"Is there no way to the right?"
New York Times Politics Blog
September 16, 2008, 3:22 pm
Fiorina Sets off Flap, Saying Palin Not Ready for Big Business
By Leslie Wayne
Go to Orginal
Updated | Having once been dubbed the “most powerful woman in business,” Carly Fiorina, a top economic adviser to Senator John McCain and the former chief executive of Hewlett-Packard, knows a little something about executive talent.
After all, until she was ousted from the executive suite at Hewlett-Packard, Ms. Fiorina was a Silicon Valley legend, breaking glass ceilings wherever she went. But today, Ms. Fiorina veered off-message when she was asked to cast an eye over Sarah Palin and how she might fare in the corporate world.
On the McGraw Milhaven Show on KTRS radio in St. Louis, Ms. Fiorina was praised by Mr. Milhaven for having worked her way up from being a secretary to running the computer giant. He went on to say that in tapping Ms. Palin, Mr. McCain “thinks she has the experience to be president.” But, the line of questioning went on, what about running a company: “Do you think she has the experience to run a major company like Hewlett-Packard,” Ms. Fiorina was asked.
“No, I don’t,” Ms. Fiorina said.
But, added Ms. Fiorina, “that’s not what she is running for.” Returning to the McCain campaign message, Ms. Fiorina went on to say she finds it “quite stunning actually” that the Obama campaign is questioning Ms. Palin’s executive experience.
Later in the day, Ms. Fiorina defended her comment on MSNBC by adding others to the list of people who could not run Hewlett-Packard either: Mr. Obama, Joe Biden and, also, John McCain.
This gave the Obama campaign an opening to fire back. Tommy Vietor, an Obama spokesman, said “If John McCain’s top economic adviser doesn’t think he can run a corporation, how on Earth can he run the largest economy in the world in the midst of a financial crisis?”
Late Tuesday, CNN confirmed that Ms. Fiorina had been scheduled to appear Wednesday on their program “American Morning,” but that she had canceled.
Aw shucks, Ms. Fiorina, I hope you will appear on many more shows. Please keep enlightening us.
PS: There's an interesting piece of history showing that if you want to heal an ailing US economy with policies that lead to both more economic growth and more income equality a turn to the left is what doctor ordered. Here's Alan Binder's article about it.
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