George Will: Tom Campbell Is A Long Shot To Watch In CA Governor Race
An especially intriguing candidate in a colorful field is Tom Campbell. Colorful he is not. “Talk softly and carry a small calculator” could be his motto. What glitter, however, are his resume and agenda.
He has a Harvard law degree and a doctorate in economics from the University of Chicago, where his faculty adviser was Milton Friedman. He clerked for Supreme Court Justice Byron White. Working in the Reagan administration in 1983, in the wake of a severe recession, he assumed Reagan would lose in 1984 (“proof of my political acumen,” he says; Reagan carried 49 states) and accepted a professorship at Stanford’s law school. He represented Silicon Valley in Congress for five terms. He unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination for Senate in 1992. He won the nomination in 2000 but lost the election.
– “One Long Shot To Watch”, George Will, Townhall, August 30
Those are some impressive credentials. But can he win the Republican nomination against billionaires Poizner and Whitman?