Carly Fiorina: Difficulties Everywhere for her

 

Carly Fiorina is  the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard. She was fired from that job in what she describes as a “board room brawl.” When she was forced out, the stock in the company went up 7%. It had previously dropped by nearly half during her tenure. Carly Fiorina is the former candidate for the US Senate in the state of California. Despite Sara Palin trying to help Fiorina win, she lost by 10% of the vote.

 

Carly Fiorina has been described as one of the worst high level executives of all time. It has been shown that before getting into politics, according to the Los Angeles Times in a report Fiorina herself said was true , she rarely voted in elections. She was apparently too busy being CEO in a tenure that caused her to be listed with America's worst CEOs by CBS. So one might think that having lost in politics, having been fired from business, she might just drop out of the public sphere altogether.

But no, Fiorina, still showing the tenacity that allowed her to work her way up the corporate ladder to become the first woman in history to lead a top-20 company isn’t letting anything stop her. She is running for president.

Some people don’t want to take her seriously, and indeed, her record of difficult circumstances, which some claim were made worse by poor leadership on her part, including the fact that about 30,000 people were laid off from Hewlett-Packard during her tenure will be major hurdles. However, presidents have overcome difficult or less than glamorous pasts before, most notably perhaps Abraham Lincoln, another man who had a difficult business past, and was himself a failed senate candidate, went on to become one of the most loved and most important presidents America has ever had.

Carly Fiorina

Fiorina on the other hand, interprets her tenure differently. She is open about being fired. But says that things happen. She also says that when anyone is fired at the top of a company, stocks begin to move. She defends herself by talking about the good things her company did, including the level of ingenuity, including eleven patents a day. As for the 30,000 layoffs, Fiorina says that she had to lay off some to keep the company alive.

 

Not only are the numbers bad for her on in the race for the Republican nomination, where, despite being the only woman in the field she consistently polls very far beneath the top several candidates. Having never held political office before is also a historical difficulty. No one has won the White House without holding office since Dwight Eisenhower.

 

Which means the only thing she will be able to fall back on, at this point, will probably be Hillary-bashing, the favorite sport of Republicans at the moment, and a litany of'I had a job, unlike all these young senators who went straight into politics.' (Fiorina is 60 years of age.)

 

As for what Fiorina believes, or what she will actually do if elected, well, the specifics on that will have to wait until its convenient for her to tell us. Although many may attack her for the lack of actual promises with numbers and data, specifics are always something lacking in any campaign. Politicians don't give to many in attempts to keep everyone happy.

 

Its hard to imagine a scenario in which the historically strong, diverse, and conservative field of 2016 candidates, with their strong support from younger voters, as well as the excitement that has drafted some, including Ben Carson, from private life into running, would break down so badly that Fiorina, another candidate beneath whom there is no groundswell, would be able to win.

 

For Fiorina, there is some daylight. As the only woman in the Republican field at the moment, she will garner headlines. But those headlines won't all be good, and for Fiorina, she is fighting  a war on too many fronts.

Andrew C. Abbott

You have the Right to Work

There was a time when little children would work an entire day, skipping school to do it, and only make 4 cents for their back breaking work. There was a time in America when men worked back breaking jobs for 12 hours a day, often in very unsafe conditions, just to get enough money to feed their families. There was a time in America when there were such tragedies as the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire in New York, in which over a hundred girls died because the managers had locked the doors on them so no one could leave the job and cost the owners money.

Of course, these abuses are things of the past. We don’t lock innocent girls in anymore and children don’t mine coal for 4 cents a day, at least not here. This is in a very large part due to the advent of the unions, those volatile, controversial institutions which have saved many a man and woman from harsh conditions, and caused many a capitalist to lose sleep at night.

However, for all the good unions have done in America, from the fields of California to the high rises in Chicago, they are a lobbying group. Not that lobbying groups are bad, but they are a lobbying group nonetheless.

In America, we have a long tradition of not forcing people to be in clubs or lobbying groups or anything they don’t want to be in. If you want to leave the nation all together, you are free to do so. And that is why forcing people to be a part of a union not only makes no sense, it is un-American.

But all the same, many states are non-right-to-work states. Either you are a member of a union in many industries, or you are out of a job.

In some states, such as possible Republican candidate Scott Walker’s, Wisconsin, have made their state right to work states-Which is completely logical. You have a right to a union. Nobody who was intelligent would say unions are themselves a bad thing. But if you can’t afford the dues, or simply don’t want to join one, you have a right to work anyway. (Yes, everybody has a right to work.)

For a long time I thought militant unions had an argument for why people should not have a right to work and not join a union. I had never heard it, and I was sure it was wrong, but I thought they must have something that they at least saw as rational, however wrong it was. But I have realized that the militant unions do not have a reason you should not be allowed to work unless you were one of them. The only argument is “it would hurt unions.”

Well that’s unfortunate. But I have a question that should be asked to anyone stomping their feet and shouting that everyone should have to be a part of a union. “Someone not joining the NRA would hurt the NRA, so shouldn’t we all be forced to join? They are a lobbying group, aren’t they?” Anyone making the argument that everyone should be forced to join a union might as well make the argument that everyone should have to, by law, join the NRA.

It probably won’t win the argument right off, but it might get somebody thinking.

Andrew C. Abbott

When the President disagrees with Democrats, and Republicans agree with Obama

The "free trade" zone

 

It used to be that when there was a “trade war” generally two European Countries that had little or no quarrel with each other, and barely even knew what they were fighting about, would fit out ships and guns, conscript men and outfit officers, and send them all out to some far corner of the world to fight a war that might last for months or years, and generally have little or no effect.

Fortunately, modern trade wars aren’t fought, for the most part, with guns, but with words. And the biggest trade war of words going on right now is actually a civil war, that is, a war among the Democratic Party. In a way it is tempting to say it is a war between the left, (President Obama) and the far left, (Elisabeth Warren) but would be making it too simple. Some far lefties (think Al Sharpton, no one has ever accused him of being rightist or moderate) stand with the president, in backing his trade agreement.

The trade agreement that it is all about if the Trans-Pacific-Partnership, and Elisabeth Warren and the other Democrats don't like it, while, apparently, the Republican congress and Mr. Obama do.

But, like the trade wars of old, we don’t really know what all the fuss is about. We don’t actually know what we are arguing about, because we don’t know what the Trans-Pacific Partnership actually entails. The talks, including more than a dozen countries have been going on for a decade, and have been secret all of that time. We know some of the things, or at least think we know some of the things, that are inside.

On his way out, the president is doing his best to
make his presidency worthwhile

For instance, it would create a humongous free trade zone on the Pacific Rim. To quote Rolling Stone “from Canada down to Chile, across to New Zealand, and up to Korea and Japan, by way of Australia, Singapore and Vietnam (notably excluding China).” All of that are would be a free trading zone suddenly.

But all the other stuff in it? Well we don’t really know, and the president isn’t telling us, despite Elisabeth Warren asking him to. We do not even know what exactly this massive "free trade zone" would even mean.

The agreement has yet to go to congress. Maybe it isn’t done yet, I don’t know, I don't think anybody outside of the White House and the other negotiators do.

But the president has asked for fast track authority. That is, the legislation will go to congress, and there it will be given a simple yes or no vote, in other words congress, if they find it is a great deal but it has a really bad clause they don’t like, can do nothing about it. They can only vote yes or no.

Republicans are all up for giving the president that fast track authority, so that they would be unable to amend the deal, only decide yes or no on it. Democrats are all down about it. And now, in a strict party-line vote, all Republicans voted yes, give the president fast track, and the Democrats nearly all voted against Obama. Enough of them voted no that, for the moment, fast track has been defeated.

I do not understand why. Not why the Democrats voted against the fast track, thus leaving congress with more power, what I do not understand is why this historically Republican senate voted yes. Our president has not, in the past, shown himself to be a genius at foreign policy, often times quite the opposite. The trade deal is certainly something-once it comes to congress-that should be looked at. But to give the president fast track is very risky indeed, and without leaving congress in control of its constitutionally given powers, could give us a bad deal.

Of course, fast track legislation is not yet dead. It lost this time, but at any time, with the Republicans in control, it could come up for another vote, and by then the president may have strong armed enough Democrats to give him the 60 votes he needs. That won't pass the agreement, which has not yet come to congress, but it would make it far easier to get through when it does.

For Obama, it is the 4^th quarter of the game, and the clock is ticking out. He is desperate to do something that will mark his presidency as having been worthwhile. So far, it hasn’t been.

Andrew C. Abbott

Huck's in

Mike Huckabee, another boy from the town called Hope, who learned to shoot before he could drive, who comes from a real rags to riches story, the former governor of Arkansas, and the former host of a show on FOX which I used to watch when I could, has announced he is running for president of the United States.

This is not the first time good old Huck has thrown his hat into the ring. The former governor, and 59 year old politician also ran in 2008, when he won Iowa, but after that was unable to go on to win the nomination.

Huckabee is pro-life without exception, and very conservative, but right at the beginning of his campaign I would point several things out. Firstly, he is running his campaign in an attempt to carry the Christian South, and the ultra conservatives. However, he seems to have forgotten that many Americans are no longer ultra conservatives, and although there are still many out there that are, and they may even be enough to carry him to the nomination, it is highly unlikely he could win in a general campaign.

He is much loved by some, however, he does not have the large following of younger voters, that the likes of Rand Paul and Marco Rubio have, nor does there seem to be a major grassroots campaign swelling up beneath him.

He has run into trouble, and rightfully so, when he attacked things the president's daughters were doing. Attack a man or woman all you want in politics, but people's families should always be left out of whatever debate you are carrying out. Although that issue is not likely to hurt Huckabee, it is a cautionary note to the rest of us.

At this point, Huckabee is just another name in the field, and not near top of it at any rate. He may do well, and he may win the nomination, but I sincerely doubt it. At any rate however, I wish him all the best.

Andrew C. Abbott