Will Carly Fiorina Face a Scozzafava-like Undoing?

Carly Fiorina

Senate candidate Carly Fiorina has already expressed some misplaced disgust toward her opponent, Sen. Barbara Boxer. She continued that streak on a recent conference call with conservative bloggers when she assured them, “My team knows very well how to run a campaign against a nasty Democrat.”

But Dave Weigel at the Washington Independent noted an important exchange between Fiorina and blogger Dan Riehl,  who asked for the candidate’s thoughts on Chuck DeVore, a state assemblyman who had already announced he’d be challenging Boxer and who went on the offensive by suggesting Fiorina was actually liberal on certain issues.

Fiorina, of course, was quick to announce her position against gay marriage and against abortion rights, two conservative candidate must-haves, but my guess is that now that the strategy of awakening the far right’s base has been used effectively against Dede Scozzafava in New York, that it will likely come into play in this race as well. As Weigel points out, “From the conservative activist’s perspective, DeVore’s an ideal candidate.” But Fiorina’s high-profile background as the former CEO of Hewlitt-Packard might give her enough star power to overtake a powerhouse like Boxer, who has served in the Senate since 1993.

The race between Fiorina and Boxer is already generating widespread attention, but Californians shouldn’t forget that if DeVore is successful in igniting the conservative base, the showdown between the two women might not even happen.