One has to wonder why the hell she ran for Congress in the first place. I guess she just had no clue what she was in for.
She apparently ran because the new district drawn (which was still partly Rep. Joe Baca’s) effectively coincided with her State Senate seat (and Baca’s home was in another district), albeit smaller in area (since CA State Senate districts are larger than the Congressional seats). She still had 2 years left on her Senate seat. Figured if she was going to go to DC, this was the only time to go. If I were Joe Baca, having the 13 years of seniority, I’d have been majorly pissed. He lost in the runoff to her.
Of course, it’s funny now. We look at people running for Congress today, and it’s all with an eye to longevity and becoming (hopefully) a Committee Chair in 6 to 12 years. Used to be in the distant past that serving a single term (or two) were the norm, and you’d go back home. Ultimately, her deciding to go back and run for local office (which often also wasn’t unusual in the distant past) turned out to be her sole mistake. I wonder how much of a surprise it was that she lost to Assemblyman Curt Hagman. The retiring incumbent in the San Bernardino Co. Supervisor district, Gary Ovitt, is a Republican. If she had stayed put in the House, she might’ve lasted a few more terms, though obviously she must’ve felt Norma Torres breathing down her neck.