Senator Barbara Boxer Announces Retirement

by JASmius



Four terms of "pumping Gollyfornians up" is apparently enough:

Senator Barbara Boxer announced Thursday that she will not run for reelection in 2016, setting up a big money political battle for her seat in the nation’s most populous state.

Boxer, the 74-year-old Democratic junior Senator from California, said that she is not retiring altogether and will continue working on “the issues that I love” through her political action committee, PAC for a Change. Boxer was first elected to the Senate in 1992.

“I am never going to [completely] retire,” Boxer said. “The work is too important.”

Fascinating, after a fashion.  I mean, it's not as if a GOP "bench" of viable candidates even exists in the Acapulco Golden State.  What are California Republicans going to do?  Call up Barney Ross and ask if he can spare Trench Mauser for six years?  No, my friends down the coast, you're headed from the frying pan into the fire with such deep-pocketed leftwing radical luminaries as Attorney General and Eric Holder clone Kamala Harris, homophilic Lieutenant Governor and ex-San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom, and La Raza-oid former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa lining up to take Babsy's place.  For what it's worth, my money (if I had any to spare) would be on Villaraigosa; "first Hispanic Senator" and all that (since Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio aren't "authentic" Hispanics and therefore don't count).

Why is Senator "Don't Call Me 'M'am'" really leaving?  I can only surmise that she sees her party being in the minority in the Senate for a long, long time to come and doesn't relish the prospect of being unable to wield the power to which she's become accustomed and believes, like every Democrat, to be her birthright.  It will be interesting to see if any of her Donk colleagues take her cue and begin an exodus out the upper chamber door.

Exit question: Memo to California Republicans: How about Ken Calvert?  He doesn't have much to do besides grow ever more fiscally....



....cornfed, and it's obvious that taking up an inordinate amount of space is one of the things he does best.  That and his face appearing to be too low on the front of his skull.  Either that, or it implodes whenever he smiles.  Since the California GOP doesn't really have a face, might as well give it one that will provide some comic relief.