Editor's Pick
JUNE 7, 2010 3:24PM
JUNE 7, 2010 3:24PM
Rate: 11
Tomorrow is the official primary election day in California. Polls show that Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina (Cara Carleton Sneed) will walk away with the republican nominations. Whitman will oppose Jerry Brown for the Governor’s race and Fiorina will run against Senator Barbara Boxer.
How expensive is an election these days? Together, Whitman and Fiorina have spent over $95M dollars of their own money to secure just the primary nominations. Whitman donated almost $71M from her own checkbook and has spent nearly $90M. Fiorina has donated about $5M from her personal coffers to win. Another view? $90M would send 340 students to Stanford University for four years.
Neither of these women is assured of winning the general election, even by spending any amount of money. In fact, some republicans, the more moderate and less inclined to dip into tea bag territory are unhappy with the party's choices. Some feel that Whitman is too moderate and that Fiorina is coming across as too conservative for most voters.
Who are these women; two former CEOs with very shiny golden parachutes?
Before Fiorina became Carly Fiorina, failed CEO, she was Cara Carleton Sneed, daughter of an artist mother and lawyer father who later became a federal judge in San Francisco. She attended Stanford, University of Maryland, and MIT's Sloan Business School. At MIT in her dissertation, The Education Crisis and the Government's Role in Reform, she writes like a true progressive. The conclusion on page 148 would make any social democrat proud; that the federal government needs to lead and take charge of social programs when the states are not. In fact, Cara Carleton Fiorina sounds positively progressive without a conservative tea bagging bone in her brain.
Ten years later in 1999 when the former Cara Carleton Sneed took over the helm of HP she came there with a mission. But in their haste to be cutting edge, the HP board who hired her forgot what made that company tick. It was a bottom up, collaborative computer designer dream company. Its bread and butter were printers, yet HP longed to gain market share in personal computers like IBM and Dell. They brought in the scrappy Fiorina to do just that. But they didn't do their due diligence.
Fiorina is a top down manager. The first order of business was to lay off almost 18,000 employees while shoring up her hand-picked executive team. At the same time she purchased a corporate jet that would afford her to travel in style and save money (or so she argued). In addition she was among a handful of short sighted Silicon Valley technology company executives who argued that off-shore contract employees are their god given right as corporations to pursue. "There is no job that is America's God-given right anymore. We have to compete for jobs." This was Fiorina speaking about outsourcing at a Washington news conference. In the meantime, those 18,000 employees were watching her fly around the country in a corporate jet and outsource their jobs to cheap labor outside of the United States.
Giving herself and other top executives bonuses while at the same time freezing employee salaries was another nail in the proverbial coffin of goodwill from the workforce. And then there was the announcement shortly before she was asked to step down; Gwen Stefani would be hired to join the HP design team (digital cameras). Imagine that moment where you realize that your pink slip came at the expense of hiring a pop singer to replace your engineering job? In 2005 right after hiring Stefani, the HP board cut a deal with Fiorina and she exited the company with a $21M parachute. The stock jumped 7% that day.
Cara Carleton Sneed's next adventure was as campaign advisor to the McCain campaign. Some thought that she would be the heir apparent to the 2nd chair. When that nod went to the Alaskan woman who wore lipstick like a pit-bull, one can only imagine Fiorina's distain. In the infamous NPR interview where her voice dripped with contempt for both McCain and Palin when asked if Palin was equipped to run a corporation, even the NPR reporter paused. One does not have to be a truth detection expert to hear the distaste for the McCain camp pick. Later in an effort to fix the gaffe, Fiorina only compounded it by saying that none of the candidates had the resume to run a corporation – though the United States economy is larger than any corporation.
Yet recently Fiorina recently received the lipstick seal of approval from none other than the sweetheart of the Tea Bag movement - Sarah Palin. In addition, Dick Morris (of buy me a prostitute fame) and Olympia Snowe have thrown their hats in the Fiorina ring.
Fiorina has never held a public service office. She counts serving on a couple of federal (advisory) boards to qualify her for high office. She has admitted to having a very spotty (read: lazy) voting record and apologizes to the voters for that gaffe.
Meg Whitman who will be running against Jerry Brown for the Governor's chair is far less controversial than Fiorina. In contrast her life has been a series of predetermined steps which predictably ended with running a corporation. She was a good student, a moderate, and was born into, if not wealth, at least an upper middle class life. She worked hard in school and took a series of jobs that were stepping stones to the next. No great leaps like Fiorina. And while she was not wildly popular at eBay, no one asked her to leave.
Until 2002, Whitman wasn't even a registered voter. She donated to various campaigns in the past, republican and democrats, yet Whitman has never held a public service office. Her learning curve about basic civics and California's constitution came about during her campaign when she made gaffes like mentioning that she would be setting up the legislature as teams. Or when she said that the attorney general would follow her bidding. Or the time when she assumed she had authority to tell the legislature what she would and would not put up with.
While Whitman believes her own press and has a sort of Dorothy in Oz kind of giddiness about her campaign, Fiorina could be called the queen of mean. She's used the services of Fred Davis on more than one occasion to create costly and decidedly not on point videos of her campaign rivals: first Tom Campbell with Demon Sheep and then Boxer with Hot Air. The point of both is to entertain and scare rather than inform voters what Fiorina's positions might be about any issues facing California.
Both can outspend their rivals by embarrassing margins. They've bought enough advertising to make most voters think of them as household items, like cheerios or toilet paper or sandwich bread. That's been their point; branding and winning.
Will the real candidates please stand up?
Comments
The more I read about these 2 the scarder I get! Perhaps it more testimony that we get the government we deserve. I'm not sure which of the 2 would be the bigger disaster if elected. I fear both would contribute to the bottomless morass rather than actually do anything constructive about it.
Fioria and Whitman... many of the same qualifications as our President.
On the other hand, I would give my right arm to see Boxer lose.
On the other hand, I would give my right arm to see Boxer lose.
Walter, the big election is different. Money won't buy them everything....I think.
Black - I suspect you'll be keeping that right arm this election.
Black - I suspect you'll be keeping that right arm this election.
I followed fairly closely Fiorina's tenure at HP and that alone would keep me from voting for her if I was a Californian. I really thought she was going to do permanent damage to HP, and she might have if she hadn't been ousted in time.
I agree with your assessment that Fiorina is likely to be an unpleasant surprise to a lot of people, while Whitman really needs to know more about government before she runs for a government position as high as state senator. While being an "outsider" can be made to seem an asset, in reality it can be a real handicap when you actual have to do the real work of legislating.
I agree with your assessment that Fiorina is likely to be an unpleasant surprise to a lot of people, while Whitman really needs to know more about government before she runs for a government position as high as state senator. While being an "outsider" can be made to seem an asset, in reality it can be a real handicap when you actual have to do the real work of legislating.
Well, pooh. OS is burping comments again today. Would you ask one of the puppies to delete my duplicate comment please? Thank you ;)
Susan - one of the pups was happy to oblige. How they got as far as they did can only mean that the republican machinery needs a tune-up. I agree with you. Boxer has raised almost $10M - that's a big war chest for re-election. I assume she is preparing to counter the Fred Davis onslaught. Whitman has said she'd spend $150M and she will. Brown hasn't nearly that kind of deep pockets - and let us hope he doesn't need it.
I detested Carly Fiorina long before I knew she was running for office. HP as a company was held in extremely high regard by techie people like myself. I can honestly say I wouldn't have had the career I've experienced if it was not for their excellent products and their engineering driven (prior to Carly taking charge) philosophy.
It's one thing for Mitt Romney, for instance, to say that successfully running his own company somehow qualified him to run the country. But why does Fiorina think that damn near running one into the ground qualifies her for any other position, ever?
It's one thing for Mitt Romney, for instance, to say that successfully running his own company somehow qualified him to run the country. But why does Fiorina think that damn near running one into the ground qualifies her for any other position, ever?
GeeBee raises a good question: When a CEO has nearly (or fully) destroyed a company, why should they ever get the opportunity to try and repeat their performance with a different company, or with a city, state, or federal government?
Jeez... These two just feel like the final insult for California. eMeg's perpetual ads are enough to make me scream and click the mute button the minute I hear them. Ironically, I'd have more respect (not much, but a little) if she'd kept her honest disdain for Sarah Palin rather than trying to make nice and pretend she approved.
Too bad for you, Blackflon--I just made another contribution to Barbara Boxer's campaign after reading your comment.
Too bad for you, Blackflon--I just made another contribution to Barbara Boxer's campaign after reading your comment.
To Silicon Valley insiders, as usual, there is much more about both- and it's all bad: 1. Carly- actually she did mangle HP- massive value loss; sketchy Compaq deal; SUED BY FOUNDING FAMILIES- um you know the Hewlitts and the Packards themselves. 2. Meg- eBay confuses non techies- it seems like a success- what you don't realize is that Meg totally mishandled the auction side; the company now admits its future is PayPal- the division Meg had NOTHING to do with. Oh, and her own right-hand corporate wanker stated, under oath in Federal Court, that there were 2 Megs: Good Meg and BAD MEG! Who would know better than he?
Boxer/Brown 2010!
Boxer/Brown 2010!
Ugh. Just ugh.
Since 9/11, it has dismayed me how corporate practices have become political tactics. Advertising lingo, graphics, musical jingles, and copy applied to tragedies and travesties like the invasion of Iraq and Katrina. The power of advertising to dupe people has been appropriated by politics and nobody seems to notice.
In elections, tell people about why product X sucks, is dangerous to their health and well being, and then tell them that your product isn't, not what it is. With a gigantic advertising budget, you will sell lots of product, even if it's crap, even if it harms people. In Massachusetts, many of us are still scratching our heads over our blindsiding by Scott Brown. Being a progressive state made us complacent. We thought of him as the pretty, but not so bright candidate. We failed to see exactly how bright he was in the big sell.
Since 9/11, it has dismayed me how corporate practices have become political tactics. Advertising lingo, graphics, musical jingles, and copy applied to tragedies and travesties like the invasion of Iraq and Katrina. The power of advertising to dupe people has been appropriated by politics and nobody seems to notice.
In elections, tell people about why product X sucks, is dangerous to their health and well being, and then tell them that your product isn't, not what it is. With a gigantic advertising budget, you will sell lots of product, even if it's crap, even if it harms people. In Massachusetts, many of us are still scratching our heads over our blindsiding by Scott Brown. Being a progressive state made us complacent. We thought of him as the pretty, but not so bright candidate. We failed to see exactly how bright he was in the big sell.
I would not vote for either of these if the seas parted and manna came down from the heavens. You can't buy me vote as the saying goes.
Do you remember Huffington. He went down in a sea of his own money against the great Senator Feinstein. I predict, these two will go down as well.
Read Harv: http://theHARVview.blogspot.com
Do you remember Huffington. He went down in a sea of his own money against the great Senator Feinstein. I predict, these two will go down as well.
Read Harv: http://theHARVview.blogspot.com
"Fioria and Whitman... many of the same qualifications as our President.
On the other hand, I would give my right arm to see Boxer lose."
Tighty righties don't need either arm/hand to scratch nonexistent balls.
On the other hand, I would give my right arm to see Boxer lose."
Tighty righties don't need either arm/hand to scratch nonexistent balls.
It's a disturbing trend that anyone can buy a public office with their own money these days (can you say Bloomberg?) The thought that two people so un-civically (I don't think that's a real word) minded can thrust themselves to the front of the line just because of deep pockets is disturbing.
I hope they both spend themselves into the poor house then lose by a landslide. I'm all about poetic justice, you see.
I don't know if any good will come from this political cycle, but it sure will be entertaining!
I hope they both spend themselves into the poor house then lose by a landslide. I'm all about poetic justice, you see.
I don't know if any good will come from this political cycle, but it sure will be entertaining!
Just to clarify, neither Fiorina or Whitman actually "spent" a penny. They did, however, "invest" a ton of their pennies to get into a political office that will repay them many times over should the electorate in California fall for their lies. At one point in her investment (as much as it was represented to be), Whitman had put in over 65 million of her own dollars to get into an office that paid about $200/k a year, a job with an 8 year cap. Do the math.....
www.boskolives.wordpress.com
www.boskolives.wordpress.com
"In 2005 right after hiring Stefani, the HP board cut a deal with Fiorina and she exited the company with a $21M parachute. The stock jumped 7% that day. "
You imply the Carly was a bad CEO. I hated her when she ran HP and thought she was horrible and would destroy the company. But hindsight is 20/20 (for me at least) and I have to acknowledge that Carly did an extremely good job as CEO. The company has done very well as a result of the transformation. She was right I was wrong. HP is a better company because of her. Its pretty easy to see this in the financials. You are not an investor so you would not understand. But as an investor I have to admit the truth: Carly saw the future and she had the vision to push HP in the right direction.
You imply the Carly was a bad CEO. I hated her when she ran HP and thought she was horrible and would destroy the company. But hindsight is 20/20 (for me at least) and I have to acknowledge that Carly did an extremely good job as CEO. The company has done very well as a result of the transformation. She was right I was wrong. HP is a better company because of her. Its pretty easy to see this in the financials. You are not an investor so you would not understand. But as an investor I have to admit the truth: Carly saw the future and she had the vision to push HP in the right direction.
Read the following article to get an idea of why I think Carly was a good CEO
http://blog.openitstrategies.com/2010/02/carly-reconsidered-ii-i-was-wrong.html
I didn't write it but I could have because it agrees exactly with my experiences.
Note: I am not trying to imply that she would make a good elected representative.
http://blog.openitstrategies.com/2010/02/carly-reconsidered-ii-i-was-wrong.html
I didn't write it but I could have because it agrees exactly with my experiences.
Note: I am not trying to imply that she would make a good elected representative.
Carly Fiorina said in a Republican primary debate that she supported the right of individuals on the terrorism no-fly list to continue to legally carry guns and retain their concealed weapon permits if they held one prior to being added to the list.
On the long list of crazy & insane stances these recent bunch of Repub women this one is getting far too little attention.
On the long list of crazy & insane stances these recent bunch of Repub women this one is getting far too little attention.
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