Sen. Barbara Boxer recalls political career in Santa Rosa talk

If California Sen. Barbara Boxer needs a new career after four decades in public office, it might be as a comedian.

The 75-year-old senator, who announced 18 months ago that she would not seek re-election, suggested as much Monday night in an hour-long talk at a book-signing event at Montgomery Village in Santa Rosa.

“Maybe I should do stand-up next,” Boxer said to a crowd of about 250 people, so partisan they gave her a standing ovation as she stepped to the microphone.

And she delivered one-liners, mixed in with her stream-of-consciousness recall of the highs and lows of a career that turned a Marin County housewife into county supervisor, followed by 10 years in the House of Representatives and 24 years in the Senate.

“Every color of hair I’ve had - it’s in the book,” Boxer said, referring to the photographs in her 271-page memoir, “The Art of Tough.”

Boxer’s voice was a bit hoarse, she acknowledged, in the midst of a multi-city tour to promote the book she wrote over three years, much of it composed during the airplane commutes between California and Capitol Hill.

“Voice of God,” one man said, patting the book before Boxer began speaking at the event, organized by Copperfield’s Books.

The book, she wrote in the introduction, is a “no-punches-pulled personal memoir about the personalities and shenanigans of my colleagues on both side of the aisle.”

Boxer also wrote that she “lived with an emotional intensity - a sense of indignation, determination and sometimes outrage” that inspired strong feelings pro and con.

One of her favorite insults, she wrote, came from Ann Coulter, the conservative commentator, who said: “Barbara Boxer is a great candidate for the Democratic Party: female and learning disabled.”

Boxer, wearing a gray jacket, turtleneck and slacks, introduced her husband of 54 years, Stewart Boxer, who “has been in the background for so long.”

“Stewart married Debbie Reynolds and he woke up with Golda Meir,” she said, drawing a laugh from the crowd.

The Boxers, who moved to Marin County in 1968, were engaged in the progressive politics of the era - Vietnam, the environment, the women’s movement - when friends appealed to Stewart to run for a supervisor’s seat in 1972. Stewart demurred, she said, because the position’s $11,000 annual salary wouldn’t support their family.

“He looks at me and says, ‘Why don’t you run?’” Boxer said. “I say ‘OK, I’ll do it,’ and the rest was history.”

There was a bump in the road when the late William Filante called on the Boxers and suggested that Barbara Boxer should drop out of the race. Asked why, Boxer said, Filante’s response was: “Only the oppressors can free the oppressed.”

The art of tough came into play: The Boxers told Filante to leave.

Boxer lost in 1972, then won the Marin supervisor’s seat in 1976 and never lost again.

Years later, when she was running for the Senate in 1992, along with Dianne Feinstein, Boxer recalled, that people told her they could vote for one, but not two Bay Area Jewish women.

Her response: “Well, don’t you think it’s about time for the Senate to have a double dose of chicken soup?”

More seriously: “You never complained when there were two Protestant men.”

Boxer recalled the levity of convincing former House Speaker Tip O’Neill to let women into the male-only House gymnasium by singing him a humorous song she had composed.

She described the agony of failing to end the Iraq War, after being one of the 21 Democratic senators who voted against authorizing the use of military force sought by the Bush administration.

“Eight years of hell trying to end the war. Nothing I could do,” she said.

Responding to questions, Boxer said that student loans need to be refinanced and predicted that a Democratic administration “will take care of it.”

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who is still campaigning for the nomination that Hillary Clinton appears to have clinched, “could do so many things” in that administration, Boxer said, such as vice president, a cabinet post or continued service in the Senate.

“Obviously, Bernie is and will continue to be a very important voice,” said Boxer, a Clinton backer and friend. Boxer’s grandson is Clinton’s nephew.

But she acknowledged defects in the primary election process, which Sanders has assailed as unfair.

Democratic superdelegates, she said, are “ridiculous,” suggesting the party should hold direct elections in six regional primaries. “Let the people vote,” said Boxer, who is a superdelegate.

The 2016 election, she said, is a watershed moment. “Are we going to go forward together or are we going to become the divided states of America?” she asked.

Presumed Republican nominee Donald Trump every day “insults the meaning of America,” she said. Trump, who has assailed minorities, women and disabled people, “hasn’t a clue what made America great,” she said, referring to the principle: “We do well when we all do well.”

As she wrote in her book, Boxer said, she is not retiring, just stepping out of the Senate. “So stay with me; we’re not done.”

Rocky Nielsen of Petaluma said she has been voting for Boxer since the 1980s, when she was impressed by the candidate who - by Boxer’s own admission - stands barely five feet tall.

“I remember thinking a person of such small stature had such a powerful presence,” Nielsen said. “Her deep humanity is still there.”

You can reach Staff Writer Guy Kovner at 521-5457 or guy.kovner@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @guykovner.