Fiorina: Boxer is ‘extremely vulnerable’

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Republican U.S. Senate candidate Carly Fiorina said today that California Sen. Barbara Boxer, the Democrat she hopes to unseat this year, is “extremely vulnerable,” particularly in light of the Senate upset in Massachusetts on Tuesday.

“I think Barbara Boxer is clearly extremely vulnerable. She was vulnerable a year ago and she’s more vulnerable today,” the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard said today in a small conference at the office of her Sacramento strategists.

Fiorina predicted jobs, government spending and the healthcare legislation in Washington would remain on voters’ minds throughout 2010. ”All of those things play in California just as they played in Massachusetts,” Fiorina said. On Tuesday, Massachusetts voters swept Republican Scott Brown into the U.S. Senate over Democratic state Atty. Gen. Martha Coakley.

Fiorina also accused Boxer of having “taken the voters of California for granted for a very long time.” But only hours earlier, Boxer had said just the opposite, emphasizing that the lesson of Massachusetts was that politicians must “never, ever, ever take an election for granted.”

“People have to know you’re in their corner, you’re with them, you’re on their side. You have to make the case. You can’t presume,’ Boxer said.

Before facing off against Boxer, Fiorina must still navigate through a tough GOP primary, where she faces Assemblyman Chuck DeVore of Irvine and former Congressman Tom Campbell.

-- Shane Goldmacher in Sacramento