Republican challenger Carly Fiorina took aim at the nation's troubled economy Wednesday night during her first debate with Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer, blaming the incumbent for policies "that are devastating the state.''
The recession and how to turn around California's sky-high jobless rate loomed large as Boxer and Fiorina debated for about an hour at St. Mary's College in the eastern San Francisco Bay area city of Moraga.
Fiorina said the American dream is becoming too difficult to achieve and blamed Boxer for doing too little to help the middle class.
Boxer, 69, fired back at Fiorina, criticizing her for shipping 30,000 jobs overseas during her time as CEO of Hewlett-Packard Co. She said Fiorina fights not for average Americans but for billionaires, millionaires and companies that outsource jobs.
"I'm in the United States Senate because I fight for the people, I fight for the dream," Boxer said, noting Fiorina's $21 million severance package after she was let go. "I don't think we need those Wall Street values right now."
Fiorina, 55, said she and her husband have lived the American dream — she working her way to the top of the corporate ladder after starting as a secretary and he after starting out as a tow truck driver. But she said that chance at rising prosperity is being lost, in part because the U.S. is not doing enough to encourage business.
"I think the American dream is too hard for too many people," she said.