The Boxer campaign is terrified of Fiorina, and is praying they get to run against DeVore. If DeVore wins the Republican primary, the Boxer campaign will be giving each other high fives. I understand wanting a more conservative Republican, but I’ll take a moderate Republican that can actually win over a left-wing loony like Boxer any day. I also think Fiorina has a lot going for her, and would be a huge asset to the Republican Party.

I’ve seen bids like Chuck DeVore’s before, and he’ll end up losing in a landslide against Boxer. A Republican like DeVore can’t win statewide in California, period. He’s also running an ugly primary campaign, insinuating that Fiorina has some sort of secret connection with Iran that’s undermining U.S. national security.

I didn’t know there were formulas that could be cited to show how one candidate can do better than another. I’m just using common sense.

Please show me how an Orange County state assemblyman is more qualified to be a U.S. Senator than a CEO of a billion dollar corporation. Maybe we need less career politicians in Washington? At the end of the day, if we’re arguing over experience, Boxer wins over both of them since she’s an incumbent Senator, so it’s a silly point to make.

I think there’s a large amount of voters in California that agree with Republicans on many fiscal issues, but they don’t on some social issues, so they end up voting Democrat. That’s why Republicans in deep blue states, like Giuliani in New York City, or Mitt Romney in Massachusetts are able to win, they run as pro-choice Republicans and are able to win over these voters. I applaud this strategy, if either of these men ran as pro-life, they would have lost.

Also, Dan Lungren lost to Gray Davis for Governor by nearly 20 percentage points after his ’94 election.

If you don’t think California is a liberal state, than what do you consider to be a liberal state? It’s certainly not a conservative state, and it’s not a swing state or “purple state”. California is to the Democrats as Texas is to Republicans.

Every Presidential election for the last 20 years has gone Democrat by double digits in California. I understand there are a few conservative pockets in the state, but overall it’s a blue state. The Democrats don’t even spend a penny during Presidential elections because they know it’s in the bag.

Conservatives have this idea that from now on, everyone is going to be a Republican, and all the blue states are going to turn red because Obama’s numbers are down, but California is still unfortunately going to be a liberal leaning state. I hope some people have been swayed by the awful fiscal management of the state, but it’s still going to be a tough nut to crack.

I have no problem with a tough debate on real issues, but what DeVore is doing is slimy (hence the use of the word mudslinging is the title of this thread) DeVore running with this says volumes about his character. What about Reagan’s 11th commandment?

Primaries aren’t a blank check for candidates to destroy their opponents with false accusations. DeVore knows that Fiorina has no Iranian connection that somehow undermines national security, but he’s running with it because he’s desperate. If a Democrat was attempting this against a Republican, we would call them out on it, but it’s okay if the more conservative primary candidate says it about their opponent?

Someone is going to win this primary, and we shouldn’t be doing the Democrats dirty work by destroying the eventual winner’s character as they go into the general election.

I’m going off the article YOU gave us:

“So it?s not entirely surprising that Chuck DeVore is already attempting to use HP against Fiorina. As the San Jose Mercury-News reports, DeVore alleges that HP began circumventing US export restrictions under Fiorina?s leadership, sending technology to Iran illegally through a third party, the Redington Gulf company.”

you also titled the post “California Senate Primary Mudslinging begins” So if DeVore is not behind this, who’s throwing the mud?

So Neil chastises me for smearing DeVore when I was going off information HE gave us because we didn’t read the update HE made LATER? How ridiculous is that?

A mysterious DeVore source is telling him the published San Jose story is false, so we should just ignore the entire article? Please tell us your DeVore source so YOU can prove the story is false.

Why don’t you take the story down completely if it’s false, Neil.

Ignore whatever Neil writes since it’s probably false, and instead just click on the links. Sounds like a good idea to me.

If the story is incorrect, fine, I’m not accusing you of purposely lying. But if you wrote the above article, you should be held responsible for the content. This is what you wrote:

“So it?s not entirely surprising that Chuck DeVore is already attempting to use HP against Fiorina. As the San Jose Mercury-News reports, DeVore alleges that HP began circumventing US export restrictions under Fiorina?s leadership, sending technology to Iran illegally through a third party, the Redington Gulf company.”

You stated that DeVore is using this attack against Fiorina, so it’s not unreasonable for me (and others) to make that conclusion from what you wrote. If the story is completely false (which I don’t think you can completely dismiss just using info from a DeVore campaign aid) than your article should be taken down completely. But to get upset at someone for going off information that YOU gave them is insane.

What does that have to do with the discussion about what Neil wrote?

I read the linked article a long time ago.

Here is the relevant quote from your post:

“First you took what Neil wrote and extrapolated from it….”

Yes, that is what we’re arguing about. What Neil wrote, and that now Neil is angry that people when off what he wrote.

In the linked article, (the one Neil didn’t write) it states:

“Fiorina’s likely primary opponent, Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, R-Irvine, who happened to work on trade enforcement matters for the U.S. Defense Department in the 1980s, is already raising the issue in campaign missives.”

I happen to believe the linked newspaper article more than I do Neil’s mystery source in the DeVore campaign.

It’s not like we’re talking about military hardware here, it’s cheap printers that somehow ended up finding their way to Iran. I’m sure all sorts of goods find their way there.

I think accusing your opponent of a treasonous alliance with Iran is violating Reagan’s 11th commandment, calling someone on their unfair and untrue charge is not.

At the end of the day, we can go in circles all day, but Neil is out of line to be upset that someone is making a conclusion from information HE gave them. Neil, along with the cited article, stated that Devore was bringing this issue up in the primary campaign. He even stated it in the title “California Senate Primary Mudslinging Begins”