The spotlight can get hot
There is a strong desire in Republican circles for Carly Fiorina to be on the main stage in the next presidential debate. Few in the party say the former Hewlett- Packard chief executive has any chance of winning the nomination or even think she is the best candidate. Instead, they argue that a party that has a problem with female voters can ill afford a sizable top- tier field that’s exclusively middle- aged or older men. Moreover, they love her slashing attacks on Hillary Clinton, whom Fiorina frequently calls a liar.
Fiorina obviously would relish greater visibility, and her supporters anticipate that unlike the first presidential debate on Aug. 6 when she was on the undercard, she’ll be part of the main event Sept. 16.
If so, there will be a new level of scrutiny that she may not find altogether welcome.
There are two basic rationales for the Fiorina candidacy: She’s not a politician, and she was a successful business executive who knows how to run the economy and has dealt with world leaders.
The trouble is, she was a politician. She ran for the Senate in California in 2010 and lost by more than 1 million votes to incumbent Barbara Boxer.
But Fiorina’s central liability in that campaign was the qualification she held up as her chief asset: her experience as a high- level business executive. Starting as a receptionist, she climbed the corporate ranks. In 1999, she was named CEO of Hewlett- Packard, the renowned global technology company. She was No. 1 in Fortune magazine’s first list of the most powerful women in business.
Not long after arriving at HP, she engineered the deal of the year, a huge acquisition of Compaq, the personal computer company.
That soon went south. Profits disappointed, the stock plummeted, she alienated the families of Hewlett- Packard’s fabled founders, along with many employees, and she lost the confidence of the board of directors. In 2005 she was fired.
She walked away with a package worth $ 42 million, which could be hard to explain to voters struggling with jobs and stagnant wages.
Fiorina still insists she was a victim of a “boardroom brawl” and dismisses criticism of her record. She says the company doubled in size and added jobs on her watch.
That’s true, but only as a result of the Compaq acquisition, which many analysts consider a catastrophe.
The 60- year- old candidate has an appealing story beyond her rise in business. She’s a breast cancer survivor, and is admirably transparent about the death of her stepdaughter from drug abuse and has committed herself to fighting this scourge.
And if she gets on the big stage, she might be the one to go toe- to- toe with Donald Trump, who often disparages women, including Fiorina. Nonetheless, her two chief calling cards, as a successful business executive and a non- politician, may create more problems than opportunities.