4.27.16 - Senator Barbara Boxer, Chairman Xavier Becerra, and DNC Communications Director Luis Miranda Host Press Call on GOP’s Dangerous Ideas Ahead of the California GOP Convention
Summary
United States Senator Barbara Boxer, House Democratic Caucus Chairman Xavier Becerra, and DNC Communications Director Luis Miranda held a press call ahead of the California GOP Convention taking place this weekend, where the three remaining Republican presidential candidates are scheduled to speak. The fact of the matter is that Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, and John Kasich are all completely out-of-touch with Californians. They oppose increasing the minimum wage, ensuring paid sick leave for workers, reforming our country’s broken immigration system, a woman’s right to make her own health care decisions, and they want to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which has allowed more than 4 million Californians to gain quality, affordable health care coverage they previously didn’t have. Simply put, we cannot afford to give any one of them the keys to the White House.
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Boxer Calls Cruz-Fiorina Ticket Mean and Meaner ASSOCIATED PRESS //
California Sen. Barbara Boxer says Carly Fiorina is the perfect running mate for Republican presidential hopeful Ted Cruz — she calls them "mean and meaner."
On a conference call Wednesday she told reporters Cruz wants to ship immigrants out and Fiorina "already shipped jobs out of America."
The California Democrat faced Fiorina in a nasty Senate race in 2010.
She joked that having Fiorina back on the national stage reminds everyone she beat the former Hewlett Packard chief executive by 1 million votes in 2010 "and I love that."
House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rep. Xavier Becerra says he welcomes the three Republican presidential hopefuls to this weekend's state GOP convention.
He says they won't need ID to enter the state, but they should bring California values of hard word, innovation and diversity.
Barbara Boxer on Carly Fiorina's re-emergence: 'It's like a bad dream' LOS ANGELES TIMES // MELANIE MASON
At least one Californian isn't too thrilled by Ted Cruz's tapping Carly Fiorina to be his vice presidential running mate: Fiorina's former rival, Sen. Barbara Boxer.
Fiorina unsuccessfully challenged Boxer in 2010, and based on the senator's remarks to reporters Wednesday, the rivalry hasn't subsided six years later.
Boxer dubbed a Cruz-Fiorina ticket “mean and meaner.”
“He wants to ship immigrants out of America, and she's already shipped jobs out of America,” Boxer said. “They’re the perfect duo.
“I predict this Fiorina merger will be just as successful as her last one at HP,” she added, a jab at the rocky merger with Compaq that Fiorina oversaw as chief of Hewlett-Packard.
Boxer dismissed the idea that Fiorina would boost Cruz’s prospects in California.
“The people of California rejected Carly Fiorina in a year that was a very tough year for Democrats,” said Boxer, calling Fiorina “a very mean opponent.”
“The bottom line is they rejected her,” Boxer said. “Now she's coming back again. It's like a bad dream.”
But Boxer did see an upside to Fiorina’s resurgence in the headlines: “It only keeps reminding people that I beat her by a million votes, and I love that.”
Carly Fiorina Criticized by 2010 Foe Barbara Boxer WALL STREET JOURNAL // ALEJANDRO LAZO
Sen. Barbara Boxer of California on Wednesday sharply criticized her 2010 Republican opponent, Carly Fiorina— whom Ted Cruz named Wednesday as his vice presidential running mate—as a “mean” campaigner who moved out of the state after voters “rejected” her.
Ms. Boxer, who is stepping down next year from the U.S. Senate, defeated Ms. Fiorina 52% to 42% in 2010, during her last reelection battle—a year that saw many Republican victories elsewhere in the U.S.
Before Mr. Cruz named Ms. Fiorina as a running mate Wednesday, she had run a short-lived presidential campaign, dropping out of the race in February following poor showings in Iowa and New Hampshire.
In a conference call with reporters, Ms. Boxer criticized Ms. Fiorina’s controversial tenure as chief executive of Hewlett Packard, where she expanded the company through the acquisition of Compaq Computer but also laid off 30,000 workers. In 2005, she was fired by the board.
“The most accurate description of that team would be: mean and meaner,” Ms. Boxer said of the Cruz-Fiorina pairing. “He wants to ship immigrants out of America, and she has already shipped jobs out of America, and they are the perfect duo, seriously.”
“I would predict, actually, that this Fiorina merger will be just as successful as her last one at HP,” Ms. Boxer said.
Ms. Fiorina, who is one of the few women to lead a large technology company, frames her HP tenure in a different light. She has said she successfully managed the company through a deep technology-industry downturn, and that her leadership ultimately saved jobs. She now has her primary resident in Virginia.
The Wall Street Journal took a deep look at Ms. Fiorina’s business record last year, and found that Ms. Fiorina’s vision and marketing talent overshadowed her ability to deliver results, based on a review of the company’s financials and interviews with contemporaries there.
Ms. Boxer said that Ms. Fiorina would not help Mr. Cruz in his attempt to gain votes in California’s June 7 GOP primary, given Ms. Fiorina could not win her Senate race in 2010, a “year that was a very tough year for Democrats, believe me.”
“All I can say is she was rejected,” Ms. Boxer said. “She has run away from California, so anyone who says she is going to get him votes–she left. She doesn’t even live there anymore; it is not even her residence.”
Boxer: Cruz and Fiorina are 'mean and meaner' THE HILL // HARPER NEIDIG
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) slammed Carly Fiorina Wednesday, shortly after Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz announced that the former Hewlett-Packard CEO would be his running mate if he wins the nomination.
In a call with reporters, the retiring California senator predicted that Fiorina will not get very far. “Well I think that the most accurate description of that team would be mean and meaner," she said.
"He wants to ship immigrants out of America, and she's already shipped jobs out of America. And they’re the perfect duo. Seriously. I would predict, actually, that this Fiorina merger will be just as successful as her last one at HP.”
Boxer also gloated about her 2010 Senate victory over Fiorina.
“The people in California rejected Carly Fiorina in a year that was a very tough year for Democrats, believe me. We had the worst recession since the Great Depression, and she tried to pin it on me. She was a very mean opponent and the bottom line is they rejected her, and now she’s coming back again — it’s like a bad dream.”
With Carly Fiorina as running mate, Ted Cruz has eye on California SACRAMENTO BEE // DAVID SIDERS AND CHRISTOPHER CADELAGO
Ted Cruz’s announcement of Carly Fiorina as his running mate came Wednesday in Indiana, where Cruz is laboring to keep his candidacy afloat, but with a careful eye on California, where the campaign could be decided.
Just more than a month before California’s critical June 7 primary, the Texas senator now holds in Fiorina a high-profile surrogate who has run for statewide office here before.
Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard Co. chief executive, was pummeled by Democrat Barbara Boxer in the U.S. Senate race in 2010. But California Republicans selected Fiorina in a competitive primary, and it is those same voters to whom Cruz is shaping his appeal.
“She’s a known commodity in California,” Mark Meckler, a co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots, told the McClatchy Washington Bureau on Wednesday. “Her name is well known in California. The question is – too little, too late?”
Cruz’s announcement followed victories by the Republican front-runner, Donald Trump, in five states on Tuesday. It came two days ahead of the California Republican Party’s convention in Burlingame, where Cruz, Fiorina, Trump and Ohio Gov. John Kasich are all scheduled to speak.
Fiorina, who abandoned her own presidential campaign in February, was outmatched in California by Boxer’s experience, and she came under heavy criticism from Democrats for laying off 30,000 employees and outsourcing thousands of jobs at HP.
But Fiorina was widely praised in both her Senate campaign and long-shot presidential bid for her performance in debates, for which she enjoyed a brief surge in polls nationally and among California Republicans last year.
“It’s an interesting pick, obviously one in which (Cruz) hopes to get some momentum going into Indiana and California,” said Beth Miller, a Republican strategist who served as an adviser to Fiorina in 2010.
Miller said Fiorina “connects very well with people” while campaigning.
But Fiorina has not lived in California for several years, having moved to Mason Neck, Va., outside Washington, D.C., after losing to Boxer in 2010. Nor does Fiorina come to the campaign with political infrastructure in the state.
“It’s not like he’s tapped into an established Republican elected official in California who brings … that kind of political infrastructure or grass-roots organization,” Miller said. “I would consider her selection more of a provocative choice to generate media rather than an ace in the sleeve for California.”
Former Republican Rep. Doug Ose, a Trump supporter, said he suspects the selection of Fiorina is a way for Cruz to distract from the “Texas-style whoopin’ ” applied by voters Tuesday.
“If you are not the nominee, what difference does it make?” Ose asked of the Fiorina pick. “However much you respect Ms. Fiorina, this is a sideshow. This is a total distraction.”
In her campaign to unseat Boxer, Fiorina lost by more than 10 percentage points. But the state is so overwhelmingly Democratic that no Republican was likely to win. In the primary election, Fiorina bested former Rep. Tom Campbell and then-Assemblyman Chuck DeVore. She crushed the more moderate candidate, Campbell, defeating him in 48 of California’s current 53 congressional districts, with an average margin of victory of more than 40 percentage points.
“Remember that in the primary she had to beat two opponents, both of whom were very experienced elected officials, or in the case of Campbell, a former elected official,” said Marty Wilson, who managed Fiorina’s Senate campaign.
Fiorina already had endorsed Cruz. But Wilson said her status as a vice presidential prospect will boost his candidacy’s visibility in the state.
“From a tactical point of view, it expands Cruz’s bandwidth,” Wilson said. “So while Cruz competes in Indiana, Carly can spend time campaigning in California, where she really did very well.”
Cruz is running behind Trump in statewide public opinion polls in California. But because California Republicans award nearly all of their 172 delegates by congressional district – three delegates each to the winner of each of 53 districts – beating the New York businessman in even a handful of districts could prevent him from obtaining the delegates necessary to secure the nomination.
“She might have certain advantages in some regions of the state,” said Mark DiCamillo, director of the Field Poll. “She did do fairly well against Boxer, for example, in the Central Valley and the inland areas when she ran for Senate. ... Those are the areas that she probably might bring some benefit to Cruz.”
DiCamillo said voters in a presidential election are rarely influenced significantly by a candidates’ choice for vice president.
“But with Cruz,” DiCamillo said, “he’s trying to pull out all the stops. And this is kind of the last-ditch effort to stop Trump in California, and you know, I think he’s trying to do everything he can to do that. So I think that’s his calculation.”
Meckler acknowledged shortcomings in Fiorina’s Senate and presidential campaigns but said Fiorina could improve Cruz’s image ratings in the state. “To be fair, they’re not bringing her in because they’re counting on her to run the campaign,” he said. “They’re bringing her in to run as a surrogate, to hopefully attract women or soften Cruz with women.”
Boxer, in a telephone call with reporters, dismissed the Cruz-Fiorina ticket as “mean and meaner.” Boxer sought to tie Cruz’s tough stance on illegal immigration to Fiorina’s stormy record as the head of Hewlett-Packard.
“He wants to ship immigrants out of America and she’s already shipped jobs out of America,” Boxer said. “They are the perfect duo. Seriously.”
Recalling their bitter 2010 campaign, Boxer savaged Fiorina’s business record, predicting “this Fiorina merger will be just as successful as her last one at HP.”
“All I can say is she was rejected. She’s run away from California,” Boxer said. “So anyone who says she is going to get him votes – she left. She doesn’t even live there anymore. It’s not even her residence.”
Could Fiorina Help Cruz Win California Delegates? CAPITOL PUBLIC RADIO // BED ADLER
If there’s any doubt that Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz needs a strong showing in California’s June 7 primary election, just look at his newly-named running mate. Carly Fiorina has plenty of California ties – and now she’ll be asked to help Cruz block Donald Trump, starting at this weekend's California Republican Party convention.
From her six years as CEO of Hewlett-Packard to her 2010 campaign for U.S. Senate, Carly Fiorina is no stranger to California. She’s well-known in business and tech industry circles, and has statewide name recognition among rank-and-file Republicans.
“I think that there will be a large contingent of Republicans in California who might otherwise have found Ted Cruz to be a little more conservative on some issues than they’d like who will feel more comfortable with Carly,” says Palo Alto lawyer Boris Feldman, who represented Fiorina while she led HP and has remained close with her since.
“People in the Bay Area know her, have known her for years. And I think that many of the Republicans here have very warm feelings toward her,” he says.
That could be key in a GOP primary that will award three delegates to the winner in each of California's 53 congressional districts – giving the liberal Bay Area just as much voting power as conservative Orange County.
Fiorina trounced GOP challengers from the left and the right in her 2010 Senate primary campaign, winning well over 50 percent of the vote. But despite spending millions of her own dollars, she lost by 10 points to Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer – who clearly hasn’t forgotten that race.
“The people in California rejected Carly Fiorina in a year that was a very tough year for Democrats – believe me,“ Boxer said on a Democratic National Committee conference call with reporters Thursday shortly after Cruz made his big announcement. “She was a very mean opponent, and the bottom line is they rejected her. And now, she’s coming back again – it’s like a bad dream.”
Might Fiorina might give Cruz a boost in the Golden State?
“She’s run away from California, so anyone who says she’s going to get him votes – she left, she doesn’t even live there anymore, it’s not even her residence!” Boxer says.
But Field Poll Director Mark DiCamillo disagrees. He says Fiorina has been most popular in the Central Valley and parts of Southern California excluding Los Angeles.
“Her image is stronger among conservatives and tea party activists, which pretty much align with supporters of Ted Cruz, so it seems like a natural complement to his candidacy,” DiCamillo says. As for whether Fiorina could accept the role of vice president when she's best known for her stint as a Fortune 20 CEO, Feldman says she'd be both capable and loyal.
“I don’t think she’d be itchy about being Number Two in that relationship,“ he says. “It’s just not what she’s about. She’s a very collaborative person – not an egomaniac as some people who run for president are.
“Fiorina has already been scheduled to speak at this weekend’s California Republican Party convention Saturday night in Burlingame. The scheduled lunch speaker that day? Cruz.
Trump and Ohio Gov. John Kasich are speaking on Friday – and both will make their first campaign stops in California in the coming days. Trump will hold a rally Thursday night at the Orange County Fairgrounds in Costa Mesa. Kasich has scheduled town halls Friday afternoon at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco and Saturday morning at the Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose.
CARLY For Cruz VP -- TRUMP Hitting the OC -- HILLARY Camp opens in Oakland CALIFORNIA POLITICO PLAYBOOK // CARLA MARINUCCI
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-- Doug Sovern @SovernNation "On conf call, @SenatorBoxer describes Cruz-Fiorina "ticket" as "mean and meaner," predicts this merger will be as successful as HP-Compaq"
-- Christopher Cadelago @ccadelago "What does the reemergence of @CarlyFiorina feel like for @SenatorBoxer: "It's like a bad dream."