Carly Fiorina “90% Certain” She Will Run For President

Carly Fiorina seems to be inching close to a Presidential run for some reason.

Carly Fiorina

Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina seems to be inching closer to a Presidential run:

Carly Fiorina, a former Hewlett-Packard chief executive, said her chances of running for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016 are “very high.”

Speaking on “Fox News Sunday,” the 2010 California gubernatorial candidate said she is “higher than 90 percent” likely to enter the race, with an announcement coming in late April or early May.

Fiorina said she could appeal to voters with a “deep understanding of how the economy actually works, having started as a secretary and become the chief executive of the largest technology company in the world.”

She added that she has relationships with “many of the world leaders on the stage today” and that she understands executive decision-making, as well as how to change large bureaucracies for the better.

Discussing the economy, Fiorina said the government has “tangled people up from a web of dependence from which they can’t escape.” She also said the government is “crushing small businesses now.”

Fiorina, of course, previously ran for office in 2010 when she challenged Senator Barbara Boxer in a race that was, in no small part, funded by Fiorina’s own personal fortune. While it seemed for a time that she might had a chance of unseating Boxer, she ended up losing by some 1,000,000 votes in a year where Republicans won nationwide, including in states such as Illinois and Pennsylvania that have been traditional Democratic strongholds. If she does enter the 2016 race,  Fiorina would have the advantage of being the only woman in the Republican field since it seems unlikely at this point that prominent female Republicans like Nikki Haley or Susana Martinez will be entering the race. For that reason alone, she’d likely get more media attention than a candidate in her position would otherwise, but it’s unclear whether that’s going to be of much held to her in a year when there are going to be several far more more prominent Republican officeholders and former officeholders in the race ranging from Jeb Bush and Scott Walker to Ted Cruz and Rand Paul. Fiorina would probably be able to easily differentiate herself from these candidates, but it seems unlikely that would translate into votes, volunteers, and campaign donations.

At this point it’s hard to judge Fiorina’s level of support since she has not been included in nearly any of the polls of the Republican race, however it’s likely that if she were included she would be polling at the bottom of the pack along with potential candidates such as Bobby Jindal and John Kaisch. Trying to break out from that position is likely going to be next to impossible. In addition to lack of name recognition and her low position in the polls, Fiorina’s candidacy would also likely have to deal with questions arising out of her time as Hewlett-Packard’s CEO, which many observers at the time considered to be largely unsuccessful. Since she has no political experience beyond running for office six years ago, her business record would be the sole basis that voters have to judge her on, and there seems to be plenty to question there.  Potentially, Fiorina could be seen as a Cabinet Secretary in a Republican Administration or perhaps, as a long shot, as a Vice-Presidential running mate, but I think you can put her chances at actually winning the nomination as being somewhere between slim and none.

In any case, Jazz Shaw and I interviewed Fiorina for Politinerds earlier this year, and here’s the interview:

FILED UNDER: 2016 Election, Science & Technology, US Politics, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Doug Mataconis
About Doug Mataconis
Doug Mataconis held a B.A. in Political Science from Rutgers University and J.D. from George Mason University School of Law. He joined the staff of OTB in May 2010 and contributed a staggering 16,483 posts before his retirement in January 2020. He passed far too young in July 2021.

Comments

  1. Crusty Dem says:

    I think you can put her chances at actually winning the nomination as being somewhere between slim and none.

    And slim left town. Minuscule would be far too optimistic.

  2. Grumpy Realist says:

    ?!!!
    (Carly must be really bored. And a masochist. Only explanation I can see as to why to do this.)

  3. CSK says:

    @Grumpy Realist:

    Marketing herself, a la Palin and Cruz?

  4. anjin-san says:

    It’s not complicated, she’s a raging narcissist.

  5. JohnMcC says:

    As minuscule as her chances obviously are you have to realize that she’d be running against the Repub field of contenders. Hell, my crazy neighbor who flies the gadsden flag doesn’t seem to be much less likely than Sen Cruz as a future Commander in Chief.

  6. SC_Birdflyte says:

    It ought to be very interesting when her GOP opponents drag out the matter of the platinum parachute she got when she was evicted from her job at HP.

  7. OzarkHillbilly says:

    She already knows what ails our economy: Too much porn at work.

    I can’t wait.

  8. Slugger says:

    Has anyone done a sabernomics type of analysis of CEO’s ? How does Ms Fiorina compare to Mr. Trump?

  9. Tillman says:

    Perhaps she’s betting on some sort of viral moment to give her momentum that she can then smartly manage into some sort of viable…

    I dunno. Aside from her chromosomal makeup, what distinguishes her from the rest of the field?

  10. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @OzarkHillbilly: My apologies. It is only Federal gov’t workers who watch too much porn at work. The hits just keep on coming.

  11. Kari Q says:

    I’m trying to figure out what her slogan will be:

    I’ll do for America what I did for HP!

    Because America doesn’t deserve anyone better!

    I may be incompetent, but I’m not as crazy those guys!

  12. al-Ameda says:

    I tend to agree with those who speculate that she’s fishing for a cabinet appointment in the next Republican administration.

    Based on her record as CEO at HP I’m not sure she can run as a successful executive. And .. this is hard to believe, but Carly makes Mitt Romney seem overly warm by comparison.

  13. wr says:

    When she ran for the Senate here, she managed to go from “Carly who?” to “I hate that woman — get her off my TV” in record time… I wonder — who does she imagine her constituency is?

  14. Ron Beasley says:

    @al-Ameda: She got the job at HP because of the supposedly great job she did as CEO of Lucent. As it turned out her success at Lucent turned out to be smoke and mirrors and she actually ran it into the ground before doing the same to HP.

  15. Jenos Idanian #13 says:

    I see two possibilities, and they’re not mutually exclusive.

    1) She’ angling for the veep slot.

    2) She’s the designated attack dog for Hillary.

    Hell, she could focus on Hillary and, if she does a good enough job, parlay that into the veep slot from the eventual nominee.

    “Like Hillary Clinton, I too have traveled hundreds of thousands of miles around the globe,” Fiorina said. “But unlike Hillary Clinton, I know that flying is an activity, not an accomplishment.”

    I find myself curious to hear what Fiorina might have to say about Hillary just completely wiping her e-mail server totally clean. That could be entertaining…

    One possibility: she could explain what would have happened to her if she had done something similar with an HP mail server when she was CEO…

  16. Jim Henley says:

    James buried the real weirdness. John Kasich is thinking of running for president? Good god why?

  17. HarvardLaw92 says:

    I’m 90% certain nobody will notice (or care).

  18. Liberal Capitalist says:

    The headline writes its own response, but I am too occupied watching the season finale of The Walking Dead to actually say anything snarky.

    As one who usually torrents the episodes, I’m getting a kick out of watching the commercials. Looks like there are some serious geek movies coming in the next few months.

    “Fear of the Walking Dead” coming this summer… also, too. 🙂

  19. wr says:

    @Jenos Idanian #13: “One possibility: she could explain what would have happened to her if she had done something similar with an HP mail server when she was CEO…”

    Possibly she only would have been given $45 million as a parting gift instead of 50.

    Say, what was the subject of that dissertation you wrote for the LSE? Your other sockpuppet has declined to name it, so please feel free to jump in.

  20. wr says:

    @Liberal Capitalist: From a West Coaster — thank you for not spoiling!

  21. Paul Hooson says:

    How would Carly Fiorina manage the United States? – Let’s look at how she managed HP. She made extensive use of outsourcing to India and China. HP stock declined 50% in value. 30,000 HP workers lost jobs….And further, Carly Fiorina can not outsource the work of The State Department to some Indian boiler room phone bank operation…

  22. Grumpy Realist says:

    @wr: those who like to look at ads about demented sheep?

  23. gVOR08 says:

    @Slugger:

    Has anyone done a sabernomics type of analysis of CEO’s ? How does Ms Fiorina compare to Mr. Trump?

    Who was the better Stooge, Larry or Curly?

  24. gVOR08 says:

    @Jim Henley:

    John Kasich is thinking of running for president? Good god why?

    I live in Ohio. I’m all for anything that might get him out of Ohio.

  25. gVOR08 says:

    @Jenos Idanian #13: I actually agree with Jenos. She’s running for veep. She thinks she’s prefect because she has a vagina. Same reasoning as the GOPs who thought Herman Cain was perfect because he cancelled the supposed advantage Obama had by being Black.

  26. Jenos Idanian #13 says:

    @gVOR08: She thinks she’s prefect because she has a vagina.

    Well, that seems to be Hillary’s strategy, and it’s worked for her…

  27. bill says:

    @anjin-san: compared to hillary? really?
    at least she can beat the “war on women” nonsense.

  28. al-Ameda says:

    @bill:

    at least she can beat the “war on women” nonsense.

    More like:
    at least she unlike Sarah Palin has probably read books and can handle a Katie Couric interviewcan beat the “war on women” nonsense.

  29. anjin-san says:

    @Jenos Idanian #13:

    When Hillary was in the Senate, even Republicans admitted that she was very smart, very focused, and very hard working.

    It’s a small man that can’t give credit where credit is due. You of course, are one of the smallest.

  30. Surreal American says:

    @anjin-san:

    It’s a small man that can’t give credit where credit is due. You of course, are one of the smallest.

    If the trolls around here were any smaller, they’d be battling basement-dwelling spiders over breadcrumbs.

  31. Jay says:

    Because running HP into the ground is *excellent* preparation for the presidency.

  32. Jenos Idanian #13 says:

    @anjin-san: When Hillary was in the Senate, even Republicans admitted that she was very smart, very focused, and very hard working.

    It’s a small man that can’t give credit where credit is due. You of course, are one of the smallest.

    She was very smart, very focused, very hard working, and achieved… just what, exactly?

    NASCAR drivers are very smart, very focused, and hard working. And at the end of the race, they’re right back where they started. The spent several hours literally going around in circles.

    Ted Cruz has been in the Senate for four years, and shut down the federal government. (Well, not by himself, and for an extremely liberal definition of “shut down the government,” but he’s still given the credit for it.) Hillary was there twice as long. What did she do?

    She spent four years as secretary of state and logged about 1.3 zillion air miles are America’s chief diplomat. And we’ve got worse relations with pretty much everyone. Great job, Hillary.

    And now we find out that that she wiped that e-mail server clean. What a shame — now she’ll never be able to prove her innocence. Now she’ll never be able to prove how she’d made so sure that no classified or confidential or restricted documents were stored there. Oh, well, we’ll just have to take her word for it. Good thing she has such a sterling reputation for forthrightness and honesty and candor.

  33. KM says:

    @Jenos:

    prove her innocence

    *sigh* And this is what wrong with America today, young man. The phrase is “prove her guilt” and that’s your job, not hers. In America, the innocent do not need to prove anything and we assume all are innocent until proven guilty. From the Founding Fathers, no less. This is American Civics 101.

    You don’t get to change that because you can’t stand the woman.

  34. Barry says:

    @SC_Birdflyte: It ought to be very interesting when her GOP opponents drag out the matter of the platinum parachute she got when she was evicted from her job at HP.”

    That probably won’t hurt her much. She’s of the nobility, and deserves everything that she gets.

    Remember that Cruz is a Princeton/Harvard Law grad, and his wife is basically a made woman in the biggest and most powerful financial Mafia family on the face of the Earth. The Tea Party still loves them.

  35. Barry says:

    @Paul Hooson: “And further, Carly Fiorina can not outsource the work of The State Department to some Indian boiler room phone bank operation…”

    Why not? Heck, the GOP wants to outsource US foreign policy to Tel Aviv…

  36. Jim Henley says:

    @Jenos Idanian #13:

    NASCAR drivers are very smart, very focused, and hard working. And at the end of the race, they’re right back where they started. The spent several hours literally going around in circles.

    Ted Cruz has been in the Senate for four years, and shut down the federal government.

    Talk about ending up right back where you started! I mean seriously, even if you think shutting down the federal government was a good idea, I notice that it opened up again within a couple of weeks. So the end result was – nothing.

  37. Jenos Idanian #13 says:

    @Jim Henley: A good point. So does that mean no more howling about how Cruz shut down the government, because it didn’t really affect anything?

    A better point would be to find something Hillary Clinton achieved between 2001 and 2013. Just a couple of things she made better during her 8 years in the Senate and 4 in Foggy Bottom.

  38. Jenos Idanian #13 says:

    @KM: *sigh* that was sarcasm, you senile old fart. Let me spell it out for you.

    When most people destroy evidence, it’s an admission of guilt. Hillary, who declared that she didn’t want to use more than one device, has talked about her Ipad, Iphone, and Blackberry, wiped her server clean so it couldn’t be examined. (Or, more likely, directed it be wiped — I can’t see her having the savvy to do it herself.)

    Nixon didn’t wipe the tapes. More fool him — he might have got away with it if he’d pulled a Hillary and just got rid of the evidence.

    Oh, and on that server she wiped? The work of her private intelligence network, run by Sidney Blumenthal, among other things.

  39. anjin-san says:

    @Jenos Idanian #13:

    Ted Cruz has been in the Senate for four years, and shut down the federal government. (Well, not by himself, and for an extremely liberal definition of “shut down the government,” but he’s still given the credit for it.) Hillary was there twice as long. What did she do?

    So wasting 24 billion dollars of taxpayer money in order to advance ones career is your idea of achievement?

  40. Jenos Idanian #13 says:

    @anjin-san: So wasting 24 billion dollars of taxpayer money in order to advance ones career is your idea of achievement?

    I dunno if I’d put a $24 billion price tag on Hillary’s 12 years in career — that’s $2 billion a year — but if that’s how much you want to say it was that much, I won’t argue with you.

  41. J-Dub says:

    John Kerry had his chance. Dressing up in drag is not going to fool anyone.