Carly Fiorina: The Overview
Widely considered the finest speaker at the recent G.O.P. Debate, Carly Fiorina has since gone up in the polls. However, some of her success may be largely thanks to deception and exaggeration. Though dancing around the truth is both a commonality and often times a necessity in politics, Ms. Fiorina should still be exposed for the falsehoods she has immortalized as of late. Furthermore, a trend must be noted in most of Fiorina's recent arguments; she contradicts herself frequently.
The Pros
Granted, there are many qualities of Fiorina's that lead me to believe that she would be a good leader. She has taken responsibility for her actions regarding the downfall of Hewlett-Packard under her supervision and she has plenty of experience engaging in foreign affairs. Additionally, after losing a child to drug addiction, she knows about hardship and overcoming adversity.
The Cons
On the topic of personal campaign funding, Ms. Fiorina believes that money and pompous attitude do not a politician make; she recently made a presumed jab at Donald Trump regarding his elitist nature: “Leadership is not about how big your airplane or your helicopter or your ego is" (Corasaniti). Though I appreciate her step away from the world of economic supremacy, many argue that Fiorina is too wealthy to fully understand the adversity that real working class Americans face (Peck).
Lastly, despite having every reason to embrace her position as a woman in power, Carly Fiorina rejects feminism in its purest form. This can be defined as defending the equality of women and equal rights for the sexes. As a matter of fact, Fiorina has remained out of touch altogether for much of her campaign; she seems aloof and rather ignorant regarding the continuing struggle for women's' rights. On the contrary, Ms. Fiorina has been under fire for comments she has made concerning Planned Parenthood. It was proven that she lied about the contents of the famed "Planned Parenthood video," likely in order to justify her strong opinion on the subject. To make matters worse, even after it was revealed that Fiorina had exaggerated and lied about the video's true footage, she continued to make the same claim at each of the stops on her tour through the state of South Carolina.
Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/tom-perkins-carly-fiorina-rich-vote_56003c54e4b0fde8b0cf1754
Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/carly-fiorina-planned-parenthood_560aeac0e4b0af3706de3d62
2 comments:
While I don’t believe that Carly Fiorina was the worst CEO in history, her business history does make me question her ability to run a country. I admire her “rags to riches” story as she moved quickly from a secretary through the ranks and eventually became the CEO of Hewlett-Packard. She was one of the first women to obtain this high of a position; her rise to second in the presidential polls is almost like deja vu to this and to her 2010 race against U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer. Even then she was a brilliant speaker with the ability to breakdown complex issues. This helped her kill it at the GOP debate last week. Ms. Fiorina focuses on her secretary-to-CEO journey and her struggle through breast cancer; both of which are no small tasks. However it also important to look at the 30,000 H-P workers who lost their jobs during her time all while she continued to receive her luxurious CEO “perks” which included a private jet. I believe that the last thing the United States needs is a greedy president; there's already too much debt. One laid off employee complained that “she shipped our jobs off to China and India”. I know that this is a cheaper way, but their are thousands of people who are homeless in the United States that need those jobs. I believe it will be harder for Ms. Fiorina to win the campaign while she is “on defense” about her business history. Despite this, in recent weeks some of her former employees have come forward in support. It has become a new topic that she was not fired because she was “unsuccessful” but that she was fired in a “boardroom brawl”. I respect that she has taken responsibility for her actions; however her competency for the presidential position is still up for debate.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/30/politics/carly-fiorina-california-campaign/
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/09/30/politics/carly-fiorina-california-campaign/index.html?eref=edition
When judging if Fiorina can be trusted, I think it's important to look at what her peers think of her, such as business leaders in Silicon Valley, where she once worked as the HP CEO. Fiorina likes to compare herself to Steve Jobs, as someone who made mistakes but returned to the business world as an icon. I think that, like Claire said, her greedy past, including a clause in her HP contract to ship her 52-foot yacht from the East Coast to San Francisco, is noteworthy in determining whether or not she would be a good president. A Wall Street executive, Steven Rattner, even went as far to say that her “lack of public service or sustained business success makes Mrs. Fiorina unqualified for the nation’s highest office.” A Yale professor, Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, deemed her "one of the worst technology CEOs in history." The thriving startup community of Silicon Valley is unimpressed with Fiorina's ex-CEO title. They especially don't agree with her promise to roll back net neutrality stance against patent reform. Silicon Valley is disappointed with her inability to address the problems the technology community faces, one that she was once a part of. Her reputation as a past CEO of a massive company is no longer impressive to the new generation of CEOs. While I respect her story, I don't trust her actions and doubt that her greedy tendencies would have changed. I also do not agree with her stance on Planned Parenthood and her argument that so heavily depends on the infamous yet questioned videos, as Hannah said. As a woman, I don't see why she would want to do away with an organization that does so much for women's health care.
Sources:
https://www.yahoo.com/politics/so-what-does-silicon-valley-think-about-carly-164258538.html
http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-fiorina-keeps-getting-more-extreme-20150927-column.html
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