Carly Fiorina, Barbara Boxer Unleash Attacks
Now that former technology executive Carly Fiorina is the GOP's official Senate nominee in California, she and her opponent, Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer of California, are zeroing in on what they see as the other candidate's weaknesses.
Fiorina managed to soundly defeat her two primary opponents, winning 56 percent of the vote, but recent polls consistently show Boxer ahead of Fiorina in a head-to-head matchup, albeit by a single-digit margin. A Los Angeles Times-USC poll from last month put Boxer ahead by six points.
At a time when anti-incumbent sentiment seems to have settled into voters' minds, the Republican party is attacking the three-term Democratic senator for "decades of epic fail" in a new web video.
"Politicians come and go," a narrator says in reference to Boxer in the video, "but some just stick around...and around, and around."
The GOP is also needling Boxer for an incident last year in which she asked a general testifying in a congressional hearing to refer to her as "ma'am". Their new video promotes the website www.CallMeMaam.com, which redirects visitors to the National Republican Senatorial Committee's Boxer opposition page.
The Boxer campaign, meanwhile, is taking Fiorina to task for her record has HP's CEO. A new web video about two minutes in length gives a series of stats about Fiorina's tenure, such as the fact that the HP board fired Fiorina and that she subsequently received a $42 million "golden parachute" and a $200,000 a year pension.
Democrats are also assailing Fiorina's conservative credentials, accusing her of moving to the "extremist wing" of the Republican party during the primary.
"Carly Fiorina has spent the past year defining herself as a right-wing extremist," Sen. Robert Menendez, chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said in a statement last night. "She is against a woman's right to choose, supports the Arizona immigration law, wants to repeal health care and supports allowing people on the 'no-fly' list to buy guns."
More CBSNews.com Coverage of Tuesday's Primaries:
Winners: Blanche Lincoln | Nikki Haley | Meg Whitman | Carly Fiorina | Sharron Angle | Roundup
Washington Unplugged: Lincoln's Comeback, Ladies Night for GOP
Anthony Salvanto: What's Next for the Big Primary Winners?
Jeff Greenfield: California Vote to Alter Primaries Could Have Huge Impact
Bob Schieffer: Money and Melodrama Shape Primaries
Marc Ambinder: How Did Sen. Blanche Lincoln Pull Victory From the Jaws of Defeat?
Women Win Big on Primary Day
Interactive Map: CBS News Campaign 2010 Race Ratings
