn't need training wheels, who could get up to speed from the start and has been leveling with them about the precise routes he'll take. Campbell's two mega-rich GOP competitors -- former EBay chief executive Meg Whitman and state insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner -- commit murder-suicide in a bombardment of TV attack ads. That's what Democrats Al Checchi and Jane Harman did in 1998, allowing under-funded Gray Davis to win the party nomination.

Reporting from Sacramento In the fall of 2005, voters delivered what was arguably the biggest political defeat of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's career. A key mastermind behind the plan they rejected was Tom Campbell. As the governor's budget chief, Campbell had guided Schwarzenegger to throw his weight behind a ballot measure that would ratchet down state spending. He chaired the campaign in favor of the measure and appeared in television ads. The proposal was the linchpin of a slate of initiatives the governor promised would bring order to Sacramento.

Tom Campbell is a rarity. He's a politician who carefully thinks through contentious issues and takes positions based on his notion of good government. Good politics seem to be a low priority, if one at all. Not that all politicians are finger-to-the-wind opportunists. Each varies by degree between being a policy wonk and political survivalist. But Democrats tend to genuflect to labor, particularly public employee unions. Republicans tend to cower before the anti-tax crowd, to name one.

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. The move creates an enormous hurdle for the former congressman at a time when his chief rival, Carly Fiorina, has loaned several million dollars to her campaign and, on the strength of a generous round of TV ads, has shot ahead in what was once a close contest to replace Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer.

After plummeting in recent polls, Republican Meg Whitman has regained her commanding lead in the race for governor over her primary opponent Steve Poizner, but their contentious assaults have helped reverse the general election edge she once held over Democrat Jerry Brown, a new Los Angeles Times/USC poll has found. Whitman leads Poizner 53% to 29%, with less than two weeks to go before the June 8 primary, the poll found. But head to head against Brown, she trails 44% to 38%. The former EBay chief executive, making her first bid for public office, led by 40 points in the last Times/USC survey in March.

Donors have gone deeper into their pockets for candidate Tom Campbell than for his two competitors for the Republican U.S. Senate nomination lately, but Carly Fiorina's wealth has made her campaign war chest substantially larger less than two weeks before the June 8 primary election. Campaign reports released Thursday also showed that spending continues to escalate in the record-shattering race for governor, with mega-rich GOP rivals Meg Whitman and Steve Poizner spending more than $100 million combined, mostly on TV ads, radio spots and mailers attacking one another.

Reporting from Sacramento In the fall of 2005, voters delivered what was arguably the biggest political defeat of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's career. A key mastermind behind the plan they rejected was Tom Campbell. As the governor's budget chief, Campbell had guided Schwarzenegger to throw his weight behind a ballot measure that would ratchet down state spending. He chaired the campaign in favor of the measure and appeared in television ads. The proposal was the linchpin of a slate of initiatives the governor promised would bring order to Sacramento.

Tom Campbell Political party: Republican Occupation: Visiting professor of law, Chapman University School of Law Age: 57, born in Chicago City of residence: Irvine Personal: wife Susanne, no children Education: B.A., M.A., PhD. degrees in economics, University of Chicago. Law degree, Harvard Law School. Career highlights: Professor, Stanford Law School, 1983-88. U.S. House of Representatives, 1989-93 and 1995-2001.

In his quest to take on California Sen. Barbara Boxer, Republican Tom Campbell has managed an unusual feat — he has been the least visible of the three GOP candidates for Senate, and yet has led in almost every poll. Take last week. Campbell's rivals in the June 8 primary, Assemblyman Chuck DeVore of Irvine and former Hewlett-Packard Chief Executive Carly Fiorina, made dueling appearances on talk radio, sometimes popping up on several shows a day. DeVore juggled his duties in Sacramento with talks before Republican and Tea Party groups in Fremont, Danville and Indian Wells before heading to San Diego for a weekend gathering of the conservative California Eagle Forum.

So let me get this straight: Some guy is deemed too dangerous to be allowed aboard an airplane, but he can leave the terminal and buy an AK-47? After all, he hasn't actually committed an act of terrorism. We wouldn't want to "infringe" on anyone's 2nd Amendment rights. The National Rifle Assn. might get upset and retaliate against any politician who allowed that. But like most policy issues, this is not all black and white. There is a reasonable argument for letting the fellow arm himself.

The leading Republicans competing for their party's nomination for the U.S. Senate moved into the final phase of their campaign Friday, largely seeking to ignore each other and focus, instead, on the incumbent they hope to unseat, Democrat Barbara Boxer. The most recent polls have shown two of the candidates, former Hewlett-Packard chief executive Carly Fiorina and former Rep. Tom Campbell, locked in a tight race for the June 8 primary, with Orange County Assemblyman Chuck DeVore trailing in a distant third.