California’s GOP Senate Primary Comes Down to the Wire

Costa Mesa, Calif.

‘I’ve always voted against taxes. This is important, ladies and gentlemen, because our country is on a precipice. Do you want people to follow through on their promises?” state Assemblyman Chuck DeVore bellows to a rapt crowd this week at the Ayres Hotel in Costa Mesa. More than three hundred people have come to this GOP Senate debate to see the three candidates duke it out in the final push toward the June 8 primary. And Mr. DeVore clearly doesn’t plan on playing third fiddle to opponents Tom Campbell and Carly Fiorina.

The rabble-rousing radio talk-show hosts moderating the debate encourage the candidates to “fight it out” as if it were a WWF wrestling match. So when Mr. DeVore goes after former Hewlett Packard CEO Fiorina for supporting a ballot initiative a decade ago that he says “would gut Prop 13,” which limits property tax increases, she fires back: “I’m sure it’s very frustrating for Chuck DeVore to have so many conservatives endorsing me. Maybe it makes Chuck DeVore, who’s sort of dog-paddling at 14% in the polls . . . feel better to belittle other people’s conservative credentials.”

Her aggressive defense draws boos and hisses. Mr. DeVore’s supporters outnumber his opponents’ supporters by about three to one. These are the tea partiers we keep reading about. Many of the people I talk to say this election is the first time they’ve been involved in politics; they’re concerned about their grandchildren’s futures. “I’m worried we’re turning into Greece with all of our entitlements,” says an older DeVore supporter sitting next to me.

After the state’s disastrous experiment with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, fiscal conservatism resonates. Mr. Schwarzenegger was swept into power seven years ago on the promise of fiscal responsibility, even though he had no track record to recommend him. Under his predecessor, Democrat Gray Davis, the state budget deficit reached a mammoth $34 billion. Yet during Mr. Schwarzenegger’s first four years in office, state spending ballooned to $103 billion from $78 billion. Last year, the state faced a $42 billion deficit.

Though better known and better funded than Mr. DeVore, Ms. Fiorina and Mr. Campbell are struggling to pull ahead in the primary race to take on Sen. Barbara Boxer in the fall. And even though recent polls show Mr. DeVore trailing by double digits, his support has nearly doubled in the last two months to 16% from 8%.

Mr. DeVore’s campaign is predicated on convincing conservatives that they can’t trust Ms. Fiorina’s credentials. At the debate, his volunteers passed out leaflets claiming she supported the stimulus, the Wall Street bailout, cap and trade, ObamaCare and amnesty for illegal immigrants. Though all gross misrepresentations of her positions, they generate anxiety among a distrustful electorate. When I ask people why they can’t support Ms. Fiorina, they point to this leaflet.

What these tea partiers don’t seem to realize is that by supporting Mr. DeVore, they are splitting the conservative vote and will likely hand a win to the moderate Mr. Campbell. If Mr. DeVore’s attacks on Ms. Fiorina are as successful in riling up conservative voters as they are at this debate, come November Republicans will have a choice between Ms. Boxer, who has held the seat for three terms, and a “Barbara Boxer-lite,” as Ms. Fiorina called Mr. Campbell in the debate.

Mr. Campbell has locked up the moderate vote because he’s pro-choice on abortion and pro-gay marriage. “If we’re serious about replacing Boxer, we need to nominate someone who is fiscally conservative and socially moderate,” Mr. Campbell says, trying to sell his positions to the socially conservative crowd.

Mr. Campbell is a known quantity, having served 10 years in Congress and worked as Mr. Schwarzenegger’s finance director. He was the architect of California’s 2005 budget, credited for the state’s current financial problems. He has also proposed covering the state’s budget gap with a 32 cent per gallon gas tax, and he supported the governor’s decision last year to sign a $12.5 billion tax hike.

Ms. Fiorina has used Mr. Campbell’s spotty fiscal record to portray him as a “FCINO,” or fiscal conservative in name only. Her “demon sheep” YouTube video depicting Mr. Campbell as a wolf in sheep’s clothing struck a nerve among Republicans who once supported him because they thought he had the best chance of taking down Ms. Boxer. Now they’re not so sure.

But they’re not sure about Ms. Fiorina either, though she holds strong conservative positions on just about every issue. During the debate, she silences the pro-DeVore crowd when she speaks fluently about Sarbanes-Oxley (a 2002 federal law that set new accounting standards for publicly traded firms) and the Wall Street bailout in ways her primary opponents—and certainly Ms. Boxer—cannot. She’s also run a Fortune 500 company. In short, she could be “the one” California conservatives have been waiting for to finally trample Ms. Boxer. But—and it’s this that worries people—she has no legislative voting track record.

Although their movement is sweeping out political insiders across the country, tea partiers in the Golden State are loathe to take a chance on someone who doesn’t have political experience. Yet by voting for Mr. DeVore because of his conservative record, they may guarantee Mr. Campbell a spot on the GOP ticket.

Ms. Finley is an assistant editor of OpinionJournal.com.