Cornhead on Carly
Here’s a Powerline post written by commenter “Cornhead,” about his visit to Iowa to see Carly Fiorina speak.
He was impressed.
The New Neo
A blog about political change, among other things
Here’s a Powerline post written by commenter “Cornhead,” about his visit to Iowa to see Carly Fiorina speak.
He was impressed.
It really does seem that the more exposed people are to her, the better they like her.
A little odd, because the picture portrayed when she was at H-P was of a cold and ruthless (deleted). Might just emphasize that you need to take anything in the media with a healthy skepticism.
Excellent! Absolutely excellent, Cornhead. Thank you for writing that and, Neo, thank you for linking to it.
One minor semi-correction. At the time I wrote the piece I wasn’t aware of any IA or NH polls. Polls released today show Carly not in the top ten and at 1% and 2% respectively. But those polls are a week old and she is in the top 10 in some newer national polls.
Someone asked her about how to get her into the first debate and she said the rules were changing, but just talk her up to your friends.
Her campaign seems very lean and she has raised $1.7m. (Jeb has $100m.)
She was on Fox News Sunday today and while she has been getting lots of free media lately I wouldn’t be surprised if she did a media buy in August to get her into the debate.
My sense is that I’m like a lot of people and at this point have 2-4 people they could go with. The exception might be that the Trump and Paul people are real firm. Rand and his dad just have a subset of very loyal backers.
Fiorina is in my top three: Cruz, Walker, Fiorina. She is indeed impressive.
As for the debates, Hugh Hewitt has the best idea. A three hour debate, 10 minute bathroom breaks each hour. Stadium seating for the candidates. Broadcast it over YouTube so people can go back and watch what they want.
CORRECTION:
Hugh Hewitt’s idea is for all 16 candidates to debate at one time.
It drives me nuts when I hear “Carly would make a great VP”. In normal times, the VP position is a nothing job…just look at Joe Biden. What are these people thinking? I suspect that deep down, the Republicans dread a woman president.
Thanks Cornhead and Neo. I’ve sent her two small donations, so far.
snopercod- I believe that what those people are thinking is what an asset Carly would be as a running mate prior to the election. That used to be my thought as well, but the more I see and hear her, the more I can imagine her at the top of the ticket with someone like Rubio as her running mate.
Currently Cruz, Walker and Carly are my top three.
Thanks also to Cornhead. I read him first on Powerline. Thanks to Neo for giving his report additional exposure.
I do not think that VP has to be a nothing job. Look at Cheney. He certainly did not fit that mold. The other point is that it provides an apprenticeship in government, and national exposure for someone who has little, or none, of either.
Of course if you choose a buffoon for VP, then you get what you deserve. Speaking of which, I see reports that the desperate Dims could draft Biden–or Gore. Oh, don’t throw me into that briar patch.
snopercod, your concern is noted
Does anybody seriously believe that the MSM will treat the next Republican president any differently than it treated Bush? Whoever it is, it’s going to take someone who can give it right back to them, giving as good as they get, and thereby go over their heads directly to the people. Reaganesque. Carly does that. So does Cruz. Maybe Walker too. They have to keep it up, because it’s going to get a lot worse for the nominee once selected, and even worse yet if they get elected.
I agree, she’s in the top three. Perry has fallen out with me after his remarks on Trump show that he doesn’t get it.
I also agree that VP doesn’t have to be a dead end if you choose someone with talent and aren’t afraid to delegate.
On the VP thing, think in terms of a 16 year era. I do, and I’d be fine with her in either role.
snopercod (@5:20 PM), are any commenters on this site the least bit bothered by Thatcher’s genitals?
As debased as “Republicans” might be, are they?
The Cruz/Fiorina sequence (for me) is based on his amazing grasp of non-left perspective (which she also has, it seems, altho I wonder a little, as I do not with him), and his demonstrated political acumen.
If Fiorina politically puts herself ahead of Cruz in the next few months, it will be obvious, and we all will see it. It will not be her genitals speaking.
And then … wonderful. She is Thatcher.
BTW, Cornhead is great.
The thing to keep in mind that it is very, very early.
At this time before Doug McDermott’s senior year, I had Creighton in the Final Four. We got smashed by Baylor in the second game.
Most pols are talking up Kaisich and Rubio as likeliest running mates to secure those “must win” states, Ohio and Florida respectively.
I’d rather have Carly!
But perhaps, in a year’s time, the Dem nominee will be so weak or wounded that these must win” states will not be so insecure as to need a classic “favorite son” running mate?
Or maybe Obama – cue the terrorist attacks or econ crisis – will be so loathed!
YES, she’s a triple threat. And smart and soft-spoken in her articulate jabs at the enemy. Very persuasive.
And a needed out-sider for the ticket.
She is exciting!
In Denver, at the Western Conservative Summit (late June) – which yielded six or seven candidates (or reps) – I think Carson won the straw poll. But Carly was second, I think: HEADLINE “Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina Top Denver…” at Breitbart
Dr. Carson is a great man with an incredble biography.
But there it takes an entirely different skill set to be a brain surgeon and running a giant organization.
We have had one amateur already. Carson’s numbers will erode fast when people realize that.
Thank you Corn head; thank you Neo. Very happy to read this report and confirm my gut instincts that she is the real deal. I like Cruz a lot, but he irritates people unnecessarily. I like Walker too, but I think he is still a bit of an unknown quantity, at least to me in NV. And I like Carly. I know the MSM will go after her ruthlessly, but I believe she can take it and dish it right back. I also like Ben Carson, mostly because he’s such a humane person. But is he executive timber? Not sure. How about he be put in charge of HHS in a Fiorina cabinet?
snopercod Says:
“What are these people thinking?”
that if she fails to win the nomination they’d like to position her to run in 8 years and win.
Biden was an exception… or with Obama; a normal. He picked the dim bulb so he wouldn’t be shown up.
SLR – the present field is so deep and promising, it is not important to think hard about the proverbial “next in line” to become president.
The issues for the subsequent terms of office are quite different, too.
America is in stark decline. And in THREE respects: economic, political, and cultural.
The first – the economic – is the easiest and most likely to be reversed, at least substantially. (Debt, unsustainable spending though entitlements, aka the welfare state are the toughest.)
My belief is that next year, a plan to revitalize US infrastructure – primarily the interstate highway system – through an Eisenhower Memorial modernizing plan will be booted.
Since the “driverless” truck and interstate car is inevitable, with attendant productivity gains and “first in time” global trade benefits down the line, it makes too much sense not to sell the sizzle of being “first” as part of the election to “Make America Great Again.”
The appeal is broad and beneficial. And it can be sold as a ten year plan, meaning that it will span into subsequent presidencies, not just the next one.
(The federalist in me hates it – but, face it: this is the viable “like Sputnik” spending plan that Keynesians like Mohammed El-Arian are calling for. And this is the plan that Obama would have backed in 2009, if the technology stream was apparent. [And Obama will say so, come the next presidency.])
It works well on multiple levels. It will bring the Leftist Silicon Valley – principally Google and Apple – in line with the Pubbies. Trunkholders of internet rights-of-way will benefit, unless they miss the political boat and it sails without them.
It will also have knock-on efficiencies for the suburban middle and upper-middle class who have to commute in ultra sluggish traffic, as scaling makes the technology cheaper and freeway capacity increases emerge (but only after the problem of redundant systems is worked out – making driverless tech safer than self-driving).
The sizzle-appeal is to the future: from automated space shuttle landings to automated airplanes to your own private car!
But piggy-backed will be nation-wide bridge and road repair programs, therefore appealing to Big Labor as well as to contractors and HS graduates who make up the new steady employment. (Yes, Democrat fiefdoms, ie, the cities, will get to disperse their share of graft.) And keeping the system working will take all the new professional skills developed by the cable TV and then telecom support industries, requiring their more educated labor force to retool.
From a political planning perspective, THIS will happen. The major issue for us and the election is different: how to structure and finance this mega-deal, in terms of strategic horse-trading that solves our actual problems, not the Marxoid-Left fantasies of racism and imperialism and rape.
While an increase in gas tax may be inevitable, or maybe a federal axle or gross weight tax is coming, the question is how less how to sell it and more how to package is politically, to the ruling class: will utterly wasteful wind farm and utopian solar subsidies be cut and eliminated? Or redirected? Will the legacy of Obamunist debt to more quickly reduced? To free the economy for finance to flow to productive activities? Or will there be Grand Bargain to pass the Bill of the Future in exchange for entitlement (Welfare State) reforms, in order to achieve a future free from unsustainable spending and Greek-like bankruptcy? And what about repealing and replacing SCOTUScare (or “SCOTUSscare,” as I prefer to call it)?
The simplest thing to do is to crush the regulatory state, estimated to cost $15K per year, per family. If it was cut by merely half, a family could easily afford medical insurance and room to spare.
This April, Stephen Moore of Heritage Foundation spoke at the University of Colorado at Boulder. I was amazed that he said the greatest difficulty business faces is NOT regulation. It was the poor quality of workers in their applicant pool – with two-thirds of those applying in the Marcellus Shale area unqualified, he said.
WRONG. The applicant pool is poisoned by a frustrated labor class due to Obamunism’s anti-entrepreneurial effects. The radically underemployed blue collar class await work opportunities in the worst recession in a century. They throw darts for work instead of doing nothing – hence the emergence of the Trump phenomenon, a way to vent core frustrations.
Real meaningful work comes from job creators, and job creation comes from business confidence and investment, from entrepreneurialism. Six years after the recession ended, the US still has more business fold than are created (to the benefit of Obamunist fascism); incredibly, “powerhouses” like Italy and Hungary and Scandanavia are forming more new businesses than us!
At any rate, all of this folly is almost easily reversed. Or at least much of it with proper opposition control of Congress and the Presidency.
Obama’s anti-American movement of the Marxoid-friendly Left is based in government unions, education at all levels, and the media (in all forms). For the first, outlaw federal unions (Scott Walker style) – this is the solution! The US economy can be saved by pro-growth, efficiency, and anti-regulation reforms.
How to tackle America’s political decline? This requires different, bold solutions. Glenn Reynolds has posed the quickest and most dramatic redress: have the Senate eliminate the filibuster in 2017. Then pass a Supreme Court packing plan that expands it to 15 members.
If solid Right-wingers are nominated, then Madison’s federalist vision can be restored, ala Randy Barnett’s (Georgetown Law) vision entitled “Restoring The Lost Constitution” could take root.
Of course, this is highly controversial. But I see no other real near-term hope. Do you?
The toughest is how to address America’s cultural decline: this is where the Left’s Long March through the institutions must be reversed in an ambitious multi-prong movement, joining political action with localist and social ambition.
First, Obama’s federal usurpation of Higher Ed finding must be dramatically reversed and privatized. Secondly, somehow the Ed Schools must be abolished. Thirdly, the People – the Tea Party people – must homes school or charter school their kids.
This – the cultural reversal – is the longest and least likely shot to bear fruit soon. To think in shorter terms than over the next 12 to 16 years is impossible. But, yes, this the time frame to think and plan for defending Americanism from the counter-revolutionary Left, of whom Obama is merely its figure-head.
Studies show that when a political opinion is less than 20% of a given group, it is psycho-socially endangered: it become too difficult to bear the brunt hostility and social isolation when it is less. And thus the Right has exited most of Higher Ed, and certainly most schools.
What is desperately needed now is some think tank to track this decline and monitor reversing it – from high schools to universities, from public to private.
To take only one such field that’s been eviscerated and tyrannized by the Left, take history. My friends from the last decade and before? None are not either at religious universities and colleges or else in Right-wing leaning states.
(Actually, there is one exception – but only one. Despite his four books and JD/PhDs from leading universities, he’s at a backwater state college in New England.)
My oldest professor friend from my alma mater teaches modern US history. In the 1990s, he was too “Right wing” for UNLV, and therefore he lost his chance at tenure there. Due to the good offices of the great (and now elderly) Forrest McDonald, the University of Alabama took him on.
That was then, seventeen years ago. Today it’s worse, much worse.
To sum up, reversing the economic decline of the US looks good, should a real conservative president be elected next time.
America’s political decline? Reversing that is much tougher, and much more controversial to achieve. (And indirect change? I don’t even want to think about that).
Reversing our cultural decline? I haven’t even touched the decline of media and popular culture. This task is truly Herculean – if not simply impossible.
The only way to make the latter two realms addressable is to aim for synergies – ways in which short-term change and the defense of American values can me leveraged. Maybe it’s a topic for savants like Victor David Hansen to address.
In fact, if a Washington think-tank took on the task of holding a series of conference to master-mind the reversal of the American decline, outside the economic realm, then they will have done sufficient service for the rest of the 21st century.
Getting back to “Carly,” people not from or close to California forget that she won the GOP Senate slot to face sitting US Senator Barbara Boxer. But lost in that heavily ‘D’ state.
I took at look her published campaign biography book at Amazon, as well as Wikipedia entry.
I recall the complaints of her career at HP. I have friends who worked before, during and after her leadership there. The complaints are the same: she’s a spin-meister, she only sells herself, she made bad business decisions (and thus flamed out at HP).
Maybe. But when a growth-oriented tech business grows too large, it has to adapt. Not every such company can keep innovating and make a go at launching entirely new consumer product categories like Apple Computer did. Thus, the merger with Compaq – Wintel computer maker – was not without longer-term merit. People hate her for THIS?
I don’t get it.
The spinmeister charge? Closely tied to the claim of being a narcissist – it’s hard to tell. But I’m especially attuned to scoping such people.
Democrats specialize in selecting only narcissists. Can you name one who wasn’t? For prez, that is?
By contrast, Pubbies rarely do. Only McCain is one. Thus, like with the other sour-grapes complaint, I’m unpersuaded that it’s one of her defects. (Although it is possible that in business it is easier to hide….)
The one complaint at Amazon that ring true and probably remains valid is that her story of her pre-HP years are not revealing. It lacks both personality and detail.
Of course, this is likely deliberate and probably contractual.
If you own your business like Trump, the politics of a large publicly traded firm are not in play. That wasn’t Carly’s gig.
So, while the charge is true, what of it? It is nada, I say – ergo, inconsequential.
There are those reviewers at Amazon do com who do hold her accountable, and say outright “I won’t vote for her” for Senate or other offices. Fine.
Bring us objections with greater substance, and I’ll listen to them. Meanwhile, I’m not impressed by what I read.
Orson Says:
‘SLR — the present field is so deep and promising, it is not important to think hard about the proverbial “next in line” to become president.’
Lost me already. Why not?
If you have two or three people you like; thats when you think about setting up the next in line.
The big fish, Sperry Corp., was eaten by the little fish, Burroughs Corp., becoming Unisys when I worked at Sperry in the mid ’80s. When was the last time anyone heard of Unisys? Last I checked, HP is still around. In fact, I’m typing this comment on an HP desktop.
I think the ‘Fiorina-HP hate’ is more a product of the anti-capitalist streak which has permeated American society. How many people today actually think businesses are there to give people jobs, rather than to make money for investors? In fact, businesses should profit share with there employees because that would be fair! No one ever talks about the risk involved when someone spends money from their own pocket to get a business up and running and why they should have to share any success with those whom they hired and to whom they’ve provided benefits. (My favorite question to lefties when it comes to their line of ‘thinking’ on business fairness: When was the last time a poor person offered you a job with benefits?) The left and the media (but I repeat myself) hate Fiorina because of the very fact that she was a success at a high tech company, rising from secretary to CEO. That’s a ‘war on women’ story no one in the media wants to trumpet, hence the hate. Now if Fiorina were running as a Democrat, she’d be hailed as a ‘modern day heroic woman’ figure, perfect for America.
RickZ
The BIG uproar with Carly started in the boardroom as a founding family member — still on the board — based on his blood — objected to buying out Compaq, previously a mortal rival to HP in PCs.
That buy-out ended up saving HP. At that moment in history HP ( & Compaq ) were being squeezed out of the market by the MSFT-Dell trust.
[ The fact that these two firms were a Sherman Trust — as defined by the act — was so flamingly obvious that the Federal judges were inflamed by the antics of Gates & Company.
This issue was resolved by forcing Gates out of the industry, and blocking any further market share gains by the MSFT-Dell Trust.
Gates is only now being allowed to come back in at the edges — as his side deal has largely expired.
Similarly, Dell was kicked to the curb — for a time — and after a hiatus — has come back.
Naturally, Dell immediately went straight to Gates to re-invigorate the old Trust. However, MSFT has been forced by the terms of the deal to become a hardware producer in its own right. — Which is something that Gates did everything in his power to prevent when he was running the show.
Gates was also forced into selling/ dealing with Jobs and Apple — just to get the Feds off his back. That long ago dealing was THE turn around in the fortunes of Apple Computer.
It’s now almost entirely forgotten, as the economic age of the industry is infantile. Most of the key players today were in swaddling clothes when Jobs and Gates structured their deal.
Carly looks, evermore, to be a business genius of the highest calibre… a Classic Queen Bee.
She’s the anti-Barry Soetoro.
I remember her when she was connected to AVON just before she turned HP into a printer cartridge company and then went to the world bank stuff.
she can be anything you want her to be in your eyes… thats a talent of hers… dopplganger of sorts
To anyone who thinks Carly Fiorona can’t be President because she never won an election, all I can say is Eisenhower.
Do I think women should go into combat? No. I’ve dragged a load across h3lls creation.
I never went in to combat. I practiced for it.
All I can say it that A LADY, in my opinion, would rather maintain her dignity.
On the other hadn is Carly Fiorina just smarter and better than me in so many different ways? H3lls yes!
A toast to combat veterans. I have the utmost respect for anyone who has lived through the experience.
Or has not.
My earlier comment might appear disrespectful and it was meant as anything but.
My impression was that being in combat would be roughly like trying to drag a tomcat off a shake roof by its tail 24 hours a day, seven days a week 365 days a year.
For however long it lasted.