Dan Walters: Intraparty duels often very heated

Sacramento Bee ^ | 5/24/10 | Dan Walters

[SmithL]

Political fights within parties are often more heated than those between candidates of opposite parties, as this year's increasingly sharp duel between Republican gubernatorial candidates Steve Poizner and Meg Whitman underscores.

Intraparty squabbles often hinge on relatively small differences, such as the Poizner-Whitman dust-up over who's tougher on illegal immigration – a shrill squabble that may fatally damage the election chances of the eventual nominee.

There are two even nastier intraparty battles under way this spring.

One is a rematch between the 36th Congressional District's Democratic incumbent, Jane Harman, and high school teacher Marcy Winograd, who challenged Harman in 2006. The two Jewish women are on opposite sides of Israel's decades-long conflict with Palestinians – one in a series of battles around the country between moderate and liberal Democrats.

Harman has been a staunch pro-Israel vote and supported American military action in the Mideast. Winograd, co-founder of LA Jews for Peace, has called for a "one-state" solution to the Israeli-Palestinian standoff, irritating Israel's supporters.

Rep. Henry Waxman wrote a fundraising letter for Harman in which he described Winograd as an "anti-Jewish extremist who supports the elimination of the Jewish state."

Winograd, in turn, called him "a campaign pit bull," refers to Harman as "Congresswoman Helmsley" and tried, in vain, to deny Harman the state Democratic Party's endorsement.