Columnist – John Sammon
The news yesterday that Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer’s opponents are trying to make hay out of a remark she recently made to a general asking him not to call her “ma’am,” but to call her “senator” instead, sparked personal memories of Boxer of my own.

I had a rare, momentary insight into Boxer, and the kind of ego and strokes it takes to make a national candidacy. I did this by doing as was my habit at the time, and still is, by standing in the wrong place (for Boxer) at the right time (for me).

I have never related it until now.

This is not about politics. I have been an avowed enemy of the right wing of late.

Nevertheless, when Boxer was running for the US Senate in 1992, I was a reporter at a small-time newspaper in Placerville, California.

Boxer came through for an appearance.

It was apparent she was too busy to stay long in this town of about 8,000. Small-town reporters like I was got used to this. It’s a huge moment for us when somebody famous comes to visit, but often a non-event for the bored celebrity.

It was apparent she would not grace her Placerville supporters with a speech. She was in a rush. She had to get to Sacramento, a much bigger town.

A bunch of the local party faithful munched what looked to be stale salad in a ground-floor hotel activity room while Boxer breezed in, exchanged perfunctory greetings with a select few local yokels of note, and then headed quickly to a second-story hotel room. She had a retinue of females surrounding her who appeared to be hangers-on accompanying her on the campaign.

Politicians always say how much they love allegedly common-as-dirt people, but when push comes to shove, they often give away their actual in-person disdain.

There was obviously something important going on upstairs, so I let myself be swept, jostled and bumped along with the group. I have this unique ability to blend in despite my size, almost like I’m one of those tropical fish that can change color to match the surrounding corral rocks.

Maybe it’s because I’m a non-entity.

As an example, on one other occasion I innocently, not knowing, entered a top secret meeting where the press was supposed to barred, and I didn’t know it, and I listened to the whole secret meeting before its horrified organizers discovered I was a reporter. They screamed at me. I thought they were going to forbid me to leave, make me a prisoner and lock me in a closet.

But that’s another story.

Anyway, back to Boxer.

She jostled through the excited crowd with her female retinue and pushed her way into the small hotel room. The door closed. There was something on television much more important than the small-town political rally going on down below.

They were watching her be interviewed on (I think) the TV Show 60 Minutes. The door opened a crack. There she was, seated on a bed, surrounded by her worshipful retainers. They were laughing at every supposedly clever pithy thing she must have been saying on the TV. Their eyes shined with wild excited delight. Her sycophants were literally chortling along with her at everything memorable and witty she must have been saying on the TV screen.

How wonderful they all thought she was (including herself).

It must be thrilling to be a star.

I got the idea from watching it for just that moment, seeing what I wasn’t supposed to see, that here was a supreme ego and its admiring adherents at work.

She maybe stayed all of 10 minutes and then left.

I have never forgotten seeing that brief secret glimpse of a candidacy. It bothers me still because I think it shows our elected officials are subjected to a grandiosity they find it hard to control or to play down.

It’s easy in these cases to lose touch with reality.

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