Running For The Silver

Why is Carly Fiorina running for President?  Although smarter by multiples than her one-time supporter Sara Palin, the track record to support her candidacy is really less compelling than Gov. Palin’s was prior to her run with John McCain. 

Carly , born Cara Sneed, had a 14 year meteoric rise in big corporate management (1990-2004); from a corporate officer at AT&T, to group president for sales and marketing at Lucent Technologies (an AT&T spinoff), to finally CEO at Hewlett-Packard.  At one point she was named the most powerful woman in American business.

She had an even more precipitous fall from corporate stardom, being fired by H-P’s Board and not having her franchise picked up by any other corporation (to date).  Jeffrey Sonnenfield, noted Harvard and Yale business management professor and Republican advisor, was quoted to say “You couldn’t pick a worse non-imprisoned CEO to be your standard-bearer”.

Her leadership style(s) and screw ups at both H-P and Lucent are legendary and too numerous to regurgitate here.  Some skirted the law and violated business ethics such as her involvement to have Lucent make large loans to customers so they could purchase back Lucent products, thereby creating both assets and revenue with the same dollars.

Numerous and ill-conceived acquisitions gave an illusion of growth, but net revenues plummeted, thousands of US jobs were lost or transferred overseas and stock value tanked.   

Tens of billions of dollars in capitalization were lost at both companies as a result of her direct involvement (losses she often inaccurately claims were the result of the dot-com bust). The proof in the pudding was her subsequent banishment from the business world.

All was not a loss however. Per Fortune Magazine, Carly grossed $100 million in compensation for her 5 year stint at H-P (including her severance) even as stock values plunged 52%.

So how in the world does someone who did so poorly when placed in major leadership positions think that such would parlay her into becoming the leader of the Free World and the Commander-in-chief of the largest military force on the planet?  When testing her background in her first and only political adventure, running for a California Senate seat, she failed in a landslide.  Her past was transparent.

She is intelligent, attractive, and speaks quite well. She knows how to get sound bites broadcast (although the use of things such as the death of her 35 year old stepdaughter as “I know what it’s like to lose a child” makes me want to puke).

She is notably more intelligent than most of her Republican opponents.  Being so, she undoubtedly knew from the get-go she couldn’t win the Republican nomination let alone the general election.  A disastrous history followed by 11 years of unemployment is hardly the formula for success…or does it really make a difference?

I’m suggesting here that Carly saw the potential impact on her life of one particular person: Hillary Clinton. 

It has been reasonably assumed that given the historical Republican penchant for repeatedly shooting themselves in the foot on women’s issues Clinton would likely garner the lion’s share of the female electorate.  Should that share be overwhelming, it alone precludes a Republican win in 2016.  I believe Carly saw that the desire to place a woman as the Vice-Presidential Republican running mate would be irresistible.  How better to obtain the necessary name recognition than to do reasonably well in the primaries…not win, just do well. 

If those are in fact her plans, I for one think she’s right.  At this point she is the logical number 2 choice no matter which other candidate wins the Republican nomination. That choice will be pressured by the RNC and I don’t believe it really makes a difference if Hillary gets the Democrat’s nod or not. 

I think it unlikely that Fiorina even considers herself as a candidate for the Presidency or even what that would mean. The VP is an easy gig after all.  If her mind wanders to the fact that the Vice-Presidency is a major stepping stone to being President I’d wager she’d take her cue from Scarlett O’Hara thinking…Why not? After all…tomorrow is another day.