GOP Hopefuls Aim to Outsmart Boxer

In the final weeks of the 1998 campaign, U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer unleashed a $9-million television ad blitz portraying her mildly conservative Republican opponent as a right-wing extremist on abortion and gun control.

Until then, former state Treasurer Matt Fong led Boxer (D-Calif.) in statewide polls. On election day, Boxer beat Fong by 10 percentage points, buoyed by an 18-point advantage among female voters.

For the November election, Republicans expect Boxer to use the same hardball appeal to women when running against whoever wins the March primary among 10 GOP challengers. Her historic advantage among women, the state’s largest bloc of voters, looms as a huge challenge to the Republicans who want her job.

“I’m not going to be characterized by her [as an extremist] when people are concerned about safe streets and national defense and keeping our borders secure,” said former Secretary of State Bill Jones, considered the front-runner in the race because he’s held statewide office and has the support of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

“I don’t think this is the same California,” Jones said, considering the effectiveness of the anti-Fong ads. “The politics of distrust, the politics of division are wearing very thin with the public.”

By most accounts, Boxer is the most liberal voice in the Senate. She has never enjoyed overwhelming popularity among the state’s voters, consistently earning less than 50% support in polls leading up to her races in 1992 and 1998. But by election time, with mainstream voters and particularly with women, she has managed to paint herself as preferable to her opponents.

Boxer’s longevity comes from better representing Californians’ preferences on issues they care most about, including abortion rights, the environment, gun control and education, said Ken Miller, professor of government at Claremont McKenna College.

She may be vulnerable on individual issues, but on policies overall, she’s been a better sell, particularly among voters concerned about judicial appointments and confirmations, he said. “The center of her argument is going to be that this is a pro-choice state,” Miller said. “That’s been her ticket.”

Boxer’s success among female voters encouraged the entrance into the Republican contest of two moderate women, former U.S. Treasurer Rosario Marin and former Los Altos Mayor Toni Casey, who both support abortion rights. They, in turn, are trying to distinguish themselves from the more conservative of the major male candidates, Jones and former Assemblyman Howard Kaloogian.

Among the first endorsements announced by Jones and Marin were from female lawmakers and a conservative women’s group that includes members on both sides of the abortion debate. The support was evidence, they said, of their broad appeal to female voters.

The state’s five Republican assemblywomen endorsed Marin, saying she had the best chance of beating Boxer in November. The California Women’s Leadership Assn., a GOP group, threw its support to Jones, as did Rep. Mary Bono (R-Palm Springs).

Boxer’s dominance among women -- and minorities as well -- is best neutralized by giving those voters one of their own, Marin said. Marin has built her campaign on the premise that, as a Latina who supports abortion rights, she’s the only Republican candidate who can avoid being pigeonholed by Boxer and her Democratic allies.

“People won’t vote for me because I’m a woman; they’ll vote for me because I’m the only one who can take Boxer out,” Marin said. “I can take her out because I take the woman issue away from her.”

Like Marin, Casey said her support for abortion rights makes her more palatable to California voters than Jones or Kaloogian, the leading GOP candidates who oppose abortion rights. But the issue is losing its potency, Casey said, because most voters don’t view abortion in all-or-nothing terms.

Republicans learned from the election of Schwarzenegger, who supports abortion rights, that “we want to win,” she said. “We’re not going to let this be a wedge issue among us.”

Jones predicted that his views on abortion wouldn’t be effective against him should he face Boxer. Though he opposes abortion, he pledged not to use the issue as a litmus test for judicial appointments nor “impose my personal beliefs on someone else.”

“California has a right of privacy in the Constitution, and it would take a vote of two-thirds of the people to change it,” Jones said.

Kaloogian plans a different strategy. He said the best way to counter Boxer’s preference among female voters is to challenge her views, not run from his own.

“She’ll have a field day with any Republican nominee,” he said. “She’ll go after anyone to her right, which isn’t that hard to be because she’s so far to the left. You can’t beat her by being nice. You have to be feisty, scrappy and know how to fight. You have to make this a referendum on her.”

In Boxer’s last election, the candidates’ positions were key to the outcome. Boxer crushed Fong on crime, by emphasizing her support for gun control, and on education.

Fong’s campaign also was hurt by revelations that he had given $25,000 to an anti-abortion group advocating parental notification before minors have abortions, and $50,000 to the Anaheim-based Traditional Values Coalition.

Jones points to his own set of numbers from exit polls: He got more votes from women in the 2002 Republican gubernatorial primary than he did from men. Most of that race’s voters, however, sided with the top two finishers, businessman Bill Simon Jr. and former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan.

Despite the demographic challenges, the biggest impediment to the Republican field isn’t gender but invisibility, Claremont’s Miller said. While a candidate like Marin or Casey is “potentially more dangerous” to Boxer, neither has run statewide. Taking on Kaloogian would be another rout for Boxer, he predicted, because of the former lawmaker’s right-of-center views.

Even Schwarzenegger’s high-wattage endorsement of Jones doesn’t ensure victory, because Jones has neither the governor’s charisma nor his centrist positions on issues, such as abortion rights, that made the governor more attractive to Democrats and independents.