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Jewish World Review Oct. 16, 1998 / 26 Tishrei, 5759
Thomas Sowell
Lightweight Boxer
CALIFORNIA VOTERS will have a clear choice in November between very different rival
candidates for the United States Senate. Republican State Treasurer Matt Fong and
incumbent Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer differ across the board on everything
from education to missile defense.
It is a classic liberal (Boxer) versus conservative (Fong) match-up. Even their personal
styles differ, the flashy and glib Boxer contrasting with the sober and thoughtful Fong.
Whatever Matt Fong's achievements as state treasurer, sound fiscal management will
never get as much media attention as ringing rhetoric and well-staged events. However,
the fact that the polls show a close race suggests that Barbara Boxer's shrill and shallow
liberalism is rejected by enough people to make even a relatively unknown candidate
without charisma a formidable challenger.
Among her many dubious distinctions, Senator Boxer has been named the "biggest
spender in Congress" by the National Taxpayers' Union. It has been estimated that she
has proposed over $300 in new government spending for every dollar of spending cuts
she has recommended.
Senator Boxer voted for the 1993 tax increase and against the welfare reform legislation
that has gotten large numbers of people off the dole and back to work. When it comes to
crime, Barbara Boxer sticks by the old liberal formula -- crack down on law-abiding
citizens who own guns.
Recent research at the University of Chicago has shown that armed citizens
substantially reduce violent crime rates. But there is no inkling of that in Senator Boxer's
campaign ads against "assault weapons" -- an emotional term with no real definition
that goes beyond ugly-looking guns.
Matt Fong is for cracking down on criminals, instead of on law-abiding citizens who
own guns. His approach to education is to make teachers meet higher standards and to
base their pay on performance, rather than longevity. By contrast, Barbara Boxer's
approach is to throw ever more money down the bottomless pit of our existing failing
school system and echo the party line of the teachers' unions.
On military spending, Senator Boxer is against creating a missile-defense system,
preferring instead to rely on treaties signed back in the days of the Soviet Union. She
seems not to have noticed the growing number of other nations that now have missiles,
quite aside from the questionable reliability of treaties. Matt Fong is for a missile
defense system and for more military spending in general, in order to update our
neglected armed forces.
Perhaps the crowning example of Senator Boxer's liberalism -- and hypocrisy -- were
her denunciations of Clarence Thomas in 1991, because of Anita Hill's unsubstantiated
charges against him, and her 1998 down-playing of Bill Clinton's DNA-proven sexual
escapades with Monica Lewinsky in the Oval Office.
An intellectual lightweight who has sponsored no major legislation in all her years in
both houses of Congress, Barbara Boxer is nevertheless a cunning political candidate
and ruthless in her drive to stay in office. Her campaign ads are slick, her emotional
rhetoric well-practiced and her vocabulary of buzz-words extensive.
Although Boxer has never enjoyed strong statewide voter support, she has still managed
to get enough votes to squeak by. In her previous election campaign, she won with the
help of an eleventh-hour smear of her opponent that there was not time enough for him
to answer. Politics is her life and she means to hold onto political office at all costs.
One of the encouraging things about Matt Fong is that he has not been in politics all his
life. A graduate of the Air Force Academy, he served on active duty in the Air Force for
five years, later owned his own business and has also been a commercial pilot and then
an attorney before becoming state treasurer in 1995.
In short, Matt Fong has had the kind of varied experience in the real world that too
many politicians lack. He would be a refreshing and knowledgeable voice in
Washington, where Barbara Boxer has misrepresented California for too
The tight race for one of California's seats in the U.S. Senate is about more than
differences on issues and style, however. Unfortunately, elections are also about the
advantages of incumbency and political organization, as well as name recognition --
and, in all these respects, Barbara Boxer is clearly one-up.
A picture is worth a 1,000 words: Hillary and Boxer
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10/01/98: Starr's real crime
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6/26/98: Random Thoughts
6/24/98: An angry letter
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5/22/98: The lessons of Indonesia
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5/14/98: Monica Lewinsky's choices
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Abolish Adolescence!
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4/15/98: "Clinton in Africa
"
4/13/98: "Bundling and unbundling
"
4/9/98: "Rising or falling Starr
"
4/6/98: "Was Clinton ‘vindicated'?
"
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3/12/98: Media Circus versus Justice
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3/3/98: Cheap Shot Time
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