So, as she approaches the re-election run she swore she wouldn't make, it's rather surprising that she's polling so poorly. In March, PDF format warning, The Field Poll found 43% of respondents supporting her re-election and 44% "not inclined to re-elect her." It's a rather steep drop for the once popular Boxer.
How did it happen?
For one thing, people stopped focusing on Senator Dianne Feinstein long enough to note the 'liberal' Boxer wasn't. They began to notice that Boxer did nothing on the Iraq War. (A September 2007 press conference, organized by other senators and which required strong arming Boxer to get her there does not count as 'leadership' against the Iraq War.) They began to grasp that a politician who should have been a leader, who had been given a mandate, elected to ignore the voters, to ignore the will of California.
And they also began to notice, frankly, how frequently Boxer made stupid, uninformed statements.
Wednesday, Boxer was exposing her ignorance in public yet again as she appeared on NPR's The Diane Rehm Show to promote her latest attempt at pulp fiction, Blind Trust (co-written as all the good page turners are!!!!).
In the course of the conversation, the issue of regrets came up (the lead character in Boxer's new book has no regrets) leading the senator to declare, "I regret that even after voting 'no' on the War on Iraq, I should have been down there every day making my voice louder and stronger."
Ah.
How sad.
Boxer regrets offering no leadership against the war on Iraq.
Diane Rehm asked her why that was, prompting Boxer to sigh heavily and respond, "I thought that I said enough when I voted 'no' and I continued to speak but not loudly enough and not clearly enough" [she goes on to plug her book again].
Boxer voted "no" in 2002. How very sad that she's got nothing to point to afterwards with regards to the Iraq War which passed the six year mark last March.
It's a deep regret for Boxer.
But apparently not one she intends to work on.
In other words, she'll offer mealy mouth words but take no action to change her behaviors.
That became apparent when a caller asked about Nouri al-Maliki's recent comments that the US might stay in Iraq beyond 2011.
Barbara Boxer: First of all, I have never heard Nouri al-Maliki ask us to stay so I don't know what particular speech he [the caller] was referring to. He said for a long time it's time for Americans to leave and I think it is. And what will guide me, obviously the reports on the ground from the military but my overwhelming belief that we have bled so much and done so much that I already say and I said a long time ago we gave the Iraqi people the chance to govern themselves, to rebuild and anyone who served there or any of the families who lost people there or any of those who were wounded there should know they gave their all to give the Iraqis a chance and now they have to take that chance and run with it.
Barbara Boxer defines her biggest regret as not doing more on Iraq and yet this sitting senator is unaware of remarks the prime minister of Iraq, Nouri al-Maliki, made in DC -- not in Iraq -- while visiting last month.
That's very telling. And it goes a long way towards explaining why Boxer's popularity in the state has nose dived.
Reading list for the failed and failing author, Margaret Talev's "Iraq's Maliki raises possibility of asking U.S. to stay on" (McClatchy Newspapers), Barbara, Anne Gearan's coverage of al-Maliki's remarks for AP, the July 23rd snapshot and Aljazeera report noting, "The Iraqi prime minister has admitted US troops could stay in the country beyond 2011."