Fiorina: No 'brawler' but ready for Boxer

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By Joseph Weber

UPDATED:

Carly Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard Co. chief executive officer, announced Wednesday she will run for a U.S. Senate seat from California.

The announcement by Mrs. Fiorina, a Republican, ends months of speculation about her plans to challenge Sen. Barbara Boxer, the three-term Democratic incumbent.

"Get ready," Mrs. Fiorina said during a town-hall-style event in Orange County. "I can take a punch, and I can throw a punch. I'm not a brawler, and I'm not a boxer, [but] I can take on Barbara Boxer."

Her campaign so far has played out in quintessential Southern California style. The event was held at a small business named Earth Friendly Products and included a warmup soundtrack that featured the Beach Boys singing "Surfin' USA" and the Ramones' version of "California Sun."

"Carlyfornia Dreamin'" and "CarlyforCal.com" are among Mrs. Fiorina's campaign slogans.

Such backdrops were in sharp contrast to the sight of Mrs. Fiorina, a striking Texan who recently emerged from nine months of cancer treatment with her blond hair now closely cropped and gray.

"I'm happy to tell you, after having been through surgery and chemotherapy, breast cancer is behind me and I'm raring to go," she said. "Today you are looking at a women with renewed determination to serve out the rest of her life. . . . After chemotherapy, [taking on] Barbara Boxer doesn't look so scary."

Mrs. Fiorina, 55, would need to win a June primary before facing Mrs. Boxer. The only other Republican in the primary so far is state Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, a businessman running as the race's only real conservative.

The 68-year-old Mrs. Boxer, chairman of the Senate Environmental and Public Works Committee, has been a frequent target of conservatives, most recently for co-authoring the chamber's climate-change bill.

Mrs. Fiorina attacked what she thinks is Mrs. Boxer's modest record of success in Congress in helping California residents and for going on a book tour this summer instead of holding town-hall meetings on health care reform.

"Let's give Barbara Boxer the chance next year to become a full-time author," she said.

Mrs. Fiorina ran Silicon Valley-based Hewlett-Packard from 1999 until she was forced out in 2005. She was an economic adviser in 2008 in the presidential campaign of Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican.

She reportedly left Hewlett-Packard with a severance package of more than $21 million, which could make the Nov. 2010 election expensive.

Mrs. Fiorina said she would draw on her experience of guiding Hewlett-Packard through tough economic times and stuck to a conservative agenda of no tax increases and help for small businesses through tax credits and the reopening of now-frozen lines of bank credit.

The event was preceded by Mrs. Fiorina's campaign announcement in an opinion article early Wednesday morning in the Orange County Register.

Among her top reasons for entering the race are the country's high unemployment rate and "too much spending in Washington," she wrote.

Mrs. Fiorina also expressed her views on the president and efforts by the Democrat-controlled Congress to reform heath care insurance, saying that "we should build on what works," not remake "the entire healthcare system."

She also apologized for her poor voting record as a citizen, which critics already have attacked.

"Admittedly, I have not always been engaged in the electoral process," she wrote. "I realize that thinking was wrong."