Can US Senator Barbara Boxer be defeated in 2010?

While the November 2010 General Election is still 15 months away, you don’t wait until the last minute to decide if you plan to challenge a sitting elected official (or a wide open seat as last years presidential campaign). Case in point was former TN. Senator and TV personality Fred Thompson who couldn’t make up his mind if he was going to throw his hat into the presidential campaign disappointing many of his followers.

As we look at the 2010 US Senate race in California we have seen (GOP) trial balloons for governor Schwarzenegger, active campaigning by Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, to undecided candidate Carly Fiorina. Ms. Fiorina, former Executive CEO of HP, is recuperating from breast cancer surgery. The big question is which Republican will challenge Senator Barbara Boxer in next November’s General Election?

What a contrast. Governor Schwarzenegger, who cannot get the legislature to come to terms with a balanced budget, to Ms. Fiorina who has very deep pockets but lacks political experience. Compare and contrast that background to Assemblyman DeVore who has been actively campaigning around the state for the past year.

Some of the keys to any successful election is finance, name recognition, endorsements and “grass roots” support.

In this race, excluding the governor, Ms. Fiorina wins the cash battle hands down. She left HP with a $45 million dollar “golden parachute” so fundraising for her is not a factor.

Let’s shift gears and analyze Assemblyman DeVore who has a high profile in GOP circles but is not seeing much traction in the media especially when we look for polls on this race. While Chuck has strong “grass roots” support in Orange County, his war chest was reported at $350,000.

Friday’s July 24th Rasmussen Report on the possible match up lists Senator Boxer getting 45% of the vote, Fiorina, 41%, another candidate 7% and 7% undecided. Business Week failed to even mention Assemblyman DeVore by name in their report yet are assuming that Ms. Fiorina will throw her hat into the arena.

Running for statewide office requires running TV ad’s that are not cheap. Although Assemblyman DeVore has been very active in using the Internet and Twitter, his followers will need to open their wallets so that he can run a formidable race in the primary election.

President Obama used a single word in his campaign that applies to this race. Change! We need a “change” in the US Senate representing southern California.

While I have no problem with race, religion or gender, we need to replace the left wing Senator from San Francisco. Southern California, with 24 million residents, needs to have its own senator representing our unique needs in Washington. The only state in the nation with a larger population than southern CA, the land defined as the area below the Tehachapi Mountains, is the state of Texas.

We already have US Senator Diane Feinstein representing the Bay Area.

Based on the above some might argue we have “taxation without representation” in southern CA.

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