It's clear that Campbell is using his war on the war on drugs to attract reporters hungry for a good story. And it has earned him more media attention than a candidate trailing by so much in the polls might hope for. Campbell and his advisors understand what makes a good story, and are doing everything they can to seduce the press on their shoestring budget. Campbell's campaign spokesman Sean Walsh calls the congressman's long-shot bid a "rage against the machine." One California Republican said a Campbell victory would take "an act of God."

But is harping on the drug war really a winning issue in law-and-order obsessed California? Campbell has hitched his political fate to a ballot measure -- Proposition 36 -- that would divert nonviolent drug offenders into drug treatment centers rather than into California' overcrowded prisons and jails. If it's to be successful, the issue will have to resonate with voters in a way nobody ever would have expected.

The immediate results of early polling on Prop. 36 are positive, showing it with an early lead. But many believe that will disappear once the campaign is joined in earnest. "The numbers were 55-27 in favor, but awareness was only 13 percent," said Mark DiCamillo of the Field Poll. "The public is reacting to it in a very broad-brush way. It sounds like a good idea. The history of propositions would show that usually you have to start out ahead to have any chance of passage on election day. But only about half of those that start out ahead ultimately get passed. As awareness grows, it's literally a tossup."

"I'm a pragmatist," Campbell says. "I look at a system now that is clearly broken, clearly a failure, and I'm prepared to try alternative routes to solving this problem." He has said the drug war is tantamount to the Jim Crow laws of the Reconstruction-era South because of its disproportionate effect on African-Americans. And he has called unjust and dangerous President Clinton's decision to ram through Congress a new $1.3 billion aid package to Colombia for its own war on drugs. Campbell likes to compare the Colombia aid package to a Vietnam-style intervention.

But the initiative has some powerful enemies. Law enforcement agencies are tripping over themselves in an effort to come out against the initiative. The "No" campaign is being run by a Republican consulting firm whose main client, the powerful California Correctional Peace Officers Association, has come down firmly against the measure. Even the liberal actor Martin Sheen, who plays the president on television's "The West Wing," came out against the initiative last month.

Feinstein, meanwhile, has expressed "grave reservations" about Prop. 36, according to campaign manager Kam Kuwata, though she has not taken a formal position on the measure. In fact, to the extent that Feinstein will engage Campbell at all, Kuwata hopes it will be on the senator's terms, not Campbell's.

But that has done little to stop Campbell. Not only does he believe strongly in the issue, he understands he has nothing to lose by making it the focal point of his campaign. It is a message Campbell brought to the "Shadow Convention" in Philadelphia and Los Angeles this summer, just one of the places Republicans typically dare not tread, but that Campbell is depending on to try to form a political base. "I've seen polling from a number of different sources on the issue," said Dan Schnur, former communications director for Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign and a Campbell advisor.

"I've been struck by how receptive Californians are to the idea of treatment instead of mandatory prison time for nonviolent offenders."

Clearly, Campbell is not doing as well in the polls as the initiative he supports. While that gap with Feinstein narrowed from 26 points earlier this summer, it is still a daunting hurdle to overcome. Campbell is also trailing badly in the fundraising race. According to the most recent Federal Election Commission reports from the Center for Responsive politics, Feinstein has more than $3.1 million in the bank to Campbell's $1.1 million.

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