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Comment by _delirium | Hacker News Reader

What's odd is that they didn't even win more than other Republicans in Silicon Valley itself, let alone elsewhere in the state. If you look at the numbers for Santa Clara and San Mateo counties, they did no better than non-tech Republicans (30-35%).

I don't think they're good examples of how a "silicon valley candidate" would do, though. They were both candidates who were popular in the business world but didn't resonate in Silicon Valley at all; Fiorina was actually actively unpopular with engineers. So you can't necessarily draw conclusions from this result to how a candidate that SV saw as one of its own would be perform.

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I was a bit surprised by the demographics. I knew Fiorina was unpopular locally over the way she ran HP, but thought she ran a much better campaign than Boxer and that she would do rather better outside the Bay Area than she did - but I wouldn't be surprised if she ran again.

Conversely, I thought Valley folk might overlook Whitman's (reputedly) abrasive personality in favor of a fairly successful tenure at eBay, although her campaign was a disaster on wheels from the start. Spending $140 million of your own cash only to be decisively rejected...ouch. For that much she could have just bought Somalia or something, their entire budget last year was about $11m.

I think Whitman might've done better in the Bay Area if she hadn't tacked as much to the social-conservative right in the Republican primary (or had successfully backed away from that in the general election). Supporting Proposition 8 probably cost her a few points in the region just by itself. On the other hand, not supporting it probably would've sunk her in the primary.

I wonder why she ran with the Republicans at all. She could have run as an independent; plenty of California voters are equally annoyed with both parties' poor legislative and administrative record.

I agree; an independent would probably do well here. It's hard for someone to get through the Republican primary without destroying their chances in the general election.

California likes pro-environment, socially moderate to liberal candidates. Conservative economic and fiscal positions wouldn't be a handicap if you could avoid pandering to oil companies and anti-immigrant and religious zealots.

Good point. She was one of the rare candidates who can actually afford to take on the two parties as an independent.

Third-party candidates can't have Presidential ambitions. Not being a major-party candidate would hamstring her credibility in a national campaign.

Ross Perot made a reasonable fist of it; the only major obstacle is money. Of course, an independent candidate won't have the political network necessary for effective governance, but even that could be spun into an asset; if she had won the governor's spot and performed with reasonable competence that would have sold better than any partisan merit badge.

I don't think that getting heavily defeated at the polls outspending your opponent ~5:1 and changing positions repeatedly is much good for her national credibility either.

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