Did Barbara Boxer do any homework before her senatorial debate with Carly Fiorina on Wednesday? Boxer did hold her own and responded fairly well to most of Fiorina’s truth stretching assertions. But when her opponent is running on her record as a business leader, and that record earned her a place as one of the “20 Worst CEOs of all time,” the door was wide open for Boxer to clearly show what an abysmal leader Fiorina was.

Senator Boxer did take every opportunity to point out Fiorina’s woeful record on jobs, the one where she actually shipped 30,000 overseas. She even mentioned Fiorina’s very personal contribution to the American vernacular, coining the term “right-shoring,” a euphemism for firing Americans in order to send their jobs to a foreign land. Of course, Fiorina was laser focused on the “shoring” part but never really got it “right,” since as also pointed out by Boxer — Hewlett Packard lost more than 50% of its stock price under Fiorina’s control.

But Boxer missed the opportunity to elucidate how well aligned Ms. Fiorina is with the conservative extreme. She has spoken at Tea Party rallies and stated that she agrees with their views. She’s even a member of the tax-cuts-pay-for-themselves voodoo contingent of the Republican Party. Fiorina stated in a CBS interview that, “you don’t need to pay for tax cuts. They pay for themselves, if they are targeted, because they create jobs.” Never mind that even conservative economists no longer support such nonsense.

For whatever reason, Boxer also failed to support her own record for voting in favor of the Stimulus, and allowed Fiorina’s statement that it had, “manifestly failed,” to stand. Without doubt one of the easiest assertions to refute, being that the Stimulus has been a huge success by every objective measure, nevertheless Fiorina’s fact-free spin went unchallenged.

Part of the problem was the format for the debate. It allowed for response and rebuttal but provided no means for redress of erroneous claims made during a rebuttal. Fiorina used this to her advantage by using rebuttal time to introduce new points when she had no real argument for the topic at hand.

Fiorina was allowed to characterize her support of the extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy as good for the middle class. Boxer would have been well served to illuminate the fact that it’s Democrats who have drawn the line in the sand and support the extension for all but the top 2%. Fiorina used a similar tactic when speaking about the estate tax. Of course, she referenced it as the “death tax,” and drew alarm to the 55% rate. But where she really left the truth behind was in associating the tax with the 88,000 family farms in California. Boxer should have made sure that the facts of the matter were voiced, that the experts all agree that there’s not been a single “family farm” hit by the estate tax. She should also have added that the Democratic plan to deal with the expiring cut would lower the top rate to 45% and only apply to estates over $7 million, which would apply to .25 percent of estates.

Boxer also allowed Fiorina to demonize federal employees by associating the increase in their number with the loss of jobs in California. It would have been nice if Boxer had mentioned that the increase is almost entirely related to temporary census positions, which hit its 564,000 job high in May. Although Boxer did take advantage of the opening to hammer on Fiorina’s offshoring record one more time: she introduced Fiorina’s characterization of the recent aid bill to save teacher’s jobs as a “disgrace,” and added that Fiorina was likely opposed because, “we paid for it by stopping some tax breaks for companies who ship jobs overseas.”

Another well delivered blow by Boxer occurred in her rebuttal to Fiorina’s response to a question regarding the apparent conflict between her accepting a $21 million severance package and yet taking a strong position that teacher jobs should be tied to performance. Fiorina attempted to dodge the question by offering several statistics regarding HP’s growth under her tenure, failing to mention that the growth was the result of a failed merger. But Boxer responded with a body blow, stating that, “I think we are entitled to our opinion but we’re not entitled to our own facts. The facts are there was a $21 million severance check, and my understanding is that it was taken after my opponent was fired.”

But Fiorina scored points on Boxer’s legislative record. Citing the fact that only 4 bills bearing Boxer’s name have been signed into law, she asserted that Boxer was an ineffective legislator. Boxer did rebut by stating that the objective is not to get your name on legislation, and offered Senator Russ Feingold as an example, stating that the campaign finance legislation commonly known as McCain-Feingold does not bear his name. She didn’t mention that Feingold too only passed 4 bills during his tenure, or that the reason his name was missing was that it was the House version that was signed into law. The fact is that Boxer has a well-deserved reputation for carrying liberal causes as well as for working across the aisle. She needs to build a case that she can recite in a succinct manner.

As Boxer stated, Fiorina is the candidate of Big-Oil and Big-Coal. She danced around the topic of global warming, offering possibly the evening’s most twisted stretch of double-talk. According to Fiorina, the solution to global warming, “lies not with a single state taking action on its own, but rather with global action.” So, evidently there’s really no reason for any entity to take a first step until we get everyone in line to make a change. Sounds like a good capitalist position — after all we can’t address the environment and be competitive with polluters like China at the same time.

In the end, it was likely more Fiorina’s exposing herself as a died-in-the-wool capitalist Republican that will sway more votes toward Boxer than anything else. It’s difficult to understand how a politician could think it advantageous to use China as an example of how to create jobs. But of course, it’s all a part of her one-trick-pony approach to all thing economic: cut taxes and regulations and all will be well — it’s the same prescription offered by all of her Republican cronies — a race to the bottom for American workers and the environment be damned.

A book could be written about what Meg Whitman doesn’t know about government, the public sector in general and most specifically, public education. But the fact is that she wants the governor’s office and is willing to buy, lie and pander to get it. Unfortunately for Ms. Whitman, the price seems to keep rising. Maybe it’s pressure from Jerry Brown, or perhaps just a desire to overwhelm Californians with media blitz, but whatever the case, billionaire Whitman upped the ante on Friday by adding another $13 billion in personal funds to her campaign chest. 

Whitman, who has said that she’s willing to spend up to $150 million to buy the top seat in California’s government, has invested $104 million to date. Still $5.2 million short of the self-funding record set by Michael Bloomberg, she is outspending her Democratic opponent at a dramatic rate. Although Jerry Brown has accumulated $24 million in campaign funds, his spending to date is a miserly $700,000. 

Some in the Brown camp are concerned about his frugal ways, and believe that he should jump center ring and grapple in the Whitman-financed mud wrestling. Many Brown supporters are concerned that Whitman’s continuous half-truth and distortion based assault may cause irreversible damage. They cite instances like her present illegitimate attempt to associate Brown’s record as Oakland’s mayor with the pension and pay scandals in Bell, CA as evidence that she must be rebutted. They argue that Brown needs to respond to Whitman’s blatant distortions, like her treating as fact, claims made by a fired city controller that City of Oakland employees were paid for thousands of hours that were not worked. 

Other Brown supporters find comfort in the fact that even Whitman’s own consultants know that, despite all the money they’re spending, she’s not making any real progress. They contend that there’s plenty of time to explain that crime did not increase in Oakland under Brown, or how the tax increases she blames on Brown were actually approved by 70% of voters. They argue that she may have oversaturated the media with her abundant ads, and that the prudent tack may well be to let her continue the negative campaigning. So, for now, the Brown campaign is waiting and watching Whitman spend her millions, all the while revealing herself as the out-of-touch, mudslinging, wealthy panderer she is. 

But just who Meg Whitman is may be a bit difficult to determine. She’s flip-flopped back and forth on offshore drilling, so her position likely depends on when it’s rendered. Her position on immigration is even more ephemeral, seeming to be tailored to whatever she thinks the current audience wants to hear: when interviewed on American Morning News this past July 28, Whitman stated that Arizona’s SB1070 should stand, but her Spanish language media ads that ran earlier said that she was opposed to the Arizona law. 

The truth of the matter is that anyone who doesn’t question Whitman’s character must be either ignorant, in denial or as unscrupulous as she. And one does not have to look far for answers. Even at eBay, Whitman’s record was tarnished with claims of dishonesty, where she resigned her post there under charges of insider trading brought by her own shareholders. She denies the allegations, but admits to making money from “spinning” – an activity since rendered explicitly illegal by the SEC. The suit brought by eBay shareholders was settled and along with the others charged, Whitman paid $3 million. 

Meg Whitman has a plan for California, but voters need to beware that Meg does what benefits Meg. In large part, she stands for what California stands against and vice versa. She is strongly against Prop-19; she’s neutral on Prop-23, which is sponsored by two Texas Oil giants, but she supports a suspension of AB32, which would have a similar effect in lifting pollution standards. While at Goldman Sachs, she was even a big supporter of the huge bonuses for which Wall Street is now infamous. 

In the final analysis, Meg Whitman is a billionaire, and she’s not likely to change her mega-wealthy patterns of behavior —  like hiding profits in the Cayman Islands — just because she becomes Governor of California. She’s used to getting what she wants, and she wants to run this state. The trouble is that from the perspective of an average Californian, she’s likely to run it straight into the ground. 

Like her or not, there is one good thing about Meg Whitman – she always has a plan, and she’s not afraid to share it. Of course, having a plan is only one element of sound leadership. There is also the persnickety little issue of plan quality. And though the Whitman plan for jobs and spending cuts is largely based on failed assumptions, her plan to fix education is at best rooted in complete ignorance.

This is not to say that the Whitman plan is completely without substance, because it’s not. She does support efforts to simplify the ridiculously complex structure of categorical funding, which currently includes more than 50 separate buckets, that collectively place a significant accounting burden on educational agencies. Whitman doesn’t offer much detail on what the new structure would look like, but streamlining the model would without doubt reduce administrative overhead.

Whitman also advocates for meritorious compensation for teachers, a commendable reform embraced by many, including President Obama. But even as she advances the benefit of such a program, she shows her naïveté regarding education by concurrently criticizing the overhead expenditures that would include the systems required to administer merit pay and the personnel needed to make it effective.

As so many others outside of education are so prone to do, Meg Whitman fails to understand what it takes to provide high quality education. If she wants merit pay for teachers, then she damn well better ensure adequate staffing of competent administrators to evaluate performance and oversee operations. If she wants to see test scores climb, then she better figure out that it takes much more than teachers to make a school system shine.

Meg Whitman is a classic business type who thinks that a production mentality will increase the efficiency of schools, and while this is true in certain support areas, when it comes to the delivery of instruction, less production and more individual customization is the answer. Whitman ridicules California public schools for having only 60% of spending reach the classroom, but as with most of the Red Queen’s critiques, she only tells part of the story. In fact, the most recent numbers from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) show the national average to be less than 1% higher at 60.9%.

It is this type of half-truth that weaves throughout all of Whitman’s press that should beg for questioning of not only her proposals but here motivations as well. As evidenced by the lies that pollute her campaign ads maligning the political record of Jerry Brown, Ms. Whitman really seems to have difficulty dealing with truthfulness.

Whitman champions charter schools as part of her plan to “fix education.” She does this as if they were some magic key to improved learning, yet the most definitive study yet on the matter, completed in 2009 by Stanford University, showed otherwise. Charters are often less expensive than their normal public school counterparts, which I’m sure pleases Whitman, but when it comes to learning results, the study identified only 17% of  charters in the 15 states studied showed improved results. Compare that with the 37% where results were, “significantly worse than their student would have realized had they remained in traditional public schools.”

Is this the type of “fix” education in California needs?

The Whitman plan also advances a system of school grading to be used so that, “parents can easily understand how well their children’s school is performing.” Her argument for the need is based on better test scores in the State of Florida, who pioneered the system. Of course California’s scores have improved recently at an even faster rate, and then there’s that little matter of Florida spending nearly $900 more per pupil in regionally adjusted dollars.

Queen Meg has solutions for underperforming schools too, like “school closures and staff replacement.” Oh yes, Whitman has lots of ideas, but what she really needs is a clue! And she might start with looking at the impact of location on school performance, or the demographics or the parents and community. She might want to consider that most of the best teachers don’t want to work where they’re needed most, and then she could work toward some real solutions, on devising real plans to address real issues.

The final installment on Meg Whitman to follow shortly.