Boxer Begins ‘Victory Tour’

With a double-digit lead in recent polls and less than three weeks to go before election day, Democratic U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer described her visit Wednesday night to the remote northern reaches of California as “the first stop of my victory tour.”

It was a rare display of electoral confidence for Boxer, who so far has pursued a strategy of “running scared” in her quest for reelection to a third term, even though Republican challenger Bill Jones’ campaign has failed to generate much interest among voters.

Speaking to 80 supporters packed into the purple-walled performance space of the Stage Door Cabaret & Coffeehouse in the town of Mount Shasta, Boxer never mentioned Jones by name and barely acknowledged that she had a competitor. Instead, Boxer acted as a surrogate for Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry and urged voters to oust President Bush -- a tack she adhered to in three more appearances Thursday that took her across hundreds of miles of northeast California. She is to finish up in Weaverville and Williams, in the northern Central Valley, today.

“When people say this is the most important election of a lifetime, this is not hyperbole,” Boxer told the Mount Shasta crowd. “Write down the things you think made this country great. I guarantee most of those are under attack.”

By itself, Boxer’s northern campaign swing indicated her refusal to take victory for granted in the final 17 days of campaigning. She has tentatively scheduled a similar tour next week to desert and mountain communities between Los Angeles and Nevada.

But Boxer has made some telling adjustments in how she is conducting her campaign, and is acting more like an incumbent in a safe seat than someone feeling challenged.

When Boxer started her 2004 campaign last spring, she cast Jones as far to the political right of most Californians -- the same strategy that she used to dispense with her 1998 Republican challenger, Matt Fong. Jones, for his part, called Boxer too liberal even for California Democrats.

But as Jones failed to gain much traction with voters, Boxer has changed focus. She debated Jones once, in August, but doesn’t seem likely to debate him again despite calling earlier in the campaign for a series of debates. On the trail she has largely given up attacking Jones’ voting record and now casts him as someone who, if elected, would simply do the White House’s bidding in the Senate.

At the same time, Boxer’s three ads -- two televised and one on the Internet -- have been soft. Focusing on bread-and-butter issues such as healthcare, education and emergency services, Boxer is striking the kind of positive tone candidates use to introduce themselves to voters or to close out a winning campaign -- not one used when a race is highly competitive.

By ignoring Jones both on the air and on the stump, Boxer gives him little to respond to, helping limit his media exposure. Jones, who has had trouble raising cash in a state where television campaigning can cost $2 million a week, has yet to air an ad of his own -- a difficulty for a former California secretary of state and Assembly member whom polls show is a stranger to most voters.

Boxer’s stop here at the foot of Mt. Shasta was part of her plan to visit each of California’s 58 counties before election day. Standing on a low stage, Boxer joked about the general lack of Democrats in this scenic stretch of tree-covered mountains and sweeping bucolic valleys far removed from the more liberal coastal cities of San Francisco and Los Angeles.

“People asked me ... why are you going up all the way to the rural part of the state, where there are hardly any people, and hardly any Democrats,” Boxer said. “You know, I’m not giving up on one vote.”

In the first two days of the campaign swing -- Boxer spoke Thursday in Alturas, Susanville and Redding -- she stuck mainly to her core campaign theme that the Bush administration has reversed decades of bipartisan efforts, such as environmental protection. She pointed out that Republican President Nixon signed the Environmental Protection Agency into being and Bush’s father signed Clean Air Act amendments.

The current Bush administration, she said, has rolled back more than 350 environmental regulations.

“I think that’s wrong, and I hope you do, too,” Boxer said. “Even though I’m the incumbent, I’m the candidate for change. I’m fighting against the status quo.”

Boxer repeated the points Thursday afternoon to 18 people gathered in the living room of a house with a sweeping view of a valley in rural Modoc County. Then she drove about 100 miles south to Susanville in Lassen County, where for the first time on the trip she detailed key differences between her Senate record and Jones’ Assembly votes on the environment, minimum wage and gun control.

Boxer supported renewing the recently expired 10-year federal ban on some types of assault weapons; Jones voted against a similar California law, although he has said he would have extended the federal ban.

“Now that the federal ban has lapsed, the state ban is the only thing standing between us and the gangsters,” Boxer told about 30 people gathered in a 100-year-old house. “His vote really looks terrible.”

Boxer again called her visit part of her “victory tour” -- but again warned supporters not to take the polls for granted.

“The good news is we’re winning right now in the polls,” Boxer said. “But I don’t trust it to last -- unless you get out there.”