Bless their hearts. In the middle of the wasteland that is California politics, U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer and her challenger Carly Fiorina keep having arguments over real issues. What's wrong with these ladies?
The latest is a dispute over the real value of recently approved federal funding for teachers. Boxer has touted this as saving the jobs of thousands of teachers. Fiorina's campaign is arguing the money is being thrown into the budget maw.
Boxer's right on the big picture here: The money helps the state budget by helping schools, which have had to make cuts, including the lay-offs of teachers.
But Fiorina, despite some overheated rhetoric about Boxer that she should knock off, does a service by raising the issue. It will take such money some time to have an impact, and the federal funding does not mean that the teacher you saw lose her job at your neighborhood school last year will be immediately hired back. Boxer would be wise to calibrate carefully the claims she makes about the exact impact of federal funds.
All this debate about where the money is really going is very healthy. Let's have more of the same from two candidates who, for all their flaws, are raising the big issues that the gubernatorial candidates are avoiding.
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