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Comment by hugh3 | Hacker News Reader

Y'see, this is why I don't like these sorts of discussions. Suppose Fiorina were a Democrat instead of a Republican. Would you be writing the same thing (s/Republican/Democrat/), or would you be defending her?

Maybe you would be writing exactly the same thing. Maybe you're a paragon of political detachment. But in the fraught political climate of the day, I the reader am left to suspect that most people's opinions on the matter are severely coloured by whether they personally wish to see a Republican replace a Democrat in next week's California Senate election.

This is why I don't think this article is conducive to good discussion and have flagged it.

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Sorry, but I disliked Fiorina way before it was cool.

I would dislike her regardless of party, for the way she destroyed HP culture and turned my friends at Compaq into bitter, insecure husks of human beings. (Those that haven't been fired by now, anyways) The fact that she's actually running for office on that record is just the icing on the cake.

The arsenic on the cake.

I worked for HP when she was the CEO. I hated her then, and will hate her to my dieing breath. It doesn't matter if she calls herself the "free beer and pot for everyone" party candidate, I would stil hate her.

I could post a Great Wall of Text(tm)(r) explaining why she was a rotten CEO, and it wouldn't be anywhere near as polite as the linked article.

Finally, I have never met a person who worked at HP who actually liked what she did to the company. I'm sure there are some, but at the facility I worked at (in Colorado Springs), there were none that I met.

I said back in the day HP should have hired Catherine Keener just to play the CEO, and I was right.

I think in Fiorina's case, the dislike in the tech industry for her trumps political parties, at least on places like HN. It's possible there are people who would suddenly like her if she had run in the Democratic primary instead of the Republican one, but I don't think such people would be very numerous in silicon valley.

I'm not sure that the exact same discussion would be had if she were a Democrat, but not because people would be giving her a free pass.

The Republican party makes it a major plank to support large business and to support issues that benefit the wealthy/large, while making less-than-indisputable arguments as to why the decisions benefit the rest of the company. Thus, her tenure at a large business is quite relavent to her viability as a Republican candidate, while it's less relavent (though certainly still important) to her viability as a democrat.

I agree. I'm far from considering myself a democrat (I hate both parties pretty much equally), but aren't most of the "experience is totally out of left field" politicians Republican?

The Gipper

Arnold Schwarzenegger

Clint Eastwood

Carly Fiorina

George W Bush (his main claim before governorship, other than genetic, was running a baseball team)

Who else?

Sarah Palin - sportscaster

Sonny Bono

Shirley Temple (yes really - she ran for office, didn't win, but was chosen as a diplomat)

On the Democrat side there is… who? Hillary Clinton? But she actually majored in polisci and law, which is a traditional path. Al Franken is odd but he was a political humorist. And he graduated from Harvard with a degree in polisci.

In fact, though I looked, the only Democrat I could find who fit the bill was Jerry Springer. Yes, that's Gipper-level weird.

Ronald Reagan had a long lead-up to running for Governor of CA and eventually President. Sarah Palin did the mayor => governor path that happens a lot. GWB did a lot of behind the scenes work in Bush I's White House which followed a pretty normal political path. Clint Eastwood ran for mayor in a pretty normal fashion.

Some of it is Democrat's looking for inexperience or Republican's trying to be seen as "outside the system", but it is a pretty normal path taken by pretty much everyone listed. It matches the Democrats on about an even basis. Look at the actual paths of people and not what the media tells you.

For example, The last election had both top spots as Senators with no executive office experience in a lower rung of government. This is generally not good when you know that neither had done a budget cycle from the executive prospective (e.g. mayor, governor). This lack of experience, probably lead to some of the problems seen with the federal budget cycles.

// I do believe the same probably would have been true of a McCain admin even with a VP that had been through it as a mayor and governor.

I dunno about anyone else, but I was anti-Fiorina way back when she was advising McCain. At the time, I supported McCain due to his position on torture [1], but having Fiorina as an adviser certainly made me think he would be less than effective.

[1] The other candidates on my radar at that time (Hillary, Rudy) were pro torture, McCain was against. Sad to say torture has become an electoral issue.

McCain did not oppose torture; he opposed the uniformed military engaging in torture. He was fine with CIA officers torturing people in military facilities assisted by military officers. See http://balkin.blogspot.com/2008/02/senator-mccain-is-against... for more information.

The article you quote does not agree with the content of your post. McCain's quoted statement claims that the Military Commissions Act (supported by McCain) already requires the CIA to treat prisoners humanely and forbids torture. Regardless, this is way off topic.

Well, I don't like these sorts of "what if the shoe were on the other foot?" comments.

A person's motives for writing both unknowable and immaterial, and I find speculation on the matter annoying. If someone makes a good case, they make a good case. I don't care if the devil himself told them to make it.

Well, Fiorina-bashing was a sport in the Bay Area long before she stepped into the political ring.

Maybe a better question would be what if the Republicans had run a different candidate with a track record of success in business? As it happens, they have, but there hasn't been much in the way of discussion on HN about Meg Whitman (and I'm not inviting anyone to start one, btw).

I agree completely. This site should be about hacking and startups, not about politics.

"EPIC FAILURE"

-- Does it matter what side of the fail table she sat on?

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