Gerry Shih at the Bay Citizen has another important story on the San Bruno gas pipeline disaster, following up on their earlier report about residents complaining of a gas leak that PG&E knew about but was unable to fix. Their newest story shows that PG&E knew the pipeline had a very high risk of failure but was not planning to replace it until 2013 or 2014:

As early as 2007, Pacific Gas & Electric Company officials considered a portion of the gas main that ruptured and triggered the deadly San Bruno blaze on Thursday to be at “unacceptably” high risk for failure, according to documents obtained by The Bay Citizen.

The documents raise new questions about the extent of PG&E’s responsibility for the biggest disaster in the utility’s 105-year history in California.

The utility company had planned to repair by 2013 a 7,481-foot long section of pipe, which it deemed-based on internal risk assessments made in 2007 – one of PG&E’s “top 100 highest risk line sections.”

The obvious question is “why 2013?” If the pipeline was so dangerous – among the top 7% most dangerous pipelines in the nation, according to the AP – then you’d think PG&E would have moved more quickly to replace it.

But that wasn’t done. Apparently, PG&E had other priorities, which included spending $46 million in a failed effort to limit local democracy and protect their monopoly with Proposition 16.

Others are asking the same question, including Christine Pelosi:

These are funds that could have been used to repair what the utility’s own survey said was a high risk pipeline on the SF peninsula. So why make the decision for politics not pipelines? If the spending decisions were not related, why not? At the very least, PG&E should have a moratorium on political spending until they compensate the San Bruno victims and fix the pipelines.

“Ratepayer say on utility pay” is a good start, but this tragedy should force us to ask an even more fundamental question: Wouldn’t we be better off with PG&E under public ownership?

We keep hearing from the right, and from even neoliberal Democrats, that the private sector can do things better than the public sector, and so we should turn over things currently handled by government to the private sector.

Yet what we see in PG&E’s case is that they would rather protect their monopoly rather than provide safe and efficient service. $46 million would have bought a lot of new pipeline and paid the training and labor costs of the technicians who would install it. This is typical of the private sector, where capturing rents and using their wealth to fend off competition is preferred to innovation and providing quality services.

The public sector can always do a better job providing for these core services, and indeed many municipalities, such as Seattle, have publicly owned electric and gas utilities that haven’t had these problems.

But the private sector and their neoliberal allies in both parties long ago learned that the income streams currently going to public services – and the competition to corporate wealth and power posed by those services – can be undermined if government is defunded. Without proper funds, government services quickly deteriorate in quality, and the public becomes susceptible to an argument that the private sector can do things better. As more money and services are then handed over to the private sector, the public sector enters a downward spiral, with worse service quality that fuels calls for further cuts and privatization, causing further service problems and reinforcing the loop.

This tragedy isn’t just the result of a leak in a gas line, or of bad practices at PG&E – but of the entire concept of letting the private sector own and operate the basic infrastructure and services of a modern society. It’s time we addressed that root cause, to ensure this tragedy doesn’t happen again.

As the death toll climbs from the tragic natural gas explosion in San Bruno, news is emerging that residents in the area knew about the leak and reported it to PG&E – as far back as three weeks ago. After a cursory glance around the neighborhood, however, PG&E apparently did nothing to address the leak. Shoshana Walte and Gerry Shih of Bay Citizen have the story:

“They already knew about the leak and they didn’t do anything,” said Alex Monroy, who lives on Claremont Drive, not far from where a broken gas main burst into flames early Thursday evening, scorching everything around it….

Tim Gutierrez, another resident, told CBS 5 that he smelled a gas-like odor for several days before the accident. He said representatives of PG&E searched the neighborhood looking for a leak.

“A little later they took off and that was it,” said Gutierrez.

He said shortly afterwards, he believed that he smelled the same odor emanating from a sewer.

This is a pretty stunning report. If it’s true that PG&E failed to properly investigate and stop the leak, then they’re almost certainly liable for the mayhem that the explosion has caused.

It also would call into question the priorities of PG&E’s leadership, which spent a whopping $46 million in their failed attempt to pass Prop 16, which would have undermined local government efforts to provide renewable energy to their residents. The CPUC has announced an investigation, and part of it should examine whether PG&E has cut back on maintenance and field crews in order to pad their profits and fund their ballot initiative campaign.

PG&E clearly has a lot to answer for in this disaster.

UPDATE: PG&E’s stock is falling fast as investors worry about the company’s liability for this disaster. I’d sell too if I owned any stock.

One of, if not THE dominant theme of this election is a battle over the future of California’s economy. On one side sits those with existing wealth – CEOs Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina – who believe that the economy should be dominated by policies channeling wealth to the already-rich at the expense of jobs and security for everyone else. They’re joined by the Texas oil companies, who share this overall philosophy and want to protect their dominant position, even at the expense of our environment and our jobs, by sponsoring Prop 23.

On the other side stand those who understand that economic recovery comes not with giving more money and power to those who already have plenty of both – but by supporting the creation of new, good jobs here in California at smaller companies that are innovating sustainable technologies designed to help us not only provide economic recovery, but doing so in a way that helps address the climate crisis as well.

That includes not only the growing coalition fighting against Prop 23, but also Jerry Brown and Barbara Boxer. Together they offer a very different economic plan than the “give everything to the elite” plans promoted by the Whitman/Fiorina/oil companies axis.

First, let’s take a look at the coalition opposed to Prop 23. Van Jones and Jorge Madrid write today at Climate Progress that green jobs are the future of economic growth – and that Prop 23 would destroy the “certainty” that businesses need to start creating those jobs:

Defenders of dirty energy like to pretend that having smarter climate policies (and more support for clean energy) would cost Americans jobs. Not only are they wrong, but – according to prominent business leaders this week (and a new study ) – their “deny and delay” tactics are now turning out to be the true job killers….

Proposition 23 would destroy half a million jobs in California (many in construction and high-tech manufacturing) by 2020 while costing the state $80 billion in gross domestic product. This number does not even include the $20 billion in GDP growth and 100,000 new clean energy jobs California can create in the next 10 years if its environmental and clean energy policies are upheld (and Proposition 23 is voted down).

Jones and Madrid make a strong case against Prop 23, a proposal designed to enrich the Texas oil companies by destroying California’s clean energy economy (and thus eliminating the competition). Jobs are already being created by the green industry, and California could become a global leader in that industry. But because doing so threatens the existing wealth of some powerful Texas oil companies and CEOs, they believe that industry should be destroyed just as it’s starting to take off.

Jerry Brown understands this quite well. Earlier this year he called the authors of Prop 23 “Neanderthals…who want to turn the clock backward.” Brown, who played a central role in developing California’s existing solar and wind industry during his first stint as governor (the wind farms you see at the Altamont, Pacheco, Tehachapi and San Gorgonio passes were the result of Brown’s policies), has not only attacked Prop 23 as bad policy – he’s also made green jobs the centerpiece of his own jobs plan.

Brown also understands the flaws of Whitman’s “more money and power to the elite” plans. On KGO radio yesterday morning he slammed Whitman’s economic proposals in very strong, progressive terms:

“Her so-called jobs plan, which is as phony as a three-dollar bill, is to give tax breaks to herself in one of grossest conflicts of interest I’ve ever seen in a campaign,” Brown said during his weekly interview on KGO radio in San Francisco.

Whitman has said previously that several other states do not tax capital gains and that such a move would spur investment and spending.

Brown on Thursday countered that the proposal would rip a $5-billion hole in the state’s already troubled finances and that, instead of providing tax relief for ordinary Californians, it would only benefit the wealthiest who have investment income.

“It’s a gigantic ripoff,” Brown said.

Brown is absolutely right that it’s a “gigantic ripoff.” The capital gains tax elimination would indeed bust the state’s budget and be pocketed by the rich – by people like Carly Fiorina, who would benefit from investments in creating jobs overseas. A capital gains tax cut would do nothing to actually create jobs here in California, since it would favor investors who make their money in a global economy, and might indeed fuel the kind of widespread outsourcing that made Carly Fiorina notorious when she was running HP.

Barbara Boxer also takes the view that green, sustainable jobs are vital to our future. While in the Senate she has supported investment in mass transit, being one of the first leaders to sign onto Antonio Villaraigosa’s innovative 30/10 plan, which would use federal loans to build 30 years’ worth of passenger rail by 2020. Boxer has been traveling around the state to highlight the beneficial role of the federal stimulus in creating green jobs in particular, and pledges to continue that work.

Fiorina, like Whitman, instead believes government spending is somehow bad, and that instead money should be channeled to CEOs like herself so they can layoff more workers. Fiorina also supports Prop 23, presumably because it fits her overall values of protecting the rich and powerful against new innovation – although Fiorina’s own denial of global warming, dismissing it as “worrying about the weather,” surely plays a role.

Californians have a very clear choice this November. Those who want an economy dominated by the rich and powerful, who use that dominance to keep unemployment high and stifle innovation, should support Whitman, Fiorina, and Prop 23. Those who want an economy where new jobs are created for working people, where innovation is welcomed and supported instead of fought, would do well to support Brown, Boxer, and the fight against Prop 23.

As California remains mired in a severe recession, the worst since the 1930s, and with little job growth on the horizon, there’s no time to waste in implementing a strategy of economic recovery aimed at creating good jobs for as many people as possible (as opposed to the right-wing strategy of giving more money to the rich and hoping they’ll use it to hire a few people at low wages).

To that end, Jean Ross and Alissa Anderson of the California Budget Project have published an op-ed in the Riverside Press-Enterprise titled “How To Get the State’s Economy ‘Unstuck’. They list three specific items that can get the state’s economy growing again, and soon:

Extending unemployment insurance benefits: Federally supported unemployment insurance benefits will expire in November, long before there will be enough jobs to reduce the ranks of the unemployed. Extending benefits won’t just help keep workers and their families afloat; it will keep money flowing into local economies.

Minimizing spending cuts: Economists have long recognized that helping struggling families is one of the most effective ways to boost the economy. That’s the case because money that goes into the pocketbooks of struggling families goes right back out to landlords, grocery stores, gas stations and other merchants. Conversely, cutting public structures such as CalWORKs, the state’s welfare-to-work program, or state-supported child care will exacerbate the downturn. And most important, deep cuts to schools will compromise the state’s long-term ability to compete in the global economy.

Raising taxes on high-income earners: The wealthy have made significant income gains for more than a decade while middle-income residents have lost ground. Revenue increases are part of a balanced approach to solving the state’s budget gap. But they must be carefully targeted to be most effective. Economists tell us that raising taxes on those with high incomes does less harm to an ailing economy than cutting spending.

All of this is a sensible approach to the state’s budget and job creation priorities. Unemployment benefits are a major source of economic stimulus, helping keep small businesses afloat as well as, obviously, the unemployed workers themselves. Public services are especially important in a recession like this, where neither households nor businesses feel confident spending money, meaning government has to step in and play that role. The CBP is absolutely right that we must ensure these services are funded so that we can have the economic recovery we deserve.

Finally, their point about taxes is especially important. We can go further than they could in the brief space allotted to a newspaper op-ed: given that the wealthy are sitting on huge sums of money that they’re not investing, it’s beneficial to overall economic stability and prosperity that we get that money and use it to fund the kind of public programs that will create jobs and sustain workers by meeting their health care and educational needs.

Economic recovery will never come from the top down. It comes from the bottom up, when working Californians are provided the jobs, wage growth, and basic economic security they need.

After spending the first 8 months of 2010 hoarding his money, and having survived Meg Whitman’s $100 million dollar ad barrage to remain tied in the polls, Jerry Brown has released his first real TV ad today, which you can view at right. The ad, narrated by Peter Coyote (who is a longtime friend of Brown), portrays Brown as a moderate who had a record of job creation, “world-class education,” clean energy, and balanced budgets while governor in the 1970s and early 1980s.

The ad closes with Brown pledging to restore control to local government, and pledging “no new taxes without voter approval” (more on that in a moment).

The Calbuzzers have an excellent take on this ad:

Brown is in effect saying – especially to crucial swing voters – “I’m a safe alternative to that woman who has been assaulting your senses all summer. California was working when I was governor and I’ll make it work again. I’m frugal, experienced and I know what I’m doing.”

Made by longtime Brown ally and media meister Joe Trippi, the ad seeks to convince voters that Brown was and remains a tightwad with the experience and integrity to govern California at a time of crisis. Brown’s campaign brain trust – after much polling and many focus groups – understands that the No. 1 concern about him among independents is whether he’ll raise taxes and spend like a drunken sailor.

This is a reflection that, due largely to her massive TV ad buy, the governor’s race has now become a referendum on Meg Whitman, and not on Jerry Brown. Brown sees his task as being as inoffensive as possible to as many people as possible so that he can capitalize on growing voter dislike of Whitman.

Of course, as we see in the ad, Brown is doing this by positioning himself in the supposed center of California politics. He is distancing himself from, and perhaps running at the expense of, progressives with his high profile “no new taxes without voter approval” pledge, which Calbuzz rightly predicts will become a focal point of the race.

That pledge has already begun to receive strong criticism from progressives, who recognize that California badly needs higher taxes, especially on the wealthy, in order to generate economic growth and provide for equality and opportunity in our state. However, it’s worth noting that Brown is not taking a Meg Whitman perspective that all taxes are bad and should be opposed. In fact, he is providing progressives with an opportunity to generate the revenue we need to provide economic security to Californians.

California voters routinely approve tax increases, and numerous polls, including the May 2010 PPIC poll, show widespread support across the state for raising taxes to fund public services such as schools and health care. Brown is saying he won’t stop those taxes from happening if the voters want them – which is the proper thing to do, given that we do live in a democracy. That gives progressives an opportunity to organize and convince voters to follow through and approve new revenues to save these programs. Progressives will have to do that organizing no matter what, given the ongoing financial strength of the anti-tax right.

Further, given that the 2/3rds rule for Legislative approval of new taxes will be in place at least until 2012, and that no Republican legislator would dare vote for a tax increase proposed by a Democratic governor, Jerry Brown’s ability to implement any new taxes without a vote of the people even if he wanted to do so is so limited as to be practically non-existent. Brown’s position, then, acknowledges this reality while leaving progressives the option of organizing to achieve new revenues, whereas Whitman would fight us every step of the way.

I would much rather we had a straight up contest between a progressive candidate and a right-wing candidate. Instead we have a right-winger and a centrist. Progressives will have to decide which they prefer. In an election this close, progressive votes will swing the outcome.

There’s been some discussion of Markos Moulitsas’s new book, American Taliban, with some DC bloggers claiming that Markos overstates the case and that you can’t really compare American conservatives and the Afghanistan Taliban. Here’s Matt Yglesias trying to make that argument:

So, yes, the Taliban is misogynistic and so are most religious traditionalists. And, yes, the Taliban is nationalistic and so are right-wing political parties in most democracies. And, yes, the Taliban is enthusiastic about war-fighting as a way to achieve policy aims and so is Bill Kristol. This is all true and somewhat important. But it’s also true that American progressives and American conservatives are  peacefully coexisting in a functioning republic, whereas the Taliban is waging an extremely violent military campaign against its ideological antagonists.

Sorry, Matt, but this “peaceful coexistence” claim is dangerously naive and ignorant of the violence being committed in the name of right-wing oppression. We can look to the Central Valley to see two recent and frightening examples of the American Taliban in action, both from the city of Madera.

As reported by KFSN TV in Fresno, a Planned Parenthood clinic in Madera was firebombed on Thursday – just days after a similar attack was made on a local mosque:

Madera’s Planned Parenthood clinic is closed Thursday after someone firebombed it with a Molotov cocktail. The FBI is investigating this case as it continues to search for clues in an attack on a mosque last week on the other side of town….

Madera Police do not have anyone in custody but a spokesperson with Planned Parenthood says she has a good idea of who it might be.

“I believe it’s extremists who are, want to make a statement.” said public affairs director Pasty Montgomery.

This attack comes just one week after someone targeted a local Muslim mosque across town. Investigators found a brick thrown through the window and anti-Muslim signs posted on the walls.

Across California, various acts of hate, whether a firebombing of a Planned Parenthood clinic or a protest against a proposed mosque in Temecula, are on the increase. Even in a state where abortion rights are enshrined in our Constitution, those who provide abortion services and the women who seek to use them have to go through a lot of security procedures to protect against what should rightly be called terrorism.

When a fellow Californian such as Markos goes to the trouble of describing not only these violent acts, but also the troubling worldview behind them that is fundamentally like the worldview shared by the Taliban, their work ought to be embraced and spread as a valuable rallying point against these extremists. Otherwise what happened in Madera last week will become more common, and more violent.

Nate Silver, who’s moved his 538 blog to the New York Times, is out with his gubernatorial projections. He’s got Whitman narrowly beating Brown by a 0.4 point margin, 49.2% to 48.8%. He also gives Whitman a 53% chance to win the seat and Brown 47% chance of winning.

Much of this is due to the way he weights his polling data – a recent Rasmussen poll (Whitman 51, Brown 43) and SurveyUSA poll (Whitman 47, Brown 40) are largely responsible for this. The SUSA poll gives a 6 point swing to Whitman between August 11 and August 31.

For the Senate, Silver projects Boxer over Fiorina 49.3% to 47.7%, with Boxer having a 58.7% chance of winning.

The takeaway here is that this race is extremely close, as is the Senate race. It will come down not to persuasion, but to turnout. Every vote counts in November. I know people have been complaining about this or that aspect of the Brown campaign, but the time for that is over. Californians, progressives especially, have to decide whether they want a radical, destructive, elitist right-winger governing them or whether they want to have a chance at making a more progressive California with Brown.

At Wednesday night’s debate, Carly Fiorina refused to take a position on Proposition 23, the initiative backed by Texas oil companies and polluters that would stop state action on global warming (which Fiorina dismisses as “the weather”) and would devastate the green jobs industry:

Pilar Marrero: “…so I have a double question: what is your position in Prop 23 and do you think global warming is real, or is it just a problem with the weather?”

Fiorina: You know, the ad that you are referring to was really talking about national security and what are our priorities for national security, and I think that’s a very legitimate question to be asked of Senator Boxer who has been campaigning since 1992 on cutting our military budget in half, who believes that terrorists should be given the constitutional rights of U.S. citizens. That is what that ad was about. We should always have the courage to examine the science. But all scientists agree on this: the only way to impact global warming is to act globally. A state acting alone will make no difference. What we need in this country, a priority of mine, if I am fortunate enough to gain the confidence of the voters of California, will be a national and comprehensive energy bill. And that means that AB 32 would be superseded. It should be. It would have been superseded by Barbara Boxer’s cap and trade bill, but her bill was completely the wrong track. It would have cost us trillions of dollars in lost economic output, millions of jobs, it doesn’t do enough to fund energy R&D. What we need to do in a comprehensive energy policy is fund energy R&D. We need to give more federal funding to Lawrence Livermore for example. We need to give more to Berkeley. We also need to take advantage in an environmentally responsible way of every source of energy we have including nuclear, wind, solar, and we have to acknowledge that we cannot put bills in place that punish excessively energy intensive industries like farming, like manufacturing, and like small business owners.

Moderator: Time is up but you didn’t answer part of Pilar’s question which is: do you support Prop 23 which would suspend AB 32?

Fiorina: My focus is on a national energy policy. Because that is…

Moderator: Yes or no? Just answer. Do you support it?

Fiorina: I have not taken a position on it yet, because I think what we are doing, there’s no question in my mind and there’s no question in people who have studied AB 32 that AB 32 is at the very least in the short-term a job killer, so why would we go forward, but what we need is national energy policy.

Boxer’s retort to Fiorina’s desperate desire to avoid the issue of Prop 23 was “if you won’t take a stand on Prop 23, what will you take a stand on?”

Today we learn that in the space of 48 hours, Fiorina’s hesitation has magically evaporated, and now she supports Prop 23. According to an email her campaign sent earlier today:

Proposition 23 (Suspends Implementation Of AB 32 Until Unemployment Drops To 5.5 Percent Or Less For Full Year): SUPPORT

“Proposition 23 is a Band-Aid fix and an imperfect solution to addressing our nation’s climate and energy challenges. The real solution to these challenges lies not with a single state taking action on its own, but rather with global action. That’s why we need a comprehensive, national energy solution that funds energy R&D and takes advantage of every source of domestic energy we have – including nuclear, wind and solar – in an environmentally responsible way. That said, AB 32 is undoubtedly a job killer, and it should be suspended.”

Of course, a cap-and-trade system such as that in AB 32, or a carbon tax would both fund energy R&D. And AB 32 is already fueling the development of solar and wind energy here in California, creating thousands of jobs.

But Fiorina believes those jobs should be destroyed for the same reason she destroyed tens of thousands of jobs at HP – because those jobs get in the way of her or her wealthy cronies making more money.

As to AB 32’s impact on jobs, other Silicon Valley leaders – successful Silicon Valley leaders, I might add, as opposed to the failed CEO that is Carly Fiorina – have pointed out how AB 32 creates jobs:

[Venture capitalist Vinod] Khosla stated his position clearly on the oil-backed ballot measure: “Prop 23 will kill the market and the single largest source of job creation in California in the last two years.” Innovation started happening in California, and the next ten Googles of greentech will be created there, because the market is there, he said. If California’s market is destroyed, countries like China and other states will have a competitive edge and those next ten Googles will be built in those markets, said Khosla.

Google’s [Bill] Weihl agreed and said that AB32 has helped create companies and jobs and has been one of the brightest spots in the economy in the state. While many studies and researchers back this position, other conflicting studies have also found that AB32 could reduce the number of jobs (which is the fear that Prop 23 is tapping into). Think about AB32 as a 401K, said Khosla, you put aside a little bit month by month, but over time you save a whole lot. “It’s an investment in our future.”

Fiorina doesn’t believe in investing in our future, however. She believes instead in pillaging the future to enrich a small elite here in the present. No wonder she supports Prop 23 – it’s all part of her larger crusade to destroy the California economy and create mass unemployment in order to enrich herself and her friends.

The Fresno Bee provides some more details on the report that former “Democrat” Nicole Parra, former Assemblymember who fell out with Speaker Karen Bass and the rest of the Democratic caucus after voting against the budget in 2008, is going to help the Meg Whitman campaign:

Former Democratic Assemblywoman Nicole Parra has signed on to help Meg Whitman woo Democratic and independent voters, the Republican gubernatorial candidate’s campaign said this morning.

That’s no surprise. Parra is helping Republican U.S. Senate candidate Carly Fiorina in a similar capacity….

In a written statement, Parra said she would travel the state talking to Democratic and independent voters “who are tired of the old ways of thinking and are looking for fresh ideas and a new style of leadership from their elected officials. We will be talking about Meg’s plan for improving the economy, controlling spending and fixing our public schools, issues that Californians care most about. Democratic and independent voters will help lead Meg to victory in November.”

Carla Marinucci adds via Twitter that Parra will “lead” Whitman’s outreach efforts to Dem and DTS voters.

Parra re-registered as an independent, and helped Danny Gilmore win her old seat in 2008 as part of the ongoing Parra-Florez family war in the Central Valley. So apparently she’s got a chip on her shoulder against Democrats, and is doing all she can to help elect Republicans.

It certainly helped Gilmore in 2008. But I’m not so sure it’ll help Whitman. Parra’s tour in support of Whitman begins in Oakland, where I’m guessing the reaction she’ll receive from Dem and DTS voters is “Nicole who?”

Parra has absolutely no presence outside of part of the San Joaquin Valley. Nobody knows who she is, particularly Democratic and DTS voters. Whitman is probably hoping to use her as an example of a Democrat who saw the light and now supports Republicans, but that tactic usually only works if voters actually know something about that person. Most Californians outside the San Joaquin Valley will simply shrug at this unknown figure, and I’m not even sure Parra will have much impact in the Valley either.

Ultimately this suggests Whitman isn’t really putting very much of a priority on winning over Dem and DTS voters. Instead she is quietly building up a powerful field organizing apparatus, which she test drove to great effect in support of Sam Blakeslee’s successful campaign to win the SD-15 special election, in order to crank her right-wing Republican base to turn out in an election where Democratic turnout isn’t likely to be as high as it was in 2008.

There was always a massive contradiction – or one might say, a dishonest hypocrisy of stunning proportions – at the heart of Carly Fiorina’s US Senate campaign. She touts herself as someone who can create jobs, but her record as the failed and fired CEO of Hewlett-Packard shows her to be one of the worst offenders when it comes to corporate destruction of American jobs.

Fiorina destroyed tens of thousands of jobs while CEO of HP between 1999 and 2005, many of which were shipped overseas. When she was excoriated for this, particularly by the Silicon Valley press during the severe dot-com bust of the early ’00s, Fiorina responded by calling outsourcing “right-sourcing” and saying “there is no job that is America’s god-given right anymore.” Her record is that of someone who got rich by destroying jobs – yet she now declares herself an advocate of job creation, even while opposing the federal stimulus, federal aid to states to hire teachers, and other programs that have been proven to create jobs.

That is not only a contradiction, it’s also a big campaign liability that was just waiting for someone to exploit it. And that’s exactly what Senator Barbara Boxer did in last night’s debate. She opened with this line of attack:

So every time you really get past the surface, you see my opponent fighting for the billionaires, for the millionaires, for the companies who ship jobs overseas.

And it only got worse for Fiorina from there. One of the audience questions selected came from a Republican on the San Mateo Peninsula named Tom Watson, a retired HP employee. His question was:

Carly, while you up were at HP, you sent thousands of jobs offshore, you coined the phrase right shoring. Also, in a keynote speech in 2004, you said, “there is no job that is america’s god-given right anymore.” Do you still feel that way? Or what are your plans to create jobs in California?

At this point, Fiorina could no longer hide from her past. But instead of accepting responsibility, she made it sound like it was others’ fault for her own actions:

The truth is that California has higher-than-average unemployment rate because we are destroying jobs and others are fighting harder for our jobs. Texas is fighting harder for our jobs. So is North Carolina, Brazil, Guatemala, China, India, Russia, Poland. I know precisely why those jobs go. And I’ll tell you why. Because China, for example, like Texas, like Brazil, gives companies huge tax credits. They help them cut through regulation.

Fiorina here is repeating the lie that California’s job woes are created by overburdened companies seeking less regulations. In fact, as Jed Kolko of the PPIC showed in June, California doesn’t really lose that many jobs to other states due to business relocation:

Rhetoric aside, California loses very few jobs to other states. Businesses rarely move either out of or into California and, on balance, the state loses only 11,000 jobs annually as a result of relocation-that’s just 0.06 percent of California’s 18 million jobs. Far more jobs are created and destroyed as a result of business expansion, contraction, formation, and closure than because of relocation.

What Kolko didn’t add is that California also loses a lot of jobs when wealthy CEOs decide to fire their California workers to hire someone overseas so that the CEO and their allies can make more quarterly profit. Fiorina claims companies are forced into doing it, even though when Fiorina did it at HP, it nearly destroyed the company as its profits fell.

And of course, Fiorina says the solution is to become more like China, where workers are overworked to the point of suicide and cities are choked by hazardous pollution and smog.

Boxer responded by hitting Fiorina hard on her record of mass layoffs and opposition to job creation policies, and obviously Fiorina felt rattled. After Carla Marinucci wasted everyone’s time with a pointless and off-topic question about an exchange Boxer had with a general during a Senate committee hearing, Fiorina herself felt the need to come back to the issue, digging her political grave deeper:

It’s a shame that Barbara Boxer would use Hewlett-Packard, a treasure of California, one of the great companies in the world, whose employees work very hard and whose shareholders have benefited greatly from both my time at CEO and all of the hard work of the employees that I had the privilege to lead.

I’m sure this condescending and dismissive statement, where Fiorina ignores the damage she did, the lives she ruined, will go over well among the tens of thousands of hardworking HP employees she laid off.

From there, Boxer hit Fiorina extremely hard on the issues, to the point where Fiorina clearly began losing ground. By the end of the night, the debate had become a rout, with Fiorina thoroughly beaten. Here are some of the highlights, showing how far-right and out of touch with Californians Fiorina is:

• Fiorina wouldn’t take a position on Prop 23, which would destroy the state’s growing green jobs economy, to which Boxer replied “Well, if you can’t take a stand on prop 23, I don’t know what you will take a stand on.”

• Fiorina supports overturning Roe v. Wade and thinks that women who have a life-threatening pregnancy should not be allowed to have an abortion

• Fiorina supports repealing the state’s assault weapons ban, put into place after dozens of people were massacred in tragedies like 101 California

• Fiorina also supports letting people on the no-fly list own weapons. Fiorina claims the problem is that the no-fly list is flawed. It is. So why not clean it up instead of letting anyone on it own a gun, whether their presence on the list is legitimate or not?

• Fiorina opposes marriage equality, which a majority of Californians (according to some recent polls) now supports.

Boxer gave a strong response to all of these, and added her own points showing how she would be a strong progressive leader. She pointed out, correctly, that overturning Roe v. Wade would turn doctors into criminals and lead to the deaths of (at least) thousands of women. She said she would appoint Elizabeth Warren to head the Consumer Financial Protection Agency, and reminded the public of her long and principled opposition to the Iraq War.

But overall, the night was won by Boxer not just because she showed her progressive colors, but because of how effectively she expose the contradiction at the heart of Fiorina’s campaign. It’s just not credible that someone who destroyed tens of thousands of California jobs, and who has opposed every federal effort to create new jobs, would somehow lead the creation of new jobs in California.

Instead the inescapable truth is that Fiorina is using her claims of supporting job creation as a cover for her true agenda, which is to promote further tax cuts for the rich and regulation cuts for large corporations, in order to enrich herself and her wealthy allies while the rest of the country suffers higher unemployment, more pollution, and less safe living standards.

Fiorina was exposed as a fraud by Barbara Boxer last night. Let’s hope Californians get that message.

UPDATE: Others are making similar assessments, with the LA Times writing that:

For much of the hourlong debate, Boxer kept her opponent on the defensive by steering her answers into scathing critiques of Fiorina’s record as chief executive at Hewlett-Packard, where she fired more than 30,000 workers before she was dismissed in 2005.