Babs vs. Carly

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By Clint Reilly

According to a recent LA Times poll, California's U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer is still nearly as popular as her counterpart, Dianne Feinstein.

Nevertheless, Boxer will face a tough battle to retain her senate seat next year against former Hewlett Packard executive Cara Carleton “Carly” Fiorina.

Political handicappers have underestimated Fiorina’s chances, due primarily to her choppy performance as an economic adviser to John McCain and her mixed record as HP’s CEO.

But there are reasons to believe that a Boxer/Fiorina matchup could be a blockbuster. Boxer, a three-term incumbent Democrat, may be vulnerable to the electorate’s sour mood and the traditional midterm election backlash against the incumbent president’s party. Undoubtedly, “Babs” (her nickname used by close friends) will face bruising attacks from Fiorina and her political brain Marty Wilson – a former adviser to Pete Wilson and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

I know Boxer well. I advised her early races for Supervisor in Marin County and then ran her tough primary campaign for Congress against then San Francisco Supervisor Louise Renne in 1982.

Ten years later, Boxer won a primary campaign for U.S. Senator over Lieutenant Governor Leo McCarthy and Southern California Congressman Mel Levine. The Democratic primary electorate was 55 percent female, and Boxer benefited from her lopsided gender advantage. The two men split a minority of males while she swept the female vote.

Boxer was fortunate to face conservative talk show hostBruce Herschensohn in the general election. Herschensohn was forced to spend the waning days of the campaign explaining away his frequent visits to a well-known strip club near the Los Angeles airport.

After her victory in 1992, Boxer drew mediocre, under-funded opponents in 1998 and 2004. I have heard Willie Brown frequently describe Boxer as the luckiest politician in the Golden State for this reason.

But Fiorina is neither mediocre nor poor. She earned tens of millions of dollars during her tenure as CEO of HP, and she left her post with a hefty severance package totaling more than $20 million. So, she has the ability to pop substantial money into her own drive.

What’s more, her advocacy for McCain built ties to national Republicans, corporate elites and Washington insiders whose imprimatur brings credibility and big money.

There’s more.

Fiorina is no stranger to bare knuckled fights. Her cardinal sin at HP was to antagonize the families of revered founders William Hewlett and David Packard by engineering the purchase of Compaq Computer Corporation.

The founding family hired legendary investment banker Tully Friedman to kill the deal, but Fiorina had other plans. Convinced that the company needed to broaden its business into services and midsized computers, Fiorina refused to back down and soon found herself in the center of a ruthless proxy battle every bit as tense and dirty as any political campaign.

Fiorina didn’t flinch. She campaigned relentlessly among stockholders and won a razor-thin majority that left many hard feelings but demonstrated her ability to triumph over tough opposition.

Eventually, she was forced out after a series of clashes with the board as questions arose about the future of the company. But Fiorina’s basic judgment was proven correct as HP went on to thrive under the leadership of new chief executive Mark Hurd.

Fiorina will almost certainly win her primary election over GOP opponent Chuck DeVore, which will pit her against Boxer in November. We will then be treated to a spirited campaign by two candidates who have proven that they know how to fight and are not afraid to take the gloves off.

Babs versus Carly could prove to be a donnybrook.

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Clint Reilly was a leading political consultant for 26 years. His clients included current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, and former California State Senate President Pro Tem Dave Roberti.  More recently, Reilly led a battle to preserve media competition in the Bay Area via two landmark anti-trust lawsuits (Reilly v. Hearst and Reilly v. MediaNews, et. al.). This article first appeared on www.clintreilly.com and is republished with his permission.