When you are going into a fight for your life, you want to make sure that everyone in your fox hole is at the top of their game — and it looks like State Senator Jeff Denham, who is the subject of a frivolous and political recall effort but can take nothing for granted, has put together quite a team.
Fresh off the "No on 93" team are lead consultants Wayne Johnson and Tim Clark of JohnsonClark Associates, consultant and media strategist par excellence Kevin Spillane, and uber-research specialist Mark Bogetich of MB Associates. They’ve already kicked Don Perata’s porky butt once, and I am sure relish the opportunity to do it again…
Rounding out the team: Veteran pollster Steve Kinney of Public Opinion Strategies, Capitol fundraiser John Bovee of the Bovee Company, district fundraiser Jane Clark of the JLC Group — and on the ground: tapped as the on-site campaign manager is John Franklin (from Darrell Issa’s political team, he recently managed the successful election campaign of Brian Bilbray in the very high profile 2006 special election to fill Duke Cunningham’s seat). Franklin’s Deputy will be longtime Denham aide Dana Ferreira.
A top notch team, for sure.
That said, this will be a huge battle, with millions of dollars being spent.
The irony is that the recall was started by Perata ostensibly because Denham refused to cave-in and support last year’s bloated state budget. Not, in retrospect, history has proven Denham right — that budget should have never been passed, it calls for spending billions more than the cash-strapped state has available.
Perhaps the more accepted theory about the impetus for the recall closer to the mark — that Don Perata’s girlfriend, a political hack, is making big bucks off of this whole thing…
