A Whitman Sampler

Perhaps one of the more amusing quotes about the Republican presidential primary race came last weekend in a comment about Carly Fiorina,the former head of Hewlett-Packard before being fired and who ran for the U.S. Senate in California based on, I guess, her experience being fired from H-P, for which she was roundly defeated by Barbara Boxer.

Addressing Ms. Fiorina's campaign, CNN was told, "I just think literally having some experience in politics is probably an important criteria for the highest office in the land.  I think it's very difficult for your first role in politics to be president of the United States. I think having experience in the Senate or as the governor of a state is really important. It’s just hard to be dropped down in Washington, D.C. never having experience in politics before.”

Making this all amusing is that the speaker was Meg Whitman.

You see, among Ms. Whitman's credentials is that she is currently the CEO of Hewlett-Packard, hired by them six years after Carly Fiorina had run the company into the ground when they were still struggling on life support.

But that's not all.  Because among her other credentials, the very same election that Carly Fiorina ran her losing campaign for the Senate in California, Meg Whitman was running on the very same Republican ticket, attempting to become governor -- and losing, getting pummeled by Jerry Brown by 13 points.

So, it's fair to say that Meg Whitman knows a great deal about Carly Fiorina, her career and life overlapping a good deal.  There are some differences, of course -- for one thing, she wasn't fired by H-P.  And for another, she actually had major corporate success taking eBay from a start-up into a phenomenon.

To be fair, Meg Whitman is not unbiased in her opinion, no matter how well she knows Carly Fiorina.  At the moment, she's supporting Chris Christie, though in further fairness, one wouldn't think that that "support" is a significant factor on her opinion of other candidates given his 2% position in the polls and missing out on making the "main debate" in the next GOP debate, relegated to the "kid's table."

But what I find most amusing is that for all the attention that was put on Meg Whitman's comments about Carly Fiorina -- the reality is that they hold spot-on valid for the two currently-leading GOP candidates.  if I had begun this article by saying that she had been talking about Donald Trump, or Dr. Ben Carson, her quote would have held just as true:

"I just think literally having some experience in politics is probably an important criteria for the highest office in the land.  I think it's very difficult for your first role in politics to be president of the United States. I think having experience in the Senate or as the governor of a state is really important. It’s just hard to be dropped down in Washington, D.C. never having experience in politics before.”

​One would think that that is eminently obvious.