Relevant, Contemporary and Uniquely Conservative

Tom Campbell is a gentleman, scholar and one of the nicest, most well mannered politicians the Republican Party has ever had to offer to the public. As a political moderate, Campbell is not divisive, nor is he a moderate out of personal bitterness or narcissistic means. Tom Campbell is not an anti-Semite. What Tom Campbell has done is offer votes that worked against Israel and her interests, but he is not consistently anti-Israel at his core. In the end Tom Campbell is, to his own detriment, a very loyal academic. Herein rests his biggest problem as it relates to this senatorial race.

So this past weekend was the California Republican Assembly Convention. There were a lot of interesting story lines - the endorsement of Steve Poizner, the breakdown and crying of Lydia Gutierrez while seeking an endorsement, and the domination of John Eastman in the Attorney General race, but perhaps the story no one heard about (yet) is rooted back in that District 2 Board of Equalization race. For those that do not attend these events, there is a lot of paper at them. And when I say, a lot, I mean A LOT. Campaign signs, fliers and petitions all over the place. Campaigns struggle to get the attention of this key conservative audience. One piece in particular grabbed my attention, but it was not because of a strong campaign message or a key graphic (or at least not a campaign graphic), it was because the flier was printed on a rather unique type of paper - taxpayer-funded state paper.

Just a little different today on the format. We’re more than happy to entertain the three Republican candidates for U.S. Senate on the GOP side of the aisle here on 1380 KTKZ. Welcoming the state. We’ve got many people listening via the website at KTKZ.com and our thanks off the top here to our sponsors, which have cleared the way for the entire hour. We will have three short breaks in this hour during this debate, and they will be very, very short. Right around 15 minutes after the hour, thirty minutes after the hour, forty five minutes after the hour. The debate does have some rules today, and they’re rather simple, just to give us some structure and some format to get the answers out so you can hear the candidates here. Real simple, I will ask a question, an initial question in each round to one of the candidates, and then they will have two minutes to respond and I will keep track of the time right here...

So who called former Congressman, then Professor Tom Campbell in 2002 and asked him to write a letter on behalf of Sami Al-Arian? Was it Georgetown Professor David Cole? Sources are beginning to zero in on his name tonight. Here is what we know of Professor David Cole. Cole is (approximately) 50 years old and graduated straight through Yale and Yale Law School. He had an early affinity for First Amendment cases and became a staff attorney for the Center for Constitutional Rights, which is a bit like a legal ACLU. Cole now serves as a "volunteer" staff attorney for the organization. Currently, he is the legal affairs correspondent for The Nation, a commentator on National Public Radio: All Things Considered, and has written three books.