With all the grim stuff we have to talk about here, I am pleased to announce some very good news. California Senator Barbara Boxer will not be running for reelection in 2016. With an open seat instead of challenging an incumbent, the race will be more competitive. If next year sees a Republican winning the White House, as the usual cycle indicates, maybe some coattails can help flip this seat.
Kevin Freking has this story for AP. It's mostly the usual fluff you would expect, but there is this:
There are many people whom I disagree with on the issues, sometimes strongly, but whom I can respect as people and have a reasonable dialogue with. Barbara Boxer is not one of them. Her mean-spiritedness, arrogance, and close-mindedness place her in a different category. Two years is still a long time to put up with her in the Senate, but at least we can see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Kevin Freking has this story for AP. It's mostly the usual fluff you would expect, but there is this:
Boxer had a way of riling conservatives. She can be abrupt with those who question or disagree with her, and some of the exchanges she has had with witnesses at committee hearings over the years cemented her reputation as a firebrand."Firebrand" is not the word I would use, but our standards preclude use of the most accurate term.In 2009, she brusquely requested that a brigadier general in the Army Corps of Engineers call her senator instead of ma'am. The confrontation served as fundraising fodder for her election opponents the following year, but she still won handily.
There are many people whom I disagree with on the issues, sometimes strongly, but whom I can respect as people and have a reasonable dialogue with. Barbara Boxer is not one of them. Her mean-spiritedness, arrogance, and close-mindedness place her in a different category. Two years is still a long time to put up with her in the Senate, but at least we can see the light at the end of the tunnel.
It may well happen that a Republican wins the White House in 2016, but I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for a Republican senator. Republicans make up 28% of registered voters. To win a statewide election, a Republican would have to win all of the Republican vote (which almost never happens), along with a third of Democrats and 2/3 of independents. Not likely, unless the California Republican party changes dramatically in the next two years.
- Victor
You may rest assured that I will not hold my breath.
It was not all that long ago that Republicans were competitive in statewide races, and the present interlude of one-party rule will come to an end. The question is how long it will take.
Change by the Republican Party is part of what it will take, to be sure, but the populace waking up to just how badly the Democrats have run this state's government is also part.
Republicans won the governorships two months ago in Massachusetts, Maryland and Illinois, the first two of which are more resolutely Democratic than the state that gave us Ronald Reagan.
I guess you never know! But because of California's open primary system, there might not even be a Republican on the BALLOT. Anyway, a lot can happen in two years.
- V