California's U.S. senators tend to fall into two categories — headline-grabbers and dependable workhorses for the state's interests.
For the past 17 years, the state's two senators have been Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer. Both elected during the much-heralded "year of the woman," they have followed the state's time-honored pattern.
Boxer draws media attention with her quixotic political forays, often involving some left-of-center cause having nothing to do with California, while Feinstein is the go-to person for the state's economic and political interests.
It explains why voter polls consistently find that Feinstein is among the state's highest-rated political figures while Boxer's popularity swings with the tides and rarely reaches beyond the magic 50 percent level.
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