Title: BOXER V. FIORINA
Date: 9/17/10
Program Number: 1928

HOST: BONNIE ERBE

PANELISTS:

DEL. ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON,
(D-DC)

LESLIE SANCHEZ,
REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST

DEBRA CARNAHAN,
JUDGE AND FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR

TARA SETMAYER,
CONSERVATIVE COMMENTATOR

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2010

TRANSCRIPT PROVIDED BY
DC TRANSCRIPTION - WWW.DCTMR.COM

 

MS. ERBE: This week on To the Contrary, California's all-female Senate battle, Senator Barbara Boxer versus Carly Fiorina. Then, for the first time more women earn doctoral degrees than men.

(Musical break.)

MS. ERBE: Hello, I'm Bonnie Erbe. Welcome to To the Contrary, a discussion of news and social trends from diverse perspectives. Up first, women in combat over a Senate seat. This week, Tea Party candidates pulled off surprising wins in state primaries with the biggest win going to Christine O'Donnell in the Delaware Senate race. Sarah Palin's endorsement loomed large on Tuesday. Some say the real test of Palin's political sway will be in California, where Republican candidate Carly Fiorina hopes to unseat three-term Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer. We asked Boxer and Fiorina to square off in separate interviews, responding to the same questions. True to form, they don't even agree on whether today's women have achieved parity.

SEN. BARBARA BOXER (D-CA): (From tape.) We are. We've always been. Women have always been equal, equally good, equally bad, and we deserve our chance. So I'm glad the Republican Party has turned to their women. It's good.

MS. CARLY FIORINA: (From tape.) Well, obviously not yet. I mean it is still true that in too many industries women still aren't necessarily paid in the same way for the same work as men. It is still true that women in positions of responsibility are scrutinized and caricatured differently than me. I certainly know that personally. I started as a secretary. I typed and I filed and I answered the phones in a nine-person company. And ultimately I became a chief executive. I think we also have to acknowledge that there has been a great deal of progress made.

MS. ERBE: With a race this close, endorsement can pack a lot of muscle, especially one from Sarah Palin. Fiorina is part of Palin's pack of mama grizzlies, but some want to see whether that support will help Fiorina in socially progressive California.

MS. FIORINA: (From tape.) I'm very proud of Sarah Palin's endorsement and she is a hugely important and meaningful figure to a whole set of very important voters.

SEN. BOXER: (From tape.) Sarah Palin's endorsement does several things in our race. Number one, it just shows how out of touch with California Carly Fiorina is because Sarah Palin's reasons for endorsing Carly Fiorina were clear. That she's anti-choice. That she's for drill baby drill and she believes that you should be able to have all the guns that you want, even if you're on the terror watch list, okay? So that puts her out of step.

On the bright side for Carly Fiorina, there's no question Sarah Palin has a following into Tea Party. Now, Fiorina has made a big run for the Tea Party endorsement. So it does energize the Tea Party voters and therefore I have to energize the other voters.

MS. ERBE: Since she first won the Senate seat, in 1992, Senator Boxer has been an outspoken advocate of abortion rights. California, as a whole, is left of center on this issue. Its voters haven't elected anyone who opposes abortion rights statewide, since Governor George Deukmejian won a second term in 1986. But Carly Fiorina hopes to change that.

SEN. BOXER: (From tape.) California also hasn't elected a Republican senator for almost 30 years. It doesn't mean the past is necessarily prologue.

MS. FIORINA: (From tape.) I believe that life begins at conception, so in political terms that would make me pro-life and I am there because of the personal experiences that I have held in my life, had in my life, and I've held these beliefs for a long time. I recognize and appreciate that not everyone agrees with me on that issue, but the truth is most people don't agree with Barbara Boxer, who's quite extreme on this issue. She supports partial birth abortion. She said that babies don't have rights until they leave the hospital. She believes that taxpayers should be funding abortion. Most people don't agree with her either.

SEN. BOXER: (From tape.) The fact to the matter is she is highly anti-choice right now. She's so radical, Bonnie, on this issue, that she positions herself to the right of every Republican senator, female senator. Several of them are not prochoice, but they don't want to overturn Roe v. Wade, which is the law that stopped women from being put in jail and doctors from being put in jail.

MS. ERBE: But the top issue isn't abortion rights. Both candidates agree it's jobs.

SEN. BOXER: (From tape.) And on that, I feel on very solid ground because we know that we're going through the worst recession since the Great Depression. I don't sugarcoat it. I know how hard it is and I believe very, very strongly that if we hadn't taken the steps that we took to pass an economic recovery act, I think now we know Bush and Obama administration officials, both saying, we would have headed to a depression. My opponent said she would have voted against it.

MS. FIORINA: (From tape.) Barbara Boxer believes bigger government, thicker regulation, higher taxes, and more debt is the answer. Now, she will point to bills that she supported and say they're job creating bills. She calls the Stimulus Bill a job creating bill. It didn't create jobs. She will call some of the bills that have just passed in the last couple of weeks, job creation bills, but they're not. So she can say all kinds of things. I think what I will continue to focus on is what is her track record. What are the factual results of her track record, and what are the factual results of the bills and the actions that she's taken. And I will contrast those with life lived in a real world. I know how to create a job. I've done it. I've met a payroll. I started in a small business. I know how to cut millions of dollars worth of expenditures. She hasn't done any of those things and she hasn't helped the people of California.

SEN. BOXER: (From tape.) My opponent is running very strongly on her record as the Hewlett Packard CEO. What she doesn't tell voters, which I have to tell them, is that she was fired from that job after laying off 30,000 workers to China to Europe to India to Malaysia, all other countries. She created jobs in other countries. She hurt people deeply. And when she got fired herself, she got a $21 million severance pay. Now, that's why I think she doesn't get the fact that people need a few hundred dollars a week to survive an unemployment.

MS. FIORINA: (From tape.) Well, I think Barbara Boxer, when she says that I shouldn't run for office because I laid people off, she demonstrates her lack of understanding about the choices that businesses of all sizes need to make in tough times. Yes, I had to make tough choices in tough times. And the hardest thing for a leader to do is to tell someone they don't have a job anymore. But you know, in this state, families and businesses are making tough choices every day. The reason so many people are out of work here is because businesses are having to lay people off. And so what enrages people in the state of California is while they are making tough choices, Barbara Boxer is running around saying, "let's tax more."

MS. ERBE: From the economy to health care. The majority of Californians support the health care law President Obama signed in March. Fifty eight percent also believe more needs to be done to fix the health care system. Fiorina has been outspoken in her disapproval of the current law. After being diagnosed with breast cancer in February, 2009, she says she knows first hand what needs to change and this law doesn't do it.

MS. FIORINA: (From tape.) Well, the battle with cancer, I'm one of the lucky ones. I have seen the best and the worst of our health care system. I know how important the doctor-patient relationship is. And I believe this health care bill has to be repealed because it is so fatally flawed. It puts government task force in the middle of a patient-doctor relationship. It drives up the cost of health care. It does nothing to improve the accessibility of health care. And it is not compassion to throw 16 million uninsured people into Medicaid, a program that is already underfunded, a program that is vastly underfunded here in California.

SEN. BOXER: (From tape.) Health care reform was a tremendous accomplishment for this president and the Congress. I think at the end of the day, people want so see it move forward. If there's problems with it, we can correct it. My opponent wants to repeal it. Imagine repealing all those things and putting the insurance companies back in charge and allowing them to walk away from you when you get sick, and allow them to say, "no, you had cancer before, you have a pre-existing condition. Forget it."

MS. ERBE: Polls have the two candidates in a virtual tie. The outcome of the race won't just affect the people of California. Analysts say it could signal a significant change for the national political scene.

SEN. BOXER: (From tape.) My race is one of the clearest choices in the nation. You just name the issue, pretty much my opponent and I are on different sides. So I think it's important that everybody pays attention to it.

As I said when we started talking about women in politics, I'm all for the Republicans choosing women to represent them, but then the choice becomes between the two candidates. And to me, as a woman who cares about women, who cares families, who cares about this economy, who cares about the environment, who cares about freedom and peace, and all those things, what's important is what are the positions of the women. What are the positions of the men? What does it mean for our families?

MS. FIORINA: (From tape.) All the Senate races that are going on, all the congressional races going on all across the country, lots of people are paying attention to because I think people have the sense that this is about more than a single seat. This is really a battle of pretty different ideas. Barbara Boxer and I could not have a more different set of ideas about what we need to do going forward. And we could not have more different life experiences.

MS. ERBE: Why is this race so significant? What does it mean to somebody in Iowa if Fiorina wins or Boxer wins?

DEL. NORTON: I'm not surprised. If you look at Barbara Boxer, who is a liberal Democrat, she has always run an uphill race, even in progressive California, and she wins. Watch out, Fiorina.

MS. SETMAYER: I think it's important for the country to see two powerful women running against each other for a powerful position. I think that sends a great message. And it also shows the distinct contrast between two sides and where we're going with the future of this country. And that's important nationally.

MS. CARNAHAN: I think it's also important to remember that we talk about liberal California. California, it has very many conservative areas and it's not as liberal in the voting as people think it is. So I think it's going to be a tight race. And I think it's also important to the rest of the country to see this is the mama grizzly versus the established well-known candidate.

MS. SANCHEZ: I think this is America sending a signal they want a shift in about the balance of power in Washington.

MS. ERBE: Why do you say -

MS. SANCHEZ: This race in particular? I think it's one very clear example because the people that are going to make the biggest difference in this race are these independent voters, independent voters that moved away from Obama a year ago and are really concerned about economic issues and spending.

MS. ERBE: - yes, but even though they're running statistically insignificant difference, Boxer is still two points ahead in the polls and typically, as these kinds of situations get closer to election day, we're going to see independents not vote for the Tea Party candidate as it - except in extremely conservative states.

MS. SANCHEZ: Sure, but I think the difference is you can label her whatever you want. I don't know that she would go around and keep on saying she's that. I think she's saying, "you're not a Republican -

MS. ERBE: She's aggressively pursuing the Tea Party wing and Sarah Palin.

MS. SANCHEZ: - Democrats. She's aggressively pursuing independents, conservatives, Republicans. What you're saying is you're not - party affiliation goes out -

MS. ERBE: You can't go after all those groups at the same time.

MS. SANCHEZ: - of course you can. When you don't have a job, you're not a Republican or a Democrat. You're a person looking for a job. And it's hard to believe that the people that got you in the mess, the people that are part of the institutional Washington are the ones that are going -

DEL. NORTON: Look, she's running as a far right Republican in a progressive state. And the only reason she's running as well as she is is because we're in the middle of a deep recession and everybody is hurting. And everybody is mad. Here's where women's issues may come to the floor as we get to the election day. Where she doesn't have any idea what to do about the economy better than Boxer and you look at where she stands on abortion and on women's issues. I don't think California's going to go with a prochoice woman.

MS. ERBE: You mean pro-life.

DEL. NORTON: A pro-life woman. I don't believe this.

MS. SETMAYER: I'm sorry, but I don't think that, number one, that the difference between the electorate - how they choose to vote is going to come down to abortion, not in this climate. That has been an issue in the past, but I really think that because of the economy that is what is going to determine how people vote. California is made up of 25 percent independent voters or unaffiliated voters. That's a pretty large chunk. And that - those voters are going to make the difference. California -

MS. ERBE: I want to ask you about jobs. Fiorina said that it's not true that the stimulus package created jobs. It is true -

(Cross talk.)

MS. ERBE: - wait, wait, wait, wait. Not permanent jobs, but many, many jobs, hundreds and thousands of jobs. Whether - that is an inaccuracy, plus I want to ask you whether people who desperately need a job are going to look at these two candidates and say, "Fiorina made the tough choices and put 30,000 Americans out of work. Do I really want her in Congress, cutting costs and cutting my unemployment benefits or do I want Barbara Boxer who's going to support extended unemployment benefits?"

MS. SETMAYER: Well, first of all, I disagree with the creation of jobs issue in California. Today, "Los Angeles Times" came out with a story that showed that the economic - since the stimulus package was signed into law, California's lost 455,000 jobs. So there is - it's pretty clearly with a 12.3 percent unemployment rate that jobs have not been created in California. Went up from 10 percent - 10.8 percent to 12.3 in the last year and a half. So jobs are hemorrhaging still in California. I also think that people look at a CEO and they understand someone who has real life practical experience, tough choices will be made, but do they honestly think that someone who's been in the business world doesn't understand the importance of creating jobs, versus a career politician who wants to expand government. And that doesn't work.

MS. CARNAHAN: I think she understands the importance of creating jobs, but she's creating them overseas. The importance of creating them here, number one. Number two, I'd just like to say in the state of Missouri, in the last three weeks, one of the first stimulus projects was completed, which was a bridge. It created new jobs and it was hailed as the first completed stimulus project.

The other thing is when you're talking about hemorrhaging of jobs and loss of jobs, how many more would have been lost but for the stimulus package? How many school teachers, how many police officers, how many firemen would have been laid off, public services not there? So I don't think we can go wild the stimulus package did not work. It was sucked up a lot by states that were hemorrhaging themselves.

MS. SANCHEZ: I think a lot of small business owners living in California are recognizing that to be competitive, they're looking - large employers are going to the other states, that they're looking at other viabilities. They're trying to do whatever they can to get their own families economy moving. And they're looking for new, fresh ideas. A lot of that, when they look at the federal government, they're saying, "you guys are expanding the role of the federal government. You're putting out money that's causing debt. We don't see that this is going to benefit our state."

DEL. NORTON: Well, I'll tell you who's running scared, the Republicans, because they've just passed the small business bill that the president has been trying to get for months now. So finally, they come back to town and when we try to get them to - when we try to get them to do something about small business for six months, they went home, heard people say, "pass Obama's bill," and it's passed even the Senate. Now it's going to pass before we go home.

MS. SANCHEZ: I think it's too little, too late. The president should have been talking about economy -

(Cross talk.)

MS. ERBE: Hold on a second. Let's wrap up with - this was also a big week in terms of primaries in other states than California, and the most talked about one is O'Donnell's win, a woman in Delaware, very outspoken in the words of Karl Rove, saying nutty things - to the point of saying nutty things like "masturbation is adultery," which I can't quite figure that one out at all. Who's the other partner? Who's being cheated on there? But Tea Party candidates, will they, as in the case of Ron Paul in Kentucky, win a lot of new Senate seats for the Republicans, or as the case with O'Donnell, where the GOP has written her off as some kind of freak, are they going to cost Republican seats in the Senate?

MS. SETMAYER: Well, I think that the Tea Party movement is fantastic and I'm glad to see that kind of grassroots involvement in what's happening here, really people getting involved. However, in the game of politics, this is now - this is the big boys. And I think it's demographic. The Tea Party movement, in a general election in Delaware, may be a little bit more problematic because I don't know if the electorate statewide in Delaware is going to elect someone as conservative as O'Donnell. Whereas in Kentucky and other places, I think that in the South, in South Carolina, those are as I think the Tea Party movement energized these folks. They bring people out. And there's a huge enthusiasm gap between Democrats and Republicans.

MS. ERBE: Last word, Eleanor.

DEL. NORTON: Tea Party works in already Republican States. It doesn't work in the broad middle-class.

MS. SETMAYER: We don't know that yet.

MS. ERBE: But does it do more than that? Does it cost Republican seats they otherwise might have won?

DEL. NORTON: All I can say is thank you Tea Party Republicans in Delaware. (Laughter.)

MS. ERBE: From female candidates to female doctorates.

Women have conquered the final frontier of higher education, doctoral degrees; this according to a new report showing for the first time women received the majority of Ph.D.s during the 2008-2009 school year. Women have long outnumbered men in undergraduate and graduate studies, earning 57 percent of bachelor's degrees and 59 percent of master's degrees. In recent years, women also achieved parity with men in law and medical studies. But male dominance in engineering and mathematics helped men hold on to their majority in doctoral studies up until now. And although men still earn close to 80 percent of engineering Ph.D.s, women have taken the lead in other fields, including social and behavioral sciences, education, and health sciences, an area where women now earn 70 percent of doctorates.

So Leslie Sanchez, I want to go back to the question, the first question that Fiorina -

MS. SANCHEZ: Tea Party?

MS. ERBE: - no - Fiorina and Boxer answered, which is with women now earning more BAs in liberal arts and now Ph.D.s, are women - have we achieved parity yet or not?

MS. SANCHEZ: I think it depends on your definition of it. I think we've come a long way - there's no doubt about that - in terms of opportunity even. If you look back to the 1950s, the types of jobs that were and then more opportunity, more women opening their own businesses, the flexibility is there. And women are still forced to make very tough choices. Do they stay home and take care of their families, move out of the workforce for a period of time, and then try to onramp back in? It's very competitive to balance both those things. I think there's more corporations trying to help do that. But I want to say an interesting - a different angle to this. Speaking of university campuses, there's a lot of concern among administrators that men are not matching the number of women applying and entering, just even undergraduate, that they want to make sure we're continuing to build an educated workforce. That's the overall goal.

DEL. NORTON: Bonnie, this is nowhere near parity. First of all, a fair number of these Ph.D.s are in education. I applaud them. We need more of them. But -

MS. ERBE: Which doesn't pay as well as high-tech.

DEL. NORTON: - doesn't pay as much and men still predominate in the upper end of the -

MS. ERBE: And the so-called science tech -

DEL. NORTON: - no, that's - in education, they still predominate in the upper end of that field, even with all these women coming. But if you look at white women across the board, you've got to give these women credit because this is the time when having a Ph.D. won't get you very far because the universities are using these Ph.D.s as contract employees. So these women have a lot of guts, but if you look at the fields they are in - and I want them to keep pushing because they have broken one barrier, now we've got to break the barriers across the board from Ph.D.s. And that will mean pushing in other areas and in other fields, besides the ones where we're beginning to do so well.

MS. SETMAYER: And not only women are they competing against men, they're also competing on a global scale as well. The number of jobs and Ph.D.s in stem areas - science, technology, engineering, math - we are falling behind from foreign competitors as well in these areas. So we need to boos our workforce overall. But I saw a study by the American Association of University Women that came out this year that talked about the disparities between women, why aren't there more women in these fields of study. And it still stems back to the gender disparities and the stereotypes beginning in elementary and middle school. And they said that - and this was a combination of several studies, looking at the various factors. And they showed where teachers and parents got involved and encouraged girls and told them "you can be - you're just as good as boys in math," that that helped and encouraged women into going into those fields of study. So we need to keep encouraging our girls to go ahead and get those Ph.D.s and become engineers.

MS. ERBE: Or retrain parents or something because when you say this - about 10 years ago, I went to Carnegie Mellon University, which has a school - excellent school of computer science and they were trying to recruit girls. And one of the students I interviewed told me the same thing you've just said about how a little girl will say, "oh, I want a computer," and they'll get her dolls. And - but the little boy will ask for a computer and he gets one. So we're not making any progress in that area? Did you do that for your kids?

MS. CARNAHAN: Well, first of all, I have two sons.

MS. ERBE: Oh, okay.

MS. CARNAHAN: But I'm worried about them now because I think they could achieve more if they were women. (Laughter.) But I agree with you on a lot of what you just said. I know when I got my Juris Doctor's degree, equivalent maybe little few more years than a Ph.D., and I don't know what you statistics were, 21 percent of my law school class was women. Now, it's 55 percent in law school I think it is what we're teaching early on, the encouragement that we're giving children and saying, "you can do just as well as a woman."

MS. ERBE: All right and that's it for this edition of To the Contrary. Next week, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius explains how health care reform will impact your life starting now. Please join us on the web for "To the Contrary Extra." And whether your views are in agreement or to the contrary, please join us next time.

(END)