How Businessperson Carly Fiorina Got Her Golden Parachute

The New York Times has today's installment of our Failing Upwards series.

“Tom Campbell has a distinctly different point of view than I do,” Ms. Fiorina said. “He believes the way to close budget deficits is to raise taxes. I think that’s the wrong approach.”

Do you now, iCarly? We'll bet you can't wait to fire as many state employees as possible & cut the salaries of the remaining unfortunates to close those deficits. Surely when HP was being run into the ground you took major salary cuts, right? And you must have considered bankruptcy for HP, yes?

Ms. Fiorina suggested the other day that California file for bankruptcy; that is legally not possible.

Business & government: Not the same fucking thing, damnit!!

"Major league asshole" ("Big Time!") Nagourney takes Chuck D. to the bridge:

Mr. DeVore has been unsparing in his attacks on her.

“She has some personal wealth — but she was fired from Hewett-Packard,” he said. “She only voted six times in her life. She has a condo in Georgetown at the Ritz-Carlton that is 13,000 square feet bigger than my house — and she confessed she got it with the golden parachute money she got when she was fired. These sort of flaws will be played up significantly by Boxer.”

Mr. DeVore may be the wild card in the race. He has won the backing of an influential conservative political action committee created by Senator Jim DeMint, Republican of South Carolina. And his candidacy will offer a test of the strength of the Tea Party movement in this state. A poll taken in California in January found that 70 percent of Republicans had heard of the Tea Party movement, with 52 percent of them identifying with its ideas somewhat or “a lot.”

But Mr. DeVore, who is known as Chuck, is struggling to raise money, and remains barely known by most Californians. He said he was hopeful that as his profile rose, he would draw a wave of Tea Party contributions from across the country.

“This is eminently winnable for all three Republicans,” Mr. DeVore said of the Boxer race, “but I would argue, counterintuitively, that I am the most dangerous threat. Because I am the guy who is the toast of the Tea Partiers.”

Hasn't been an actual right-wing wig-case Sen. from these parts since S. I. Hayakawa (1977-83) & he was as much a wig-case, period, as a knee-jerk right-winger; like Reagan in his gubernatorial campaigns, he parlayed the media coverage he received in those turbulent '60s into a Senate term. (What's w/ linguists, anyway?) Boxer's seat has been held by a liberal Dem since 1969, but that (See Govs. Reagan & Schwarzenegger.) like everything we've typed here, doesn't mean squat, the political/electoral future being unknown. It's Magic 8 Ball® time.

And we are curious about those T.P. people. Will independents & Libertarian/Constitutional Partiers change registration (Note to self: See what the primary rules are this time around, Mr. Big Shot Know-It-All Political Pundit.) to vote for the toast? Are the "I want my country back!" voters even going to be noticed in the exit polls?

Our suspicion/instinct/straight-from-our-aging-colon assumption is that a good percentage of the dissatisfied white guys over 40 who like to be on tee vee in crowds don't vote very often (Presidential elections, probably, but not necessarily the primaries) or obsessively vote for Ron Paul types. Blather & poll until the cows have all been slaughtered & shipped, but if they don't show up on primary day & show us all, we'll know they've given up on change w/in the system & are probably busy stockpiling guns & ammo for the impending civil war/apocalypse. Can't wait a whole three months for that.