Republican U.S. Senate candidate Tom Campbell -- who until this morning was running for California governor -- told The Bee this afternoon that he switched races not only because he was facing two wealthy gubernatorial rivals, Meg Whitman and Steve Poizner, ready to spend tens of millions on their races but because he was alarmed at rising federal spending.
He spoke on his way from San Jose, where he had just finished a campaign event, to Sacramento, where he will hold another event at 9 a.m. Friday at the Hyatt Regency hotel. Campbell announced his switch this morning in Los Angeles.
"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."
Campbell said a poll conducted by the company of his communications director Jamie Fisfis showed him winning 31 percent of voters' support to 15 percent for former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina and 12 percent for Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, R-Irvine. The Field Poll found in October that Fiorina and DeVore each had the support a fifth of Republicans and did not include Campbell.
Campbell badly trailed Whitman and Poizner in the money race, with $317,382 in cash on hand at the end of June. Campbell said he cannot use that money in his Senate bid and will refund it to contributors. But he said many of his gubernatorial supporters are ready to contribute to his Senate campaign.
Campbell added that he made the decision to switch over the holidays while participating in a Spanish immersion program in Panama, where he spoke by phone to several supporters urging him to run for the Senate. Campbell twice ran unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate, in 1992 and 2000.
Fiorina has slammed Campbell for running again for the Senate, with campaign spokeswoman Julie Soderlund saying in a statement, "Tom's unending quest for statewide office has nothing to do with serving the people of California, rather it's about satisfying Tom Campbell's quixotic personal ambition and the false premise that he will be acceptable to Republican primary voters."
Campbell responded that he hadn't run for U.S. Senate in nearly 10 years and in that time, went back into education both in California and internationally.
"I've had 10 years to think about it, and I think that would make me a better candidate," Campbell said.
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