Via Red State comes this harsh letter from Arianna Packard to Senators Kyl, Inhofe, and Coburn in response to their endorsement of Carly Fiorina in the California GOP's Senate primary. Packard, of the Hewlett-Packard Packards, writes to warn that the Fiorina she knows is not worthy of the mantle of "conservative." The Packard Letter:
You write that she is a "proven business leader." That may be how she spins her career, but most business commentators consider Fiorina's tenure at HP to be a disaster. The stock price dropped 50% only to rally 10% on the announcement of her firing. She fired 28,000 people before she herself was fired, departing with the 21 million dollar golden parachute that is financing her campaign. Thankfully, HP survived Fiorina and is again a flourishing company. This is largely due to the leadership of Mark Hurd, the man who replaced her. Prior to HP, she escaped from Lucent (where she ran their largest division) in the nick of time, leaving months before problems became evident, eventually leading to Lucent and nine executives being charged with securities law violations.
Packard also questions Fiorina's bona fides as a committed conservative. I won't get into that. You should really read the whole thing. But, I WILL say that, after the last year, it's no longer enough for a candidate to declare that they hold one position or another. We need to see a voting record, or lacking that, a paper trail, and I don't think Fiorina has either one of those.
On paper Fiorina would seem to be a strong candidate. She's wealthy. She's glamorous. She comes out of Silicon Valley. She's got a long track record as a leader in the tech industry. She's already acquired a certain level of celebrity and name-recognition that is invaluable in a media-heavy CA election. And, I hate to say this, but the fact that she is a woman - and better yet a "trailblazer" - is surely a strength for anyone contemplating a Senate race against Barbara Boxer, a woman who is unashamed to wave the bloody shirt of her gender in order to shut down debate. It should really be no surprise that DC-based Republicans would be eager to support her candidacy.
Still, as Packard's letter sets out, Fiorina brings more detractions than strengths to this race. Her business acumen - supposedly her strong suit - is highly overrated. Fiorina may have been the first woman to be the CEO of a tech company, but that doesn't mean she was a success. In fact, she spent a lot of her time at HP making media appearances where she went on about what a "tuff gal" she was to show she could make it in a man's world, a frankly insulting stance as Silicon Valley companies care far more about results than they do about keeping women barefoot and pregnant.
Fiorina's ill-fated merger of HP and Compaq was a classic example of executive overreach, and should stand as a permanent riposte to the "women are smarter" crowd. The merger generated a huge level of bad will in and out of HP. In fact, resistance to the HP-Compaq merger was so strong, and came from so many different directions, that it became less of an exercise in "vision" and more an act of ego and bravado to show that the deal could get done. Sound familiar?
On a more practical level, Fiorina has survived a recent bout with breast cancer. Now, I am not saying that this is an automatic bar to higher office, but she is literally just finishing with her chemotherapy, and now she's running for Senate? It's a free country and she can do what she wants, but voters should never forget the example of Paul Tsongas who ran for president after a serious bout of cancer and died within five years of the 1992 campaign. I think it's a fair question for Republicans to ask: how long do we want to hold on to this seat, should the Republican candidate win in November? Do we really want to elect someone who stands a fairly good chance of dying in office? (Less attractively, Fiorina has already taken to using her cancer and chemotherapy as a weapon. During a recent debate, Chuck DeVore needled her about missing some meeting or another, causing Fiorina to retort "I was in chemotherapy!" Maybe so, but isn't that the point?).
Look, I'm not ready to write off Fiorina entirely. It may be that she really is a conservative who can go toe to toe with Barbara Boxer. But, y'know, I kind of doubt it. She is what she is; a wealthy, semi-celebrity who won't even let a serious illness stand in the way of her quest for power. Those are all qualities that are already well represented in the US Senate. I'm not sure if California needs to provide more of the same.
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