Column: Politics

Carly Fiorina for….What Did You Say?

By Jill Kuraitis, 11-05-09

Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina has announced she’s running for Senate in California, hoping to unseat Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer.

Long one of Boise’s biggest employers, HP is part of Idaho culture. It didn’t take long for the Fiorina chatter to show up on Idaho blogs, including Tom von Alten’s Fort Boise. von Alten, a mechanical engineer who worked at HP for twenty years and still holds stock in the company, wrote, “Her campaign slogan will presumably not be ‘Let me do to the country what I did to HP,’ but I have no doubt she will put a positive spin on every aspect of her career to date.”

There are numerous reports of employees literally cheering and dancing in the aisles the day her “resignation” was announced.

In her announcement editorial, Fiorina wrote, “Our most pressing problems today are too few jobs for Americans and too much spending in Washington. As California’s senator, economic recovery and fiscal accountability will be my priorities. I will not settle for a jobless recovery.”

Wasn’t it Fiorina who sent thousands of jobs at HP offshore – to India, for example?

“Throughout my career I’ve brought people together, and I’ve solved problems. And that is what is needed in our government today. People who are willing to set aside ego and partisanship and instead work to develop solutions to our problems,” she said.

“Brought people together”? As a longtime resident of Boise with friends who worked at HP, I’ve sat at many a dinner party where people told tales of how she used egotistical, divisive and manipulatory tactics. One of her biographers, Michael Malone, said Fiorina “created a pestilential culture” and “a poisonous stew.” Solved problems? Company stock went down by 60 percent, Fiorina was forced out by the board, and while 28,000 HP employees were fired or laid off, she slinked out of town with $21 million – some reports say much more - in her pocket.

The San Jose Mercury News reported that in the past 12 years, which includes years Fiorina ran HP, the company used a Middle East distributor to sell millions of dollars’ worth of merchandise to Iran, which is illegal.

At a company famous for its innovation and its strategy of encouraging employees to pursue ideas, Fiorina left thousands of people bemoaning the loss of the “HP Way” in which they had a moral investment. Fighting with the founding families throughout her tenure, she angered employees who had a genuine love and respect for them.

After she was fired, Fiorina make the rounds of talk shows in 2005, flogging her book and trying to paint herself as a victim of a conspiracy.

Fiorina is battling breast cancer, and we should sympathize. It’s been said that when she is with friends she’s a funny and interesting person. But this criticism has little to do with Fiorina’s private self, and it has nothing to do with Barbara Boxer’s performance as a senator. California is a fiscal disaster and Boxer, who has been in office for 18 years, should be held accountable for much of that. In fact, the state is such a mess in general that re-electing any of its officials should be food for deep thought.

Clearly, California has no shortage of incompetent politicians.  Another one is just not needed.

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