Posted on 11/11/2003 5:26:35 AM PST by OESY
SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 8 — Within days of Arnold Schwarzenegger's triumph in last month's election to recall Gov. Gray Davis, many jubilant Republicans began talking about taking on another prominent Democrat, Barbara Boxer, in next year's Senate race.
Senator Boxer, who is seeking a third term, has always been a Democrat whom Republicans love to hate. As one of the most liberal and partisan members of the Senate, she has been a particular thorn in the side of the state's Republican leadership, which tends to be conservative. She is also considered vulnerable, since opinion polls have consistently shown that fewer than half of the state's registered voters are inclined to vote for her.
But with Governor-elect Schwarzenegger's inauguration about a week away, the dreams of a Republican senator from California are facing some sobering realities.
No marquee Republican has come forward as a candidate in the March primary, with the filing deadline a month away. Ms. Boxer has already accumulated about $4 million, giving lesser-known aspirants pause. And perhaps most significantly, Mr. Schwarzenegger has shown little interest in expending his new political capital on Ms. Boxer, apparently in no small part because she refrained from criticizing him when reports of sexual misconduct dominated the closing days of his campaign.
"He is focused on uniting California and governing," said Rob Stutzman, Mr. Schwarzenegger's communications director. "The season for politics is a year away."
There is little doubt that after the March primary, Mr. Schwarzenegger will embrace the Republican nominee. But unless someone from his close circle of friends and supporters, like Representative David Dreier or former Gov. Pete Wilson, suddenly expressed an interest in Ms. Boxer's job, it is unlikely that he would make the Senate race a political priority, several Republican strategists and associates of Mr. Schwarzenegger have said.
"We just got the biggest win in the state in about a decade," an adviser to Mr. Schwarzenegger said. "There is a lot of contentment and focus in establishing the government in Sacramento. It doesn't serve his purposes at the moment to engage her."
Though there are Republicans urging him to reconsider, Mr. Dreier has said he is not interested in giving up his seniority in Congress and is said to have set his sights on the House speaker's post, not the Senate. Mr. Wilson, who served in the Senate before becoming governor, is not inclined to return to his old job, several Republican officials said. Another possible candidate, Richard J. Riordan, the former Los Angeles mayor, has accepted a cabinet post in the Schwarzenegger administration, and Bill Jones, the former California secretary of state who ran for governor last year, has been silent in recent weeks on the subject of a Senate run.
There was a flurry of interest last month among some Republican consultants in drafting the comedian Dennis Miller, a friend of Mr. Schwarzenegger who has been active in Republican politics, but Mr. Miller was never serious about the idea, Republican officials who spoke with him say. It was reported last week that Mr. Miller had signed a multiyear contract with CNBC as a political talk show host.
"Dennis has never contacted us," said George M. Sundheim III, chairman of the state Republican Party, who said many Republicans were still trying to figure out if Mr. Schwarzenegger's victory in a state dominated by Democratic officeholders was a fluke or signaled a sea change for Republican candidates.
"The No. 1 reason we won was the strength of the Schwarzenegger candidacy and the disgust with Davis," Mr. Sundheim said. "The issue is how much of a shift has really occurred in terms of the public here in California."
Bill Whalen, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and a former speechwriter for Mr. Wilson, said that regardless of the larger meaning of Mr. Schwarzenegger's victory, Republicans remained ill equipped to wage statewide campaigns like the one needed against Ms. Boxer.
"There is one problem, plain and simple," Mr. Whalen said. "Beyond Arnold Schwarzenegger, there is not much of a bench when it comes to California Republicans."
One major reason Mr. Schwarzenegger is not jumping at the opportunity to wage battle against Ms. Boxer, the adviser to the governor-elect said, is the friendly nature of their personal relationship.
The adviser said Mr. Schwarzenegger had "a very good meeting" with Ms. Boxer in his recent visit to Washington and remained grateful for her past help in securing federal money for an afterschool program Mr. Schwarzenegger had championed.
And unlike Senator Dianne Feinstein, who was one of Governor Davis's most visible supporters in the recall campaign and who openly questioned Mr. Schwarzenegger's fitness to be governor, Ms. Boxer played a minor role in Mr. Davis's bid to keep his job.
In particular, Ms. Boxer did not join the chorus of critics during the final days of the recall campaign, when Mr. Schwarzenegger was being bombarded with reports of sexual misconduct after articles in The Los Angeles Times detailed the claims of more than a dozen women.
The Schwarzenegger adviser said Mr. Schwarzenegger and his wife, Maria Shriver, took special note of Ms. Boxer's restraint during what amounted to the most difficult period of the campaign for the Schwarzenegger family.
"Boxer kept her mouth shut, more or less," the Schwarzenegger adviser said. "This is the woman who took on Bob Packwood, and she didn't say anything. It isn't lost on them, the whole family."
So far the recall election has also worked to Ms. Boxer's advantage by making it difficult for lesser-known potential opponents to attract public attention and raise money.
One of the declared Republican candidates, Assemblyman Tony Strickland, had raised less than $75,000 through the end of September. Another candidate, Toni C. Casey, a Silicon Valley businesswoman, collected more than $540,000, but in a state the size of California, both amounts are considered insufficient. A third possible candidate, the former United States treasurer Rosario Marin, has yet to declare her candidacy officially and has not filed contributions reports.
Roy Behr, a spokesman for the Boxer re-election campaign, said Republicans who interpreted Mr. Schwarzenegger's success as a death cry for Ms. Boxer were misreading the recall's message to politicians.
"The only real takeaway from the recall election is that people wanted change," Mr. Behr said. "They weren't jumping up and down and saying, `We want Republicans.' This dynamic is very much in her favor, because she is truly the personification of change. No one is better at challenging the status quo than she is."
Nonetheless, Mr. Behr said, Ms. Boxer is preparing for a tough race because she expects "far right extremists" to rally round whomever the Republicans nominate. And depending on how next year's presidential race develops, some Democratic and Republican political consultants said, Ms. Boxer could become ensnared in the unpredictable presidential battle over the state.
If Mr. Bush makes a concerted push for the state's electoral votes, which he lost by a wide margin in 2000, it might help Ms. Boxer's Republican opponent and compel Mr. Schwarzenegger to play a more partisan role. But Ms. Boxer might benefit if Mr. Bush bypasses California, as his father did in 1992, the year she won her first race for the Senate.
As Mr. Whalen of the Hoover Institution observed, "She is at the mercy of whether California is at play for Bush."
Barbara Boxer is a far left extremist.
"You can't beat somebody with nobody."
She seems very beatable, but until the Republicans find a good candidate, organize a good campaign and have all the pieces fall into place to oust her she will remain a U.S. Senator. My only consolation is that so long as Republicans hold a majority in both houses of Congress, governorships and seats in state legislatures, the Democrats will be the ones on the losing end of this particular old saying more often than not. : )
Beware of mental defectives with a mouth and a facility for demagoguery.
The twentieth century is replete with them.
Fortunately, Boxer is a pollywog in national politics, keeping to the shadows and hiding behind the bigger frogs.
Barbara Boxer has delusions of adequacy
I'm hoping more than a few moderate patriots support anyone facing this "far left extremist" demogorgon.
Sounds like wishful thinking. I should have known she was up for re-election this year. Otherwise no way this harpy would have been so silent lately.
Hmmm. You yourself posted the article and you couldn't remember that it's from the conservative NY POST?
The headline on the article is ludicrous. GOP Faces Obstacles In Ousting Boxer. That's not news. What WOULD be news is if the CA GOP DID NOT face obstacles in ousting Boxer. THAT would be news.
Michael
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