Boxer, Fiorina spar in debate for Senate

MORAGA, Calif., Sept. 2 (UPI) -- Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and Republican challenger Carly Fiorina, the former head of Hewlett-Packard, agreed on almost nothing in a televised debate.

Boxer criticized Fiorina's record at HP, and Fiorina charged the senator with being "bitterly partisan" in a debate in Moraga, Calif., the San Francisco Chronicle said Thursday.

Boxer said Fiorina, dismissed from her position as chief executive officer at California-based HP in 2005, sent jobs overseas, laid off thousands of workers and took $100 million in pay and benefits when she left.

"I don't think we need those Wall Street values right now," Boxer said. She said Fiorina would work to overturn Roe vs. Wade, which gives women the right to have an abortion.

Fiorina said Boxer is for more taxes and big government and both, she said, would hurt the economy.

"She is for more taxes, she is for more spending, she is for more regulation, she is also for big government and elite extreme environmental groups," Fiorina said in a Los Angeles Times report on the debate.

Fiorina said Boxer has accomplished little in the Senate because she is "one of the most bitterly partisan members."

The hourlong debate at Saint Mary's College of California, 20 miles east of San Francisco, was especially contentious when the two discussed abortion.