Fiorina Trashes Boxer For Preferring "Senator" To Ma'am

Having exhausted the topic of Barbara Boxer‘s hair, Carly Fiorina has a new line of attack: Boxer’s polite request to be called “Senator.”

This footage has recurred in her other ads, but this is the most pointed reference yet.

Fiorina is trying to make it about Boxer caring more about a title than working hard — false choice, anyone? Of course, there’s also her use of the word “arrogance” at the end. This is Fiorina’s peculiar advantage of being a woman running against a woman; a man making the same charge would have been unmistakably implying that Boxer was simply being an uppity woman by asking to be called by her title. But Fiorina is clearly attempting to summon exactly that impression in her viewers. Really, who is Barbara Boxer to think that “ma’am” isn’t good enough for her?

But what’s wrong with demanding to be accorded the respect of your actual title? Fiorina may have noticed in the corporate world that women bosses are judged more harshly for the same authoritative or even imperious behavior evinced by their male peers. But that was then. This is politics.