Carly Fiorina is no newcomer to controversy in her campaign for US Senate in California. The former HP CEO stirred the pot with her now infamous “demon sheep” video chiding her newest opponent, Tom Cambell, for not being the fiscal conservative she claims to be. Well, now Fiorina is at it again.
In a new web ad, Fiorina uses an image of Scott Brown that says, “Thank you Massachusetts,” then it flips to an image of Fiorina and says, “Now on to California. Join the path to victory.” Seeing the two candidates in close succession in a ad like that might lead you to believe that Scott Brown has endorsed Carly Fiorina in her Senate bid, and that’s exactly what they want you to think. But he hasn’t.
“It’s crafted with this wink wink, nudge nudge that’s meant to imply something that it doesn’t explicitly say,” said Joshua Treviño, a spokesman for DeVore. “You don’t appropriate the symbol of Scott Brown and claim it as your own without validating him as a source.”
Trevino is right. The ad is deceptive. Of course, I’m sure they asked Scott Brown first if they could use his photo for their ad. Oh… maybe not. Fiorina aide Julie Soderlund said “that Fiorina has not asked the senator for an endorsement and did not seek permission to use his photo.”
For a campaign that is trying to portray the image that their candidate is not a career politician, and brings a refreshing outsiders perspective to the race, these practices contradict that message. This is a tactic that Barbara Boxer would use, and Fiorina is among a trio of Republicans running to unseat Boxer in November.
If the turning tide for Republicans in 2009 is an indication of anything, it’s that the GOP should support candidates with character. For all their complaining about the loses in Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts, the Democrats were incapable of saying that the better man lost. In this race, Fiorina’s actions don’t seem to follow that same trend. Her record at HP is anything but stellar, voters will be hard pressed to overturn a longtime sitting Democrat if they don’t see a dramatic choice between the candidates.
Chuck Devore’s spokesman, Josh Trevino, put it much more eloquently than I can in a statement this morning. “Glib evasion is no way to win a race — and Carly Fiorina isn’t on her way to winning this one. But it is a great way to get bad press. The question is, after years of it, why she and the people she surrounds herself with haven’t made that connection.”
