Fiorina Matters Only in the Bizarro World of GOP Politics

In the bizarro world of Republican politics, a candidate who almost destroyed an iconic American company and was forced out (albeit with a $20 million golden parachute severance package) can be considered a presidential hopeful because she has a tart tongue. Carly Fiorina left Hewlett-Packard tarred and feathered for multiple sins, yet she dazzles on the GOP hustings because she has the wit to voice critical, funny soundbites about Democrats, mostly Hillary Rodham Clinton ( http://nyti.ms/1HE0pAa). 

My guess is she’s likely to gain traction as a vice presidential standard bearer, a woman much smarter than Sarah Palin. She doesn’t need to see Russia from her house (a phrase Palin never actually said). She’s been there and has even met Vladimir Putin.

But while too many Americans have short memories or are too young to have experienced history (or didn’t learn it in school), it is incumbent upon journalists to enlighten them (sadly, the soon to be departing Jon Stewart of The Daily Show was among the only mass market political watchers who resurrected a pol’s previous utterances and actions. Who will emerge as his truth-be-told successor?).

For those who merely hear that Fiorina was the head of HP, once considered the most powerful woman in business, the first female CEO of a top 20 U.S. company, it would be instructive to also hear that, according to Wikipedia, “CBS News, USA Today and Portfolio.com have ranked Fiorina as one of the worst American (or tech) CEOs of all time. In 2008, InfoWorld grouped her with a list of products and ideas as flops, declaring her tenure as CEO of HP to be the sixth worst tech flop of all-time and characterizing her as the ‘anti-Steve Jobs’ for reversing the goodwill of American engineers and alienating existing customers.”

Sure she has her supporters, which means she is a divisive, not an inclusive, personage. It doesn’t help that she laid off 30,000 HP workers during her five and a half year tenure as CEO. 

Also according to Wikipedia, “Fiorina frequently clashed with HP’s board of directors, and she faced backlash among HP employees and the tech community for her leading role in the demise of HP’s egalitarian ‘The HP Way’ work culture and guiding philosophy, which she felt hindered innovation. Because of changes to HP’s culture, and requests for voluntary pay cuts to prevent layoffs (subsequently followed by the largest layoffs in HP’s history), employee satisfaction surveys at HP—previously among the highest in America—revealed ‘widespread unhappiness’ and distrust, and Fiorina was sometimes booed at company meetings and attacked on HP’s electronic bulletin board.” Hardly a ringing endorsement when running for an office that is supposed to bring all the people together.

Fiorina is not the only Republican who seems to be hiding something. None of the announced and soon-to-announce candidates appears able or willing to articulate what they would do differently in the Middle East. They criticize President Obama but are short on specifics they would embrace to thwart ISIS and stabilize the region.

It reminds me of 1968. Richard Nixon said he had a secret plan to end the Vietnam War, so secret that it cost the U.S. another 21,195 deaths during the next five years that American combat troops served in Vietnam. 

Obama has not been the greatest commander-in-chief. But let’s not forget that it was George W. Bush and his neoconservative advisors, led by Vp Richard Cheney, who bungled the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Let’s also remember that it was under the Republican watch that our economy tanked. Under Obama the country has enjoyed prosperity, though too disproportionally tilted toward the wealthy, which makes it rather amusing that so many of the one percenters favor Republicans. But then again, Republicans live in a bizarro world.

On Selling the Sizzle, Not the Steak

Not sure how many of you watch the CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley, but Thursday night the broadcast commemorated the 75th anniversary of CBS Radio’s World News Roundup. Begun the day after Nazi Germany annexed Austria in 1938, commonly referred to as the Anschluss, the World News Roundup is the longest running news broadcast. 

In keeping with the news of this week, Pelley featured none other than “legendary Vatican correspondent Winston Burdett in 1962 reporting” on Pope Paul VI’s coronation (sic—the ceremony actually took place June 30, 1963). 

Unlike my commentary on Wednesday about Burdett, Pelley did not mention his confession as a Soviet spy.

Sell the Sizzle, Not the Steak: It’s a common marketing theme—sell the customer on the hype, not the actual product. If a deal can’t be struck, there must be something wrong with your marketing, with how you project yourself to the public.

How would you feel if you were Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan and you heard House Speaker John Boehner blame “candidates and personalities” rather than proposals on Medicare and spending cuts as the reason Republicans lost the election last November?

In the days, weeks and months since Barack Obama won a second term and Republican numbers in the House and Senate suffered dilution, GOP insiders have searched for a new path to victory. Their most right wing members met this week at CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Committee conference in National Harbor, MD. With nary an exception, speakers picked up the failed banner of 2012, demanding an end to Obamacare and other benefit programs. They weren’t interested in developing a more humane Republican Party platform, just a more palatable face to their repressive (my word, not theirs) positions. Republicans want to sell the sizzle, not the steak.

Across the Atlantic, a new pope was chosen. The Catholic Church is under stress. Reform seems to be needed, and wanted, both in its administrative functions and its theological tenets. But like Republicans gathered outside Washington, the cardinals stuck to their conservative doctrines. They picked a new Holy Father who is singular only in that he comes from the Americas. His thinking is decidedly Old World.

Initial enthusiasm for the selection of Francis I may well give way to more sober reflection by rank and file and uncommitted Catholics who want women to be ordained as priests, who want an end to priestly celibacy, who want acceptance of alternative lifestyles, who want abortion and contraception to be tolerated.

The challenge both the pope and the GOP have is how to appeal to a wider audience than their respective true believers. The Church, on the surface, has opted to offer a sizzling, appealing new face. Humble, compassionate, a tireless worker against poverty. Someone eager to shake up an entrenched Vatican bureaucracy. Time will tell if he’s more than an attractive new look. Will he diversify? Will he expand power beyond old, mostly white, men?  

One of my Catholic friends suggested I refrain from commenting on the pope. I am, after all, not Catholic. But the pope is more than just a religious leader. Some consider him the most powerful man on earth, being the leader of 1.2 billion Catholics, even if they are not all strict adherents to his doctrine. Even among non-Catholics, the pronouncements of the pontiff demand attention. And commentary. 

So I hope Pope Francis will become more tolerant, less restrictive. I’m emboldened by news today that Senator Rob Portman (R-OH), a one-time supporter of the Defense of Marriage Act, now endorses the right of gay couples to marry, to be entitled to federal marriage benefits. Yes, Portman changed his mind only after his son revealed he was gay. But it’s another example of a prominent Republican who has had personal experience with the LGBT lifestyle within their family. Portman, and Dick Cheney and Ted Olson, haven’t stopped loving their children. They’ve accepted them for who they are. They’ve accepted their equality and suitability to raise a family. Pope Francis, along with many conservative thinkers of all religions, may yet come to that same level of acceptance. 

Storms, Political and Not

My sister Lee finally has hit the big time. Well, almost the big time. She’s had a tropical storm named after her. Not quite hurricane status, but nothing to sneer at.

Except, Tropical Storm Lee dumped more than 10 inches of rain on Louisiana. Guess where my sister’s oldest child, Ari, and his fiance, Elizabeth, live? If you guessed Louisiana, specifically New Orleans, you win a kewpie doll.


Angry Kittens: Leonard Harris died last week. He was 81. For those who don’t remember or just simply are not aware, Leonard Harris was a movie and Broadway critic for New York’s WCBS-TV in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Almost always Gilda agreed with his critiques. In fact, she was so enamored of him she chose to name one of the two kittens she brought home while in nursing school in his honor. The other she named after her favorite NY Knicks basketball player, Walt Frazier.

Gilda had never had a pet she could interact with while growing up, a frog not being a very touchy-feely type of pet. The frog must have felt the same as one day he took a stroll off her fourth floor bedroom windowsill. Splat!

Gilda wanted the kittens to keep her company while I worked evenings as a reporter for the New Haven Register. When I returned the first night they were home, Gilda couldn’t contain her distress. She was so relieved as I would be able to protect her from those “angry” kittens. They were growling so insistently she had locked them up in the bathroom hours earlier.

After liberating Walter and Leonard, I asked Gilda if the sound they made resembled a soft guttural trill. Yes, she exclaimed. That, I told her, was what is known as purring, a sound felines make when they are happy and contented.

Several months later it was time to neuter Walter and Leonard. When I asked the veterinarian how the boys tolerated the procedure he informed me Walter and Leonard were in fact females! We thought about changing their names to Walterina and Leona, but resisted the impulse. They never complained.


Spellcheck: Gilda and I have Apple iTouches, a device similar to an iPhone in everything but telephoning ability and a need for Wi-Fi access to communicate via the Internet. When I type notes or emails I notice the iTouch self-corrects what it considers typos. It’s a provocation that can cause much embarrassment if not caught by the writer. Whole Web sites are dedicated to comical mistakes that have been sent out by unaware users.

The unauthorized, unwanted changes are not unique to iTouches, but I did notice something the other day that stopped me in my tracks—when I type iPad, iPhone or iPod, the iTouch recognizes the nouns and leaves them untouched. But when I type in “iTouch,” it changes the spelling to touch. How strange the device doesn’t recognize its own name. How strange Apple did not include its own name recognition in the iTouch software.


Oh My God: I can’t believe it, but I agree with Dick Cheney.

Last week the former vice president said of Sarah Palin’s possible White House run, “I’ve never gotten around the question of her having left the governorship of Alaska midterm. I don’t, I’ve never heard that adequately explained.”

Palin and her Palinistas say she left office after two and a half years because ethics probes would have prevented her from effectively governing. Okay, but does she believe as president she’d be immune to ethics investigations? Hasn’t she heard of Iran-Contra during the Reagan years, or Whitewater and Monica Lewinsky during the Clinton administration?

How doubly sad, first about Palin’s lack of knowledge, and second about my being in agreement with Cheney. What’s next? Will Rick Perry look presidential to me?


Phoning It In: Last week we received a letter from CREDO mobile with an unusual marketing message. Addressing us as “Dear Fellow Progressive,” the letter from president Michael Kieschnick asked, “How far would you go to avoid ‘President Bachmann’ becoming a reality? Would you leave your phone company if it supported Michele Bachmann?”

It noted both AT&T and Verizon Wireless have donated to Bachmann, $386,000 and $35,500, respectively.

CREDO claims to be “America’s only progressive phone company, we fight the right wing.” It says each year it gives “a percentage of all charges—at no cost to you—to progressive non profits (such as ACLU, Planned Parenthood, Democracy Now and Doctors Without Borders).”

Along with other incentives, a tempting proposal indeed. But not one I’m willing to endorse, at least for now. I’m not ready to vet all my service providers and purchases to see if they conform to my politics. Given that most companies and their leaders lean to the right, I’d wind up with few options.

One left-leaning executive trying to influence the political climate is Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz. He’s now asking business leaders to withhold campaign contributions from all office seekers until “a transparent, comprehensive, bipartisan debt-and-finance package is reached that honestly, and fairly, sets America on a path to long-term financial health and security.” This message is a refinement of his initial one three weeks ago when he implied withholding money just from incumbents.