People are Stupid: April 2008 Archives
Ezra Klein points out that it would be foolish for John McCain to tap Fiorina for Vice President:
97% of this company does not know that Fiorina was the CEO of Hewlett Packard, I guarantee it. The G.O.P. will make a big deal of her "success in business" and most of the public will probably just shrug and move on. Let's gloss over the fact that CEO skill sets and POTUS skill sets only overlap in very small areas -- it's true that a CEO has to play politics, especially with the board, but let's be real: the CEO can fire the CFO's ass any time he/she wants, and the CFO knows it. Such power never needs to be used, or have its use threatened; its just "out there", and it means that CEOs often have very direct means of getting things done -- it's all very Jean-Luc Picard-like -- "Make it so." Not only can the President NOT fire the speaker of the house's ass, he (or, in 6 months, possibly she) will usually have to spend a great deal of time kissing that ass to get things done.
But, getting back to my point, people won't care. It will be a news item, sure. But Ezra has said before that John McCain would be well-served getting a woman to run for V.P. because, let's face it, the man's a misogynist, and he's going to have enough trouble getting the female vote even with a woman running at his side. I think Fiorina comes with a lot less baggage than most candidates, given that Condie doesn't appear interested.
She's known solely to the universe of people who read The Wall Street Journal, and in no small part because she was publicly and controversially dumped from the company when the board of directors leaked a long memo taking issue with her performance and management style.Um, normally, I think Ezra knows a lot more about politics than I do. But Ezra's forgetting the People Are Stupid law here. Need I remind Ezra that George's W. Bush's record among that very same WSJ readership, who all presumably know that he was the CEO and owner of an Oil company that went bankrupt, and the owner of a baseball club that made money solely because it got taxpayers to pay for some land included in the purchase of the club, was never really a big stumbling block on the way to the white house for him? Why on earth should it be any different for Fiorina?
97% of this company does not know that Fiorina was the CEO of Hewlett Packard, I guarantee it. The G.O.P. will make a big deal of her "success in business" and most of the public will probably just shrug and move on. Let's gloss over the fact that CEO skill sets and POTUS skill sets only overlap in very small areas -- it's true that a CEO has to play politics, especially with the board, but let's be real: the CEO can fire the CFO's ass any time he/she wants, and the CFO knows it. Such power never needs to be used, or have its use threatened; its just "out there", and it means that CEOs often have very direct means of getting things done -- it's all very Jean-Luc Picard-like -- "Make it so." Not only can the President NOT fire the speaker of the house's ass, he (or, in 6 months, possibly she) will usually have to spend a great deal of time kissing that ass to get things done.
But, getting back to my point, people won't care. It will be a news item, sure. But Ezra has said before that John McCain would be well-served getting a woman to run for V.P. because, let's face it, the man's a misogynist, and he's going to have enough trouble getting the female vote even with a woman running at his side. I think Fiorina comes with a lot less baggage than most candidates, given that Condie doesn't appear interested.
