Boxer, Fiorina Tussle Over Economy in First Debate

Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer and  Republican challenger Carly Fiorina engaged in a sharp exchange Wednesday night over who is best suited to guide the country out of  recession, with the challenger blaming Boxer for policies "that  are devastating the state.''

Boxer, a tenacious campaigner, fired back by criticizing Fiorina  for shipping 30,000 jobs overseas before being let go as CEO of Hewlett-Packard Co. She said Fiorina fights not for average  Americans, but for billionaires, millionaires and companies that  outsource jobs.

"I'm in the United States Senate because I fight for the  people, I fight for the dream,'' Boxer said, noting Fiorina's $21 million severance package after she was let go. "I don't think we need those Wall Street values right now.''
   
The recession and how to turn around California's jobless rate, stuck above 12 percent for months, dominated their first debate, an hourlong event at St. Mary's College in the eastern San Francisco Bay area city of Moraga. Boxer's campaign indicated a second debate could be announced within days.
   
Fiorina, 55, sporting a teal business suit, said she and her husband have lived the American dream -- she, working her way to the top of the corporate ladder after starting as a secretary, and he, after starting out as a tow truck driver. But she said that chance  at rising prosperity is being lost, in part because the U.S. is not  doing enough to encourage business.
  
"I think the American dream is too hard for too many people,'' she said.
  
She then took direct aim at Boxer, who is seeking a fourth term  in the Senate, saying her long track record in Congress consistently hurt job creation and did too little to help the  middle class.
    
Boxer, a 69-year-old petite political veteran who wore a gray  suit and stood inches below Fiorina when they shook hands, has  framed a vote for Fiorina as a vote to return to Bush-era economic  policies. She said those policies benefited the wealthy but left  middle-class Americans facing high unemployment and  home-foreclosure rates.
  
Boxer said voters will have a clear choice between the two  candidates and noted that Fiorina opposed an emergency jobs bill aimed at preserving the positions of about 16,000 teachers and  school employees in California.
  
The stakes were high for both candidates in the debate.
  
Boxer has had narrow re-election victories in the past but faces  potentially her toughest challenge this year. She is running in an  anti-incumbent environment in which Republicans are highly  motivated and faces a female candidate for the first time as a  senator, throwing a new dynamic into her campaign.
  
Fiorina has a 12-to-1 fundraising disadvantage to Boxer and  needed to make a favorable impression on voters who mostly know her  as the CEO who was ousted from the iconic Silicon Valley company.  Because Republicans are less than a third of registered voters in  California, she must find a way to appeal to the 20 percent of  voters who are independent.
  
To do that, she has tried to stay focused on the economy in the  campaign and during the debate, which was aired live on radio and  television stations throughout California.
  
The forum also touched on a number of other topics, including  abortion, immigration, gay marriage and global warming. Fiorina's  views on many social and environmental issues are more conservative  than that of most Californians.
  
For example, she would like to see Roe v. Wade, the Supreme  Court decision that legalized abortion, overturned. Fiorina also  has said she supports expanded offshore drilling despite the oil  spill in the Gulf.
   
On many of the contentious issues, Fiorina said she would defer  to the decision of California voters despite her personal views.  She said she disagreed that the will of the voters could be  overturned by a judge, referring to a recent federal ruling against  Proposition 8, the 2008 ballot initiative that banned gay marriage  in California.
   
``Whatever your views about gay marriage, I think many of us  would conclude that when voters have such a clear decision, for  that decision to be overturned by a single judge seems perhaps not  appropriate,'' said Fiorina, who favors civil unions for gays and  lesbians but thinks marriage should be reserved for a man and a  woman.
    
On immigration, Boxer has called for comprehensive reform while  Fiorina has supported Arizona's immigration law, blaming the federal government for failing to secure the U.S.-Mexico border.
  
Fiorina, however, said she supports the Dream Act, a federal  bill that would allow young illegal immigrants a pathway to citizenship by graduating from college or trade school, or serving  in the military. Fiorina said it is unfair to ``punish children who through no fault of their own are here trying to live the American  dream.''
   
She said she also wants the federal government to devise a guest-worker program that works for businesses but emphasized that she does not support amnesty for those in the U.S. illegally.
   
Both candidates have a reputation for toughness and for not  backing down _ Boxer as an unabashed liberal who voted against the  Iraq war, and Fiorina as someone who rose to the top of American  business at a time when it was rare to see a woman in the chief  executive's suite.
  
True to form, they used every opportunity to attack each,  Fiorina saying Boxer had a lackluster record to show for her three  terms in the U.S. Senate and Boxer continually attacking Fiorina's tenure at HP, which lasted from 1999 to 2005.
  
At one point Fiorina said it was unfair for Boxer to use the company, a Silicon Valley icon, against her. Boxer responded that it was Fiorina who was running on her record at HP.
  
``She's running on her record as the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard, so what she did there counts,'' Boxer said. ``And I'm going to keep on telling the truth about it.''
   
She said the two candidates presented a stark choice for California voters, since they differ on almost every issue of significance. Fiorina agreed, saying her campaign was a call ``that we take our government back, make it listen and make it work.''

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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