Hors DeVores

One week after issuing his communique that Chuck DeVore drop out of the race for the GOP Senate nomination in California, Erick Erickson has moved his two-week deadline up and ordered Carly Fiorina to drop out and make way for Chuck: It Is Not Chuck DeVore Who Must Drop Out

We know from the real world — Marlin Stutzman — that two weeks out in Indiana he was at 8%, the week before the race he was at 18%, and the day of the election he got 30%.

The trends, polls, and other data are clear: Carly Fiorina has reached the glass ceiling. Chuck DeVore is going up. And it is Carly who is a drain on Chuck, not the other way around.

A conservative whose first name starts with a “C” can win the primary and beat Barbra Boxer. But that person is not named Carly. Rather that person is named Chuck.

Carly Fiorina needs to get out and endorse Chuck DeVore.

Erickson analyzes some polling which tends to show DeVore gaining ground over Fiorina among self-described conservatives. Ominously, the same polling also shows Campbell leading among conservatives for many months - with declines only recently setting in - despite Campbell's having no history or reputation as a conservative. This primary may well test the proposition of just how many conservatives there really are in California.

One thing people tend to elide over is that all three GOP candidates stack up similarly against The Boxer. They all poll within the margin of error in a head-to-head race, with Campbell even showing a slight lead at times. The question, really, is who do you want going up against a woman who, for all her faults, is a real street fighter when it comes to campaigning. Choose your poison:

1. nebbishy, colorless "moderate" Republican academic who supported TARP and the tax-and-debt budget deal rejected in last year's Special Election, and who lost by 20% in his last state-wide Senate race?

2. "colorful" business executive who has had absolutely no political history prior to 2008, who was associated with the McCain presidential campaign, and who assures us that "yes, absolutely!" she is a committed conservative?

3. state assemblyman who has never run a state-wide race, and would need to define himself faster than The Box and the MSM can define him? Also, he looks like he was poured into that suit. Mmmm. Mmmm. Mmmm.

The choice, I think, is obvious.