[National] Republicans, buoyed by what they see as a potential resurgence in California, pledged on Tuesday to send significant financial, logistical and strategic resources to the state in coming weeks.
[Steele], speaking to reporters on a conference call, said Republicans in years past have treated California as a “flyover” state because of Democrats’ electoral edge, or little more than fertile grounds for fundraising.
“The days of just grabbing and going or just ignoring altogether are over,” he said, after meeting with California Republican Party Chairman Ron Nehring in Washington. “We’re going to be full partners on the ground.”
Californians are used to hearing this sort of talk from Republicans every other cycle or so, but that’s usually all it is: talk. If this year is like most, by the end of the summer, everyone will know the cause is lost and the national party will quietly deploy its resources to other races where the Republican candidates stand a chance.
The promises of help this year ring especially hollow because both of the top candidates paid for the primary campaigns out of their own pockets. Whitman made about $1 billion as CEO of eBay, and Fioriana received a severance package of about $40 million when she was fired as CEO of Hewlett-Packard in 2005.
Whitman spent about $90 million of her own money on the primary alone and appears ready to spend whatever it takes to “buy” the governor’s office in November. In addition to her opposition to abortion, which is a deal-killer in statewide California politics, Whitman may have fatally wounded her candidacy by running far to the right — especially on immigration — in the primary campaign.
Latinos accounted for 19 percent of voters in the last gubernatorial election, among whom 39 percent voted for Gov. Schwarzenegger, possibly in part because he is an immigrant himself. After her hard stance against undocumented residents — including asserting she will forbid them from attending community colleges and state universities — Whitman will be lucky to get half of Schwarzenegger’s Latino vote.
With her smaller personal fortune, Fiorina is more likely to need help from fatcat RNC donors. In addition to opposing abortion, her problem is she’s a novice whose first week of campaigning in the general election has been spectacularly bad. Boxer ran virtually unopposed in 2004, so unless she can knock Fiorina out earlier (or Fiorina permanently hobbles her campaign by continuing her self-demeaning and amateurish performance), Fiorina could force the Boxer campaign to waste its time and resources fending off a lightweight nuisance.
Still, despite Chairman Steele’s insistence otherwise, neither Whitman nor Fiorina should count on any help from the RNC, and they both know it.
“We’re going to be full partners on the ground.”
WHOA. That’s heavy man. But, good luck, you’ll need it