Tom Campbell is looking for a few good business supporters.
The Silicon Valley congressman spent last week in Orange County to try to drum up support among local executives for his campaign for U.S. Senate.
“I’m meeting with them to better know people here and to get folks to know me,” said Campbell, who visited the Orange County Business Journal office.
It’s not like he’s unknown in these parts. He said he’s “an old friend” of Safi Qureshey, the OC entrepreneur behind such technology names as AST and NextCard. He knows Tom Tucker, an OC investor and the chairman of the New Majority, a new group of business executives who want to make the Republican Party more moderate. Campbell said he and Rep. Chris Cox, R-Newport Beach, went to law school together at Harvard and they remain good friends.
Among Orange County executives who thus far are backing Campbell are Don Bren of the Irvine Company, Ted Smith, chairman of FileNnet, and Robert Kleist, president/CEO of Printronix Inc. Also, Tucker said the New Majority might host a fundraiser for Campbell after the primary, provided he wins.
Campbell, who is considered a socially moderate, pro-business Republican, is the favorite to win the March 7 primary against four other GOP contenders, according to polls. His two most prominent foes are considered far more conservative: Bill Horn, a supervisor from San Diego, and Ray Haynes, a state senator from Riverside.
If Campbell wins as expected, he will be facing incumbent Sen. Dianne Feinstein. According to a Field Poll published earlier this month, Feinstein is favored by 52% of the voters, compared with 14% for Campbell, 4% for Horn and 3% for Haynes.
Campbell bristled when asked if his campaign was quixotic. He acknowledged that his polling shows that 95% of Californian voters know of Feinstein, but he said most cannot name her accomplishments and only 48% support her.
“That tells me there’s a tremendous opportunity here,” he said.
He has raised $2 million, of which he still has $1.5 million that he said he expects to spend before the March 7 primary. In the fall election, he estimated he’ll need to spend upward of $15 million to win.
“I should have a substantial amount of help, including the backing of George Bush,” he said.
Among his supporters in the Silicon Valley are Scott McNealy, chairman and CEO of Sun Microsystems of Palo Alto, and T.J. Rogers, president and CEO of Cypress Semiconductors, a San Jose-based company with a market cap of $4.3 billion.
However, Campbell hasn’t been able to attract some other high-tech executives, most notably Republican John Chambers, CEO of Cisco Systems and a Bush supporter, who is backing Feinstein.
Campbell is well aware of the dispute between Tucker’s New Majority, which includes executives who run some of the biggest companies in Orange County, and Tom Fuentes, the chairman of the OC Republican Central Committee. Campbell is trying to walk a fine line in the dispute between the two camps, which are fighting for control of the Central Committee.
“The disagreements in the Republican Party are on social issues,” he said. “My hope is that we don’t dwell on those, but how much we have in common.” n
Campbell’s Positions
n Business: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce says he voted 79% of the time in ways recommended by the Chamber, compared with 37% for Feinstein.
n Internet tax: Favors no tax on accessing the Internet, but favors taxing items sold on the Internet that are also sold through a brick-and-mortar store.
n Income tax: Favors abolishing it and replacing it with a 20% national sales tax on everything except food, medicine, and housing.
n Favors balancing the budget.
n Favors abortion rights.
n Favors several gun-control measures.
n Opposes Prop. 22, which would prohibit state recognition of same-sex marriages.
n Quote (from his web page): “I cannot rationally explain the present level of the stock market. If it were to lose 25% of its value in a week, I could not say that stocks were undervalued. The key, therefore, is to use the good times to prepare for the possibility of bad. That means DO NOT SPEND THE ‘SURPLUS’! Instead, let it accumulate in interest-bearing bonds to build public works, like toll roads or airports,real assets, not just promises that a future Congress will tax future workers to pay future retirees.”
