The Woman That Can Win

26 January 2010 | By Sonja in Economy, Editorials, Politics, Sonja, Uncategorized

Barbara Boxer has kept a seat warm in the United States Senate for 18 years. EIGHTEEN YEARS. In that time she has sponsored exactly three pieces of legislation. Remarkable, but true. In an election year when Democratic candidates throughout the U.S. will be desperately trying to whitewash the targets on their backs drawn from the health care debate, Barbara Boxer is in the most trouble. Boxer is facing the first real political contest she has ever had in the challenge of former Hewlett Packard chief Carly Fiorina.

Carly Fiorina Surging

Carly Fiorina is a conservative and principled woman who has the know-how and the support to win in a head-to-head battle with the legendary and rough campaign tactics of Boxer.

Early polling numbers reveal that Boxer is already having trouble getting out of the gates with her own constituents. This week Instapundit reports:

“ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST: Beau Biden won’t run for Senate after all. What’s next? Bye, bye Bayh? Or a Boxer past her prime? “The fact that Boxer’s support is frozen at 46 percent against all GOP challengers suggests that the race, for now, is about her rather than those running against her. Boxer is viewed very favorably by 25 percent of California voters but very unfavorably by 34 percent.”

Barbara Boxer is not alone in her vulnerability this year, but she is a favorite conservatives would like to retire. Long-entrenched Democrats like Chris Dodd also see the writing on the wall and are looking to run from defeat and await a likely payback position in the Obama Administration. Harry Reid too. His re-election bid in Nevada seems doomed. The Senate Majority Leader doesn’t seem too concerned though, because assurances by the White House have probably already been given about his future. But Barbara Boxer has no such cover. She has always somehow been shielded by the shadow of the more relevant, real, and reasonable Diane Feinstein.

In The Background

In this junkyard dog political season, when so many Democrats are going to be clawing to hang onto their seats, the DNC may see Boxer’s expensive re-election race as a loser.

Carly Fiorina is high-contrast to the tolerated Boxer. She is easily one of the most accomplished women in America. She is campaigning throughout California to standing ovations. In San Diego this month, a last minute upgrade to a giant ballroom was required to handle the growing crowds that arrived to hear her. Fiorina is Barbara Boxer’s worst nightmare because she has actually done something. Senator Boxer has no answer to Fiorina’s blue chip preparation and training, her two MBA’s, and work history that spans a receptionist desk all the way to the top of AT&T, Lucent Technologies and Hewlett Packard. If that’s not enough, Fiorina has served most recently as the Chair of the C.I.A. Advisory Board.

fiorina In a debate, Barbara Boxer will have to do her homework to rival Carly Fiorina’s command of domestic and global economic strategies and policy. Worse, in the one area where Boxer can point to a leadership role, as the Chair of the Senate Environmental Affairs Committee, Boxer’s failures have literally sucked the economic life out of her own state of California. Unemployment is sky-high in the fertile Central Valley of California. At least 40% of all workers in the Central Valley are unemployed because of long-term drought. Barbara Boxer is the one Senator in the country who could “prime the pump” with a simple legislative directive, but she won’t do it. She refuses to remove the regulatory handcuffs which restrict water from flowing freely in California and which PROTECT: the Smelt Fish. The “The Delta Smelt” fish, which is no bigger than the tip of your finger has her allegiance because it stands to become extinct.

The 400-mile Central Valley is the world’s largest agricultural area; the “salad bowl”, where half of the country’s vegetables are grown. Between population growth in the Valley and environmental protections for the Smelt fish, farmers trying to maintain five million acres of farmland are finding themselves last in line for the world’s most precious natural resource.

Dried Out

Worsening the Central Valley economic crisis, is the fact that the crucial Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, a thousand-square-mile web of channels, islands and levees which drive water to giant dams and pumps and deliver water to 25 million Californians, is old and decaying. An earthquake, a failed levee, a weakened or aging dam, could starve almost all of California of water at any time. Governor Schwarzenegger has plead for help to rebuild the water system, but the state is broke.

Thus, while terrorism, health care, the economy, and education are going to drive most political debates in 2010, in California, an even more fundamental question may actually determine who wins the Senate and the Governor’s seat.

water_faucet In the middle of a hot, dry, summer political season, the question Californians will be asking is, “Who will turn on the water?”