To the surprise of absolutely no one, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina is taking the first official steps toward challenging Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer next year.
On Tuesday, the Los Altos Hills Republican filed her “Carly for California” campaign name with the IRS and sent out a kinda/sorta campaign press release to announce it.
“I have received a great deal of encouragement to make a run for the Senate in 2010 from people all across the political spectrum,’’ she said in the release. “Today’s filing … is the logical next step in evaluating running for office.’’
During the “full and thorough evaluation of her candidacy” that Fiorina promises, she should work on answering a single question: Why does she believe she’s qualified to be California’s next senator?”
That’s actually a serious question and one that doesn’t have a simple answer. It’s especially important for political newbies like Fiorina and gubernatorial hopeful Meg Whitman, who have zero experience in the business of government.
It’s easy to say that the state’s in the dumper and “I have great ideas for California’s future.” But it’s no problem finding bloggers, barstool pundits and political writers who can go on for hours about the state’s troubles and how best to fix them.
Why should voters pay any more attention to Fiorina than they do to the ever-growing chattering class? Convince us.
Fiorina also needs to talk about why she decided to join the state’s long list of rich and/or famous folk who decided they only wanted to enter California politics at the top, as candidates for either governor or senator.
What’s interesting is that Fiorina’s campaign biography highlights the fact that she began her business career as a secretary and then moved up through the ranks of various companies until she took the top job at H-P.
But it’s apparently different when it comes to politics. Fiorina – and Meg Whitman, for that matter – isn’t looking to start as a county supervisor, as Boxer, Sen. Dianne Feinstein or San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, did.
She’s not running for a community college district seat, like Attorney General Jerry Brown did, or an Assembly seat, as state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner did in his first, unsuccessful, try for public office. She’s not even matching the two 2006 Democratic candidates for governor, Steve Westly and Phil Angelides, who opened their careers by spending years slogging in the trenches as state party officials.
Heck, as Carla Marinucci documents in today’s San Francisco Chronicle, Fiorina wants to move into one of California’s top three jobs without even making an effort to vote very often.
Now the typical business type’s answer to the experience question is that their problem-solving experience in the private sector trumps any political resume and, besides, how great a job have the politicians been doing anyway?
It’s a fair question and one a long-time politician like Boxer can only answer by pointing to her record, which, warts and all, is out there for everyone to see.
It’s a record that’s arguably more liberal than most California voters are comfortable with and Boxer’s in-your-face style and hyper-partisan personality doesn’t help her much. Her snippy “Call Me Senator” questioning of an Army general during a Senate committee hearing earlier this year is guaranteed to show up in a GOP campaign spot next fall, regardless of who her opponent is.
But Fiorina’s “exploratory campaign” will have to figure out how to put the best shine on her tenure at H-P, where she was one of the nation’s most visible businesswomen, but where she also laid off some 20,000 workers, moved thousands of jobs offshore and received a $24 million golden parachute when she was fired as CEO in 2005.
Fiorina’s ability to put millions of her own money into a Senate campaign would make her the odds-on choice to take the GOP nomination and give her a big leg up against Boxer.
But money can only do so much and as Fiorina looks closely at the pluses and minuses of that first-ever run for office, she and her advisers need to decide on exactly what message that money will buy.
John Wildermuth is a longtime writer on California politics.