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“Evil sheep” (recall the red-eyed demon sheep ad), it turns out, are not the half of it. This is the woman who wants to be the next (Republican) senator from California. Yet in this video, she almost sounds like a jealous schoolgirl. You also have to chuckle at the hypocrisy of one more GOPher giving away her contempt for one of the flame-throwers of the wrong-wing, though. Like so many Limbaugh apologists before her, no doubt tomorrow she’ll be bowing to Hannity and begging his forgiveness. And how bout the vacant commentary, especially about Senator Barbara Boxer’s hair? But inanity is not all Carly Fiorina is in the news for this week.
The media would have you believe that Fiorina and Whitman are poised to “make history.” But Diane Feinstein and Barbara Boxer did that long ago. Apparently, making history only counts when one is a Republican.
Fresh off her primary win Tuesday, one of the worst CEO’s in the past half century wants to do for California and the US what she did for HP. Here’s the other side of her “accomplishments” at HP. Repeat after me: She was fired from HP for steering the company way off course. Ms Off-Shorer of jobs, she makes one former (failed) Democratic candidate for US Senate in Virginia look like a pro-labor good guy. She also spied upon her employees. Carly Fiorina may have been named “the most powerful woman in business,” but power doesn’t translate into leadership and never should be confused with that construct.
More recently she embraced McCain-anomics (which is to say McCain’s financial illiteracy). Remember “all the fundamentals are strong.” More to the point, she was one of McCain’s top “economic advisers.” We all know how that went. Then there was her song and dance that what we need are more tax cuts–during a fiscal crisis and revenue shortfall…
On election night this week, she claimed that Barbara Boxer is “at the very fringe of American politics.” Only in GOP wordsmithers’ and revisionists’ imagination is that the case. She’s on the cons’ page with her guns, gays and abortion views. She supported the infamous Prop 8 which reversed the right for gay couples to marry in California. She’s also a climate science skeptic. But that never stopped her from making false claims about Boxer .
There is an emptiness about Fiorina, who not surprisingly has the endorsement of Sarah Palin. Carly was so disengaged from her civic responsibilities that to say she had a spotty voting record was putting it mildly. She never registered in Maryland; registered, but never voted in NJ, so was dropped from voter rolls; and voted 5/18 of the general elections held while she was in CA. So disengaged from politics has she been for her whole life that “Carly Fiorina for Senate” must be some kind of cruel joke (or a Karl Rove dream).
However, and why ever it has occurred, Carly Fiorina also has been dumbed down –or dumbed-down herself. On the other hand, perhaps she never really “got it.” She never did understand the technology produced by firms she managed. It is not that she needed to be a tech person, but she needed a better grasp of what her companies actually did. (She was more interested in acquisitions and downsizing.) To put it in simple terms, she is not a stewardship kind of former CEO.
There and elsewhere, we can take nothing for granted–not even that extremists like Fiorina or Sharron Angle of Nevada will surely lose. Angle wants to mandate that only one parent can work; end Social Security; shut down the EPA, the IRS and the Department of Education; end fluoridation, and even ban alcohol (in Nevada!) This teabagger is even loonier than Fiorina.
Of course, we should focus on our Virginia races. But I urge you also to pay attention to (and maybe donate a little time, money or energy toward other races if you can). In its November ticket, the GOP has hit the motherload of fringe and AstroTurf candidates (e.g., Rick Scott and Meg Whitman).
We Virginians have a special obligation to warn of what happens when extremists get elected into offices, such as, well, you know… Let Virginia also be a warning to disaffected progressives and moderates who want to send a foolish message to their own side by allowing extremists a chance to gut all the progress we have made in the last century.
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