Look, if anyone knows what it means to be unqualified to run a company, it's Carly Fiorina. Very few people, and I'm including the crooks who intentionally ran our economy into the ground in order to get rich, know as much as Carly Fiorina about not being able to run a company. She could start a university where she's the only faculty and offer Ph.D's on how to unsuccessfully be a CEO. Any book she writes that deals with an inability to effectively run a company should become an immediate best-seller.
Ok, I'm done now.
I also don't find it especially compelling to pay attention to whether any of the candidates can run a business (big or small). The federal government isn't a business, and assuming a government should run like one is a prescription for a mess. Isn't it the case that the states where that philosophy is most prevalent are also the poorest and least well run?
Posted by: oddjob | September 16, 2008 at 03:36 PM
What breathtaking arrogance -- the notion that running HP (into the ground) is more complicated than say running the world's greatest military and economic power. Unbelievable.
Posted by: Sir Charles | September 16, 2008 at 03:40 PM
Fiorina always seemed to me to be a self obsessed jerk. Her comment is not surprising. She is wrong about Obama though. I think he'd do just fine.
Posted by: Joe Klein's conscience | September 16, 2008 at 03:47 PM
Suggestion for Fiorino's next book:
Decimation for Dummies.
Oddjob, I don't think running a business well should necessarily qualify someone for a national office, but I do think a history of running businesses into the ground shuold disqualify him (see: Bush, George W.)
Posted by: litbrit | September 16, 2008 at 04:03 PM
NOLO CONTENDRE, litbrit. When your life history is one non-stop story of, "I ruin everything I touch, but it doesn't matter. Daddy and his friends always make it all better (for me, anyway)." That says more than enough!
OT: I almost never read Kos, but Sully's linked to a page (or diary, wev) that looks like it might be a handy resource.
Posted by: oddjob | September 16, 2008 at 04:21 PM
the notion that running HP (into the ground) is more complicated than say running the world's greatest military and economic power
It's not more complicated, but it IS different from that. As such I don't see that it necessarily matters whether any of them could run HP, or that knowing that they could necessarily helps one make a more effective determination about who to vote for.
Posted by: oddjob | September 16, 2008 at 04:24 PM
I was thinking the same thing about Fiorina. Well played.
Posted by: mark | September 16, 2008 at 05:15 PM
As much fun as it may be to use this against McCain/Palin, it is a stupid criticism. If you really want a President who can handle running big corporation, then elect one who's already done it. Is this what those of us on the left want?
Posted by: McChoo | September 16, 2008 at 05:46 PM
As much fun as it may be to use this against McCain/Palin, it is a stupid criticism.
Yes, the criticism you mention is stupid. It's not the one I'm making, though.
Posted by: Stephen | September 16, 2008 at 06:49 PM
"Carly will now disappear," [a top McCain advisor] said. "Senator McCain was furious."
What does McCain have against straight-talking, independent women?
Posted by: low-tech cyclist | September 17, 2008 at 08:37 AM
What does McCain have against straight-talking, independent women?
Obviously Carly doesn't understand how presidential campaigns are run. You don't force your campaign off-message by offering candid assessments of anything.
She'd be getting the disappeared treatment from Obama's campaign, too.
Having said that, it's been a very long time since 2000, and "straight talk" doesn't have the appeal it once did. South Carolinian Republicans saw to that.
Posted by: oddjob | September 17, 2008 at 09:20 AM
Obviously Carly doesn't understand how presidential campaigns are run. You don't force your campaign off-message by offering candid assessments of anything.
She'd be getting the disappeared treatment from Obama's campaign, too.
Oh, I agree. But if you're a politician who claims to be a different kind of politician, like McCain does, and you name your campaign bus the "Straight Talk Express," then everyone else has a right to call you on it when you suddenly get upset at 'straight talk' that you don't like. It contradicts your sales pitch.
And if his campaign has been working the "we're the real feminists, and the Dems are fakes" argument, then finding straight talk specifically by the most visible woman in the campaign besides Gov. Palin to be unacceptable, then that argument is also undermined.
Posted by: low-tech cyclist | September 17, 2008 at 09:38 AM
If only this was the only datum supporting the contention that the Straight Talk Express had lost its wheels!
Posted by: oddjob | September 17, 2008 at 07:39 PM
Perhaps she can be McCain intelligence czar. She has some spying experience right?
Posted by: abburdlen | September 17, 2008 at 11:18 PM