Inside the Beltway
Barbara Boxer talks about life in Washington, D.C, and the inspiration for her new political novel.

BY KATY BUTLER

Seven years ago, Senator Barbara Boxer—a friend and ally of the Clintons, a former member of the Marin County Board of Supervisors, and a resident of Greenbrae—watched in dismay as woman after woman emerged from obscurity to make the sexual charges that effectively neutered the Clinton presidency. Full of frustration and almost ready to quit politics herself, Boxer found herself burning to explain to outsiders how the game really works—not the “How a Bill Becomes a Law” platitudes of civics class, but the complex life beneath the surface, where human vulnerability, cunning and idealism interact in a petri dish of influence, money, ideology and covert manipulation. A longtime admirer of political thriller-writer Richard North Patterson, Boxer fantasized about writing a page-turner that would show outsiders how things really worked—without naming names or risking her political future.

The result—seven years, countless cross-country airplane flights pecking at her laptop, and one collaborator later—is a novel, A Time to Run, published this week by Chronicle Books. Co-written with novelist Mary-Rose Hayes, it’s an odd mixture of thriller, liberal wish-fulfillment and political romance novel. Its heroine, like Boxer, is a diminutive, big-hearted liberal senator from Northern California, battling a conservative president’s ultra-conservative nominee to the Supreme Court. (In the book, that candidate happens to be a conservative Latina law professor from Northern California.)

Secondary plot lines involve sexual affairs; an “other woman” who turns on her paramour and changes the course of history; a male politician destroyed by well-financed charges of sexual harassment; and a Iago-like conservative newspaper reporter from the San Francisco Chronicle, so driven by envy, class resentment and a desire to get ahead that he is willing to lie and defraud to bring down people who were once his closest friends.

I asked Boxer whether the journalist character was modeled on any particular reporter.

“No,” she said definitely, as she sat on the couch of her beautifully renovated house in a pleasant Greenbrae neighborhood close to the Bon Air shopping center. (In the 1970s, Boxer herself was a reporter for the Pacific Sun.) “I made up the story,” she went on. “This character is a composite of reporters that—let us just say that out of all my years with my colleagues—we talk a lot about what happens to us. It’s just like firemen sit together and talk about their lives. And cops. And reporters. Every one of us shares stories of the most horrific things that reporters have tried to do. [pause] Certain reporters, not all reporters. And I believe that a lot of it comes out of this desire to bring people down.”

It was a bright fall day, and Boxer, after nearly seven years as one of the most outspoken and liberal members of a beleaguered and disarrayed opposition party, was feeling pleased about the Republicans’ ever-drooping poll numbers, mounting political scandals and unpopular responses to national events. The more liberal of California’s two women senators (her last Republican opponent, Matt Fong, repeatedly accused her of being “no Dianne Feinstein”), she was recently put in charge of media outreach for a caucus of Democratic senators eager to refine the party’s message.

Boxer is an energetic, focused woman whom voters tend to either love or hate. Critics—in the press and elsewhere—like to call her “shrill,” but in each election, Californians vote for her by increasingly wide margins. In person she sounds emphatic, straightforward, sometimes impatient, but rarely harsh, and her voice is beautifully modulated. She also doesn’t waste a second: As I arrived at her house, she was wiping off a glass table on an outdoor patio while listening to the radio news. For our interview, she, like her house, looked comfortable: She was wearing a cotton knit track suit and running shoes.

Do reporters really do things as dishonest as those your villain does in your book—sleeping with, and years later attempting to destroy, the woman senator?
I have one colleague who shall remain nameless who’s not from California, nowhere near here, who had a really good friend in high school who in later years, as a reporter, tried to bring him down. That said, 99 percent of reporters are great. [pause] Well, 98. [laughs]

Your book opens in the heat of a Supreme Court nomination battle in the Senate—an amazing coincidence, coming out right at the time of Supreme Court nomination controversies. Why did you use this situation?
Jay Schaefer, my editor at Chronicle Books, said we had to do something in the beginning of the book that shows a real life experience that senators go through. The most important decision senators make is the decision to go to war, and the second, I think, is the Supreme Court.

Speaking of which, did you do a lot of soul searching about your vote in the Roberts confirmation?
No.

Pretty much a done deal?
Here’s my bar: I need to be able to look into the eyes of my constituents and say, “I am absolutely convinced that your rights, freedoms and liberties will be protected.” If I can’t do that, I’m not going to vote for a nominee. With this particular nominee, from the get-go, he was on the record 20 years ago working for the Reagan administration as trying to take away our rights, freedoms and liberties. He had never backed off it, he just said, Well I was working for someone else. Well, someone else wasn’t put up for the Supreme Court.

Is abortion particularly the issue that concerns you?
No, it’s not the only one. It’s absolutely crucial and important because it’s hanging by a 5-4 thread. But so are a lot of things. The whole commerce clause [of the Constitution, which has been broadly interpreted by liberal courts to allow Congress to make a wide range of laws] has been used to protect civil rights, and crime victims of rape and violence; most of our civil rights are protected through the commerce clause. No, it’s much more than the right of privacy, which includes the right to choose, which is so important to me.

How is it to be in the opposition—where you have all three branches in government in the control of the other side?
—Hmmmm.

You were thinking of retiring?
Yes I was. When we were in the majority, I knew that things were going to go pretty much right—not that I agreed with everything Clinton did—but it was easier. It was joyful, I could get things done without killing myself. Now I have to kill myself to get things done but I get things done anyway. Because I find by shining the light of truth on issues you can still get a lot done, even in the minority.

There’s the war in Iraq. The lack of priorities. The huge tax cuts, the raid on Social Security, all that is very painful. Very difficult. What it’s like? It’s like being on a team that’s the losing team.

Like the Chicago Cubs—
You always need to make your case. I learned that when I was on the Board [the Marin County Board of Supervisors]. At first I was losing things 3-2, 4-1, and you have the temptation to pull the cover over your head and say, Oh Lord, why bother. They’re going to think I’m annoying, and slowing them up. But what I learned was, you must be heard, you must lay out the case.

Any signs of hope?
If you look at where the polling data is now, people are finally seeing that the emperor has no clothes. Meaning that President Bush—there’s no there there. The war on terror is a myth. The war on Iraq changed mission five times. It’s a disaster. These tax cuts for the wealthy are not making us stronger, but weaker. The deficits are going to go on the backs of our great-grandchildren, let alone grandchildren. These attacks on Social Security and Medicare, programs which are so popular with the people, are misguided, and the Halliburtons of the world are the only ones with a smile on their faces. The most important agency in a disaster [FEMA] is in itself a disaster. And he got caught, he has no clothes. It’s over for him, I think.

Can the Democratic party take advantage of this?
The first step is for the people to realize that the current leadership is moving us in the wrong direction. I think that’s happening. Now, we have to step up with our vision and have a message that gets through—and we’re really working on it.

The thing is, when I used to go on television in the olden days, meaning the ’70s, I had three minutes to talk and make my case. Maybe four. Then, five years later, I had two and a half minutes. Ten years later I had a minute and a half. And then I had a half a minute. Now I have like eight seconds to make my case. Once in a while I’ll go on Wolf Blitzer, he’ll let me do a sentence that may run about 12 seconds before he cuts me off, and he’s one of the better ones. It’s terrible.

Given those limitations, what can you do?
We need to have a message that gets across. It has to be short, but it really has to be authentic. I’m very optimistic.

Let me quote one of your senatorial colleagues from a New York Times story: “I’ve always been able to describe what Republicans stand for in eight words, and the eight words are lower taxes, less government, strong defense and family values. We Democrats, if you ask us about one piece of that, we meander for five or ten minutes—

—that’s right—
—trying to describe what we are and what we stand for. And frankly it doesn’t compete very well. I’m not talking about the policies, I’m talking about the language…

Great.

How would you characterize the Democratic—or the liberal, progressive Democratic vision?
When I ran the first time, I worked on the message and it was pretty simple: “Fighting for California.” But you have to remember not all Democrats are progressives. We reach from the West Coast to Middle America to the East Coast to the South—in some cases—so we have to find something that speaks for all of us. I’m not going to give you any clues to what it will be—

[plaintively] You’re not?
We went out [polling] with five or six different choices. We’re working with George Lakoff [cognitive linguist at UC Berkeley, and a master of the rhetorical art of political “framing”] and we’re working with others, because it has to be real.

What options do you have?
In my opinion, we’re the party of Hope, Opportunity and Fairness. If you look out now—where’s the hope? You saw the hope when you looked at how people were living in the hurricane. There wasn’t hope in their eyes. And opportunity? I don’t think so. And fairness?

If it were just you—it’d be Hope, Opportunity and Fairness?
For me, the slogan would be “Fighting for the people.” Easy. Democrats: Fighting for the People. But there are some states where they’re sick of fighters. They want “working together.”

I’m fighting! [animatedly] That’s who I am! The people here love it, and you know when I go out to the store, what do I get? Give them hell, Barbara! Keep giving them hell! Don’t you let them get you down! You fight! That’s me! [pause, quieter] But we have to work together and come up with something that each one of us [senators] can take home.

What about the complaint that the Democratic party is a polling organization without passion—that its candidates represent positions that poll well and then can’t understand why voters don’t vote for the candidates? With the Republicans there’s a lot of passion.

Well, they poll more than anybody…
The Republicans took positions that were once unpopular and hammered at them until they—

Oh, no, they were always very popular with their base. They knew exactly what they were doing. They took issues that scapegoated people and took it to their base and then went from there.

Everybody polls. I polled before I said “Fighting for You.” I’m not stupid. It worked because it was authentic and people wanted a fighter. But I’m not going to go out there and lose a race because I think I know. As long as you’re not compromising, I don’t think it’s a problem at all to find out what people need and want. We know that we’ve always been for education, and we’ve always been for the environment, and we’ve always been for workers.

George Lakoff would say—
Another way to put Lakoff’s complaint is that we always put forward an intellectual approach and not an emotional approach. The intellectual approach is great, but you have to touch people, and make them feel some emotion. And that is true, the people agree with us Democrats overwhelmingly, but when they come away, they don’t have a warmth, a connection, and that’s very unfortunate.

Look, we’re a very strong party. And we almost won the last two presidential elections—well, we won one of them, but the court gave it away—so everyone who’s predicting how disastrous the Democratic party is—and it’s usually our own people—are just being negative and just being complainers, and they think they have the right answers.

Anybody who writes these things about “Democrats in Disarray” is missing the point. We may not agree on every detail, but we stand on the side of the people against the special interests. I think that brings us together. We will find that voice, and once we do, I think we’ll be in great shape.

Right now we’re running 12 points ahead against the Republicans in generic Congressional races—

—Generic?—
—where you say, if the race was held tomorrow, would you vote for a Democratic candidate or a Republican. That usually means that party will win the Congress. It’s the biggest we’ve ever had. We could be 20 points ahead if we could get our message out. Once the message is done and we’ve decided on what it is, I will be helping get senators out on the airwaves, on the radio, on television to push that message forward.

How do you plan to do that?
I’m not going to tell you. I’m just making sure that people are ready to fill these slots. Right now we’re all so busy doing our work we don’t have time to go on the air, and we’re getting killed by Republicans who are on there all the time.

Why has the Democratic party been slain on the issue of family values?
We didn’t feel comfortable telling our families what they should be doing. And somehow we became a party that didn’t care about our families. I think the opposite is true. We thought that family values were obvious—that those were American values. That you protect your children, that you encourage them to be open with you about whatever they need and want, and we trusted our families. We didn’t think to make it a political issue.

I trust a woman to determine her own reproductive health, and she’ll deal with it with her family and her God. They want to have President Bush decide when she can have an abortion and probably stop her. And those issues have turned up as if they have the values. It’s really a twisting of the reality.

But there are larger issues about sexuality, violent video games—and those trouble a lot of people who are pro-abortion.
[Sharply] First of all, nobody that I know is pro-abortion. They’re pro-choice. The leaders against these things [violent videos, etc.] have been Joe Lieberman, Democrat, Hillary Clinton, Democrat, Ken Conrad, Democrat, Byron Dornan, Democrat. They took the lead against the violent videos, Tipper Gore, the violent lyrics. So I don’t know where you’re coming up with this idea that Democrats don’t care about these things, when in fact we’re the ones that put in the V-Chip. But you’re right, the Republicans say that we don’t care when in fact we do. We’ve lost the battle and let them take away these issues.

If it’s lost, it’s lost?
No that’s why we’re coming up with our messaging.

What gives you the most hope?
I have faith in the American people and always have. They’ll see clearly who’s on their side, who’s fighting for them, who will stand up for them, and who will foster a national government that is on their side and is efficient and has its priorities right rather than a tool to get more money to the Halliburtons of the world and the rich people in the world.

The abolition of the inheritance tax? Will it still go through?
I don’t know. The Republicans have the votes. But we have shamed them into taking it off the agenda for now. They never give up on their desire to give tax cuts to the wealthiest. They seem to think that’s their most noble goal. The most emotional they get is when they talk about tax cuts to the rich.

The most emotional?
That’s what it feels like when you’re there, and see the passion. And where’s the passion on these other issues—when I see people’s kids that don’t have a good education and poor people without health insurance, and seniors worrying about retirement and their Social Security. But, oh boy, they get passionate on taxes.

The president’s still pushing more tax cuts for the rich…Rather than talk about repealing tax cuts that have already been done, my perspective is to just freeze everything in place now until we are out of the woods, whenever that is—it ain’t going to be for a while, but we have to live within our means or start the process of being within our means.

What’s your strategy on Iraq?
I’m on a bill with Russ Feingold that states that the president must give us what his mission is, what it will take to complete his mission, a timetable for completing the mission, and what factors will alter the timetable. We’re hoping that that type of approach will gain traction, and I think it will because the American people are so far ahead of where the Congress is on this.

They’re beginning to say this was a mistake and the best vote I ever cast, one of the best, was the vote against [sighs] that war. When you’re drowning, we need to get out of the water. We’re drowning now.

We’ve spent $200 billion in Iraq. We can’t afford that war any more. Leaving taxes aside for a second, we can’t afford to see more people killed. We have no mission…and the Iraqi people are starting to say, Please, we know you meant well, but really, we need to do this ourselves. We need to start a diplomatic solution and not spend this kind of money, and get out.

What are you happiest about having accomplished lately?
I think the transportation bill. When I came to the Congress, California was getting 77 cents back on the dollar on our transportation, and now we’re getting 95 cents back, and I’m very happy about that. I stopped a horrific experiment on children in Florida where they were being sprayed with pesticides. I stopped that by exposing it and holding up the [nomination of the] head of the EPA.

It was horrible; the EPA, this is unbelievable, were paying poor parents to allow their kids to crawl around, infants, in the pesticide spray, and they gave them $900 and a video camera. We got the Senate to pass something prohibiting testing on children and pregnant women.

What else are you proud of?
I’m proud that I questioned Condi Rice [about the absence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq]. Not that she’s ever said one word that there was ever a mistake. I think accountability is something which we’re trying to inject into this administration and I think people really want it.

The San Diego Union-Tribune, and other critics, have called you shrill. What’s your response?
When I started, everyone called every woman [in politics] shrill. A man is strong, a woman is shrill. There are very few that do it now. It doesn’t work. The San Diego Union-Tribune never endorsed me, they hate my politics, they’ve written every vitriolic thing possible, and I kept winning by more and more votes from San Diego.

So. Keep it coming. Those things never bother me. If those things bother you, you’ve got to stay out. I’ve collected all these bad editorials, and all the things the right-wing radio says about me. They’ve called me every name in the book. I wear it like a badge of honor.

What they’re trying to do—the right wing in this country—is to attack progressives so that progressives are afraid to speak out. That’s why I say, Send me the bad press. Because the more they do it, the more I speak out, because I know they’re trying to stop me.

PHOTO BY RORY MCNAMARA

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