I kind of wonder if this is going to a big night for Carly Fiorina. Fiorina has the second highest net worth of any GOP candidate this cycle, and possibly the second biggest ego. The media is just itching to make her the new “grown up” establishment Republican candidate.
What was her Senate candidacy like in 2010? I remember the demon sheep ad but that’s about it.
pacem appellant
A big nothingburger. You didn’t miss much.
boatboy_srq
… but you gave away the things you loved,
And one of them was HP
dmsilev
She won the primary (which is when the infamous ad aired), and lost the general by some hilariously large margin.
As far as I can tell, her resume consists of being the COO of Lucent, where she supposedly told engineers not to spend any effort on that new-fangled Internet stuff but to keep focusing on regular phone switching gear. She followed that up by being CEO of HP, pushing through the disastrous merger with Compaq and getting fired because of that and other issues, and finally flaming out in a Senate race.
The GOP’S ‘deep bench’, ladies and gentlemen.
jo6pac
H-P lays off another 30,000 in the coming months. Good job carly;)
schrodinger's cat
Not that he is much to look at himself, but Trump was right about her face. She was quite striking before, I have no idea what she has done to her face. Too much Botox, or botched cosmetic procedure?.
Elizabelle
She’s a mean girl and she can say mean things about Hillary and Democrats that will especially resonate. Cuz she, too, has a vagina. Wingnut logic.
She’s a poised public speaker, never mind if what she is saying is accurate or not.
She was a CEO. That must mean she’s smart and good at what she does.
Cervantes
@dmsilev:
She lost 42-52, to Boxer.
Could have been worse.
beltane
@schrodinger’s cat: We’ll see if her face improves. Botox fades with time, a permanent reconfiguration will not.
geg6
@Elizabelle:
Based on what I’ve read, you are assuming facts not in evidence. My conclusion is that she was okay at what she did at Lucent, enough that she made a good hire for anyone looking to promote a woman. But was completely out of her depth as CEO at HP. Just completely out of her depth.
Cervantes
@geg6:
“Facts not in evidence”? It was sarcasm.
pacem appellant
@schrodinger’s cat: I disagree, but biiteotb. I find her face lovely (then and now). She’s still despicable, but this isn’t Richard III; ugly and evil don’t have to go hand in hand anymore.
Roger Moore
There wasn’t anything else worth remembering.
Elizabelle
Carly weren’t no community organizer. You had to pay her — and big — to make her show up.
Also to make her go away.
Strangely, I lived in California in 2010 and have no memory of her campaign. Don’t even remember voting for Barbara Boxer, although I’m sure I did. (Regrettably, my congresscritter was Dana Rohrabacher. Gag.)
I was just excited to get to vote for Jerry Brown! Whee!
Here’s wiki on the California 2010 US Senate election.
Barbara Boxer trounced Fiorina, 52.2% to 42.2%.
Who remembered that Mickey Kaus was candidate in the Democratic primary?
VOR
I remember watching CNN during her Senate race. The pundit stated her base of support was in Silicon Valley, of course. I have yet to meet anyone who was in the IT industry during her tenure at HP who has a positive view of said tenure.
Brachiator
It was a non-event.
One of her biggest boosters is another political loser:
And she is as weak a presidential candidate as she was a senate candidate:
Selling herself as a business savvy outsider just doesn’t ring true.
http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2015/05/04/did-carly-fiorina-2010-defeat-in-California-leave-lasting-lesson-for-2016-president/
burnspbesq
@geg6:
Subsequent history can be read as suggesting that nobody can actually manage HP, i.e., that it’s gotten too big and unwieldy and should probably be dismembered.
lefthanded compliment
Fiorina’s Senate campaign wasn’t what you’d call memorable, but I think “utterly incompetent” pretty much sums it up.
kindness
Carly was the Republican candidate that made every Democrat happy. She (her campaign) was that inept. Demon Sheep is all that really had any legs.
jl
@pacem appellant: I agree. So pointless not much to remember about it except a couple of so-bad-it’s-good political ads. She really has nothing to say, not enough content to even notice much, let along infuriate people, which was Whtiman’s innovation in the campaign, the more she dominated the media with her unlimited corporate cash, the more people disliked her.
Edit: underneath the polish, truly a Giuliani-esque empty suit.
Elizabelle
@geg6: Sorry, geg, that was snark, and not snarky enough, apparently.
Being a CEO is not a guarantee of anything these days.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@lefthanded compliment: I’ve been assuming she’s poison on a national ticket because of 20,000 ex-HP employees ready to film “Carly ruined my life” commercials that would put the ads on Romney and Bain in the shadows. Did Boxer run ads like that?
AliceBlue
@schrodinger’s cat:
Her face is definitely odd–at certain angles she appears not to have any cheekbones. The fact that she always looks like she’s been sucking on a lemon doesn’t help.
NotMax
Said it before, but shall again.
Fiorina is living proof that money can buy harpyness.
glory b
Hypocracy alert!!
Am i mistaken or did Carly give a bunch of jabs about B. Boxer’s hair, clothing and general appearance?
geg6
@AliceBlue:
This.
geg6
@glory b:
You are correct.
JaneE
I have seen very little of her campaign, but she gets bonus points for not always spouting the talking points sound bite. She gives the impression that she has actually thought about something instead of regurgitating the party line. I don’t particularly agree or like what she says, but she sounds original. I don’t expect anyone from HP to vote for her, and touting her “experience” in business will not play to any but the vulture capitalist crowd. And she may come across as too intelligent and thoughtful. Things that would help her in the general, but are the kiss of death for the GOP primaries.
boatboy_srq
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Better add the million or two VAR employees, certified engineers and other professionals who had to give up the NetServer (one of HPs best products) for the ProLiant, just to get crushed in the marketplace thanks to the hardware maker’s missteps.
dedc79
There’s this from a while back:
The short and deservedly cynical take is that the GOP and their voters gets “credit” for considering a female candidate. They point to Fiorina and say “See, we don’t have an issue with a woman running for President. We just have an issue with Hillary running for President.” Same issue explains Carson’s current popularity (ETA: although there the compare/contrast is with Obama, not Hillary). They’re ok with him as long as he stays in second place.
joel hanes
@burnspbesq:
HP [had] gotten too big and unwieldy
Usually you’re more insightful.
HP wasn’t big and unwieldy before Carly; it had several clearly-defined businesses in which it was and had been the best in the world for a decade, several more where its excellent products were contenders for that title, and some fading intiatives that needed to be pruned (minicomputers, e.g.).
What made HP big and unwieldy and provoked the crisis was the decision to buy Compaq and to go up against Dell in low-margin commodity mass-market Windows PCs, just at the point at which the last things that had once made Compaq a great company had been killed or abandoned. That was one of Carly’s big initiatives. The other involved changing the legendary HP culture, to stop treating the rank-and-file workers as collaborating stakeholders and to begin treating them as disposable.
May she rot in hell.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@glory b: indeed she did, but it was totally different
another question for Californians: Didn’t the polls going into that Boxer-Fiorina election suggest a much closer race than it turned out to be?
Germy Shoemangler
@Elizabelle:
GOP logic: “You want a goil? We got a goil! Carly!” And then all the wimmens are suppose’ to line up to vote for her.
Marc
@Cervantes: 2010 was a republican wave year. You had to be a loon or run a terrible campaign to lose…of course, CA is pretty blue now.
Mike J
Fiorina doubled revenue at HP. Of course she cut profits to one third of what they were before she took over too.
Doug R
I was reading somewhere else that the best way to take trumpet down was to pick him apart sarcastically like the President did at the correspondents dinner. Does she have the wit though?
mai naem mobile
@Elizabelle: I don’t.think Boxer did much to run up the score.
I’ve made comments about Fiorinas looks before. She looked fine before. I don’t know why she had work done. She kind of had a Glenn Close/ older version of Emma Thompson thing going on before. Now she looks like a botched plastic surgery victim. I’m proud of Californayeh making GOP business related candidates dump a bunch of money in losing candidacies -Fiorina/Whitman/Kashnkari/Issa/Huffington and a couple of others I’ve forgotten names of.
sigaba
@dmsilev: To Carly Fiorina we owe one great business innovation: whenever you’re at Office Depot and you find yourself spending $30 on a cartridge containing $0.0005 worth of ink, you can thank Carly for that. She did that. That’s her great contribution to the American tech sector.
shortstop
@NotMax: You know, I’m no fan of Fiorina’s, but could you find a disparaging adjective for her that isn’t totally gender-loaded?
Elizabelle
@boatboy_srq: Well done, boat. Well done.
Germy Shoemangler
@sigaba: did she also invent the “You’re Out Of Ink!” alert that alarms when the cartridge is three-quarters full? Wouldn’t surprise me…
KG
@joel hanes: from what I’ve gathered she tried to change the HP way first – make it more corporate/B-School approved and centralized. the Compaq merger might not have been a terrible move from a business standpoint, but it was borked 18 ways from Sunday when executed.
Jeffro
Sorta OT but not completely: maybe Carly can help address President Obama’s complaint that the GOP candidates are unpatriotic…
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/obama-patriotic-talking-down-america
Is that eleventy-dimensional trolling or what??
Amir Khalid
@Elizabelle:
I remember Mickey Kaus’ fringe candidacy for the US Senate. Chiefly for the time he set up a debate and couldn’t get Barbara Boxer to show up, so he debated a cardboard box instead. (Geddit, geddit?)
equs_1776
Maybe she could do something good for once by slicing up Trump a bit: ‘So HP stock dropped 60% in a recession, you cut yours by 95% in a boom and then went bankrupt, but you made out Real Big. Is that what you are going to do to this country!?’ “I don’t hire or fire by looks or gender’. etc etc. Not much chance, though
Elizabelle
@mai naem mobile: I totally forgot about Fiorina. She made no impression on me.
I just remember Meg Whitman, who was challenging Jerry Brown for governor in 2010, and wondering what it was about these Republican women from the tech world.
Brown won, 53.8% to 40.9%, so nominally Whitman performed worse than Fiorina did.
Although I came away thinking Whitman was a LOT more competent than Fiorina, in the business world at least.
KG
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: here’s the wikipedia list of polls in the general. the spread was hovering around 4-8 points in the last month.
sigaba
@Germy Shoemangler: “Our market research tells us that consumers find it more convenient to buy a new ink cartridge after the current one is only one-quarter used. It saves them valuable travel time and helps them avoid running out at an inopportune moment, which is liable to happen considering our cartridges can only print like 20 pages…”
American capitalism in a nutshell.
mb
I think when Trump gets through with Fiorina, she’ll be bleeding out of her whatever.
joel hanes
@mai naem mobile:
I don’t.think Boxer did much to run up the score.
IIRC, Boxer completely ignored Fiorina for the first half of Fiorina’s campaign, and barely bothered to campaign at all, even in the weeks before the election. It wasn’t needed — Fiorina’s negatives were too high, and her campaign was repellent to anyone not both authoritarian and already part of the socioeconomic elite.
NotMax
@shortstop
Sure, but at the expense of the wordplay.
Lighten up, Francis.
joel hanes
@Elizabelle:
I came away thinking Whitman was a LOT more competent than Fiorina, in the business world
Low bar.
HP (now under Whitman) announced that they’ll be laying off another 35,000 not-executives Real Soon Now.
Anoniminous
@joel hanes:
This.
KG
@Elizabelle: Whitman took eBay from 30 employees and $4m in revenue to 15,000 employees and $8b in revenue in 10 years (1998-2008). that’s more or less post dotcom bubble bursting, so yeah, she’s definitely more competent than Forina.
Baud
Anyone else concerned that a Fiorina presidency will entail a greater use of PowerPoint slides at the state of the union address.
mclaren
Everybody remembers the demon sheep.
That’s Carly’s problem. She’s going to be the demon sheep lady until the day she dies.
Betty Cracker
There may be an mainstream media effort afoot to fluff Fiorina. I heard an NPR puff piece on her yesterday while driving. It extolled her bravery for taking on the male-centric corporate culture at AT&T in the early 80s. One example is that she insisted on joining male colleagues at a strip club because the client they were wining and dining in that manner was her client too. There were sound clips from admiring former colleagues and mentors, that sort of thing.
bystander
If you’re inclined to be sympathetic to Carly because Trump so brutally pointed out Carly’s homeliness, let’s remember Carly’s 2010 schoolyard comments about Boxer, as HuffPo reminds us:
“God, what is that hair?”
Why is it I can’t resist the trainwreck? PBS has a special on the anthropologists who unearthed the huge cache of humanlike bones in South Africa on at the same time.
mclaren
@KG:
No evidence of that. Pierre Omidyhar said a baboon could’ve run ebay.
shortstop
@KG: I’ve been entertained of late by a tea party acquaintance who keeps dissing the “RINO Senator from California, Meg Whitman,” for “continually voting with the Dems.” This cracks me up endlessly. I can’t bear to correct him.
trollhattan
@Elizabelle:
Yeah, she’s well prepped for sounding like the smart mean girl in the midst of the moron sausage factory so I expect a bump. And I don’t doubt she can attract massive dough should she come out in the clear, but if her personality is unchanged from her senate run she’s a horrible excuse for a human being.
But she’s literally called Hillary “a liar” so she’s got cred with the anybody but Hillary crowd.
bystander
@Betty Cracker: Because nothing says integrity like going along to get along.
trollhattan
@shortstop:
Have they suffered some kind of brain injury? How can that be somebody’s substitute for reality?
“This person who wasn’t elected to an office she never ran for is disappointing me in her non-job.”
KG
@shortstop: heh. might break his heart to find out there are no republicans elected statewide in California.
trollhattan
@mclaren:
And at HP all she seems to do is split off chunks of the company and fire chunks of the workforce. “Winning!”
Cervantes
@shortstop:
That’s funny.
Elizabelle
@Amir Khalid: Be interesting to see how many California residents remember the Kaus candidacy! He did pull 5% of the primary vote total.
Calouste
@Doug R: I doubt Fiorina as any kind of wit like the President has, but I think it doesn’t even matter. To take down your opponent with wit in the eyes of the audience, you have to have an audience that has the smarts to recognize, understand, and appreciate the wit. Insults on the other hand fly with the GOP audience, like Trump calling Bush3 “low-energy”.
Cervantes
@NotMax:
Twice is enough, perhaps?
Brachiator
A reminder of the unreliability of early polls (from 2010):
trollhattan
@Betty Cracker:
Heard that piece, plus a promo for ANOTHER Fiorina piece this morning (which I didn’t hear). Her handlers and bookers are everywhere at the moment, it would seem.
jon
I’m sure the timing of this story is 100% coincidental. Either every other GOP candidate will use this to hang her, or IOKIYARB (B being for Businessman/woman.)
I think the zeitgeist of the moment is that it will be used to hang her.
Eric U.
the problem with ebay is that there is a natural ceiling to what you can do while still treating your customers like dirt. That has been reached. At least Whitman saw that coming and bailed. I always thought that HP was a great company, but the likelihood that it wouldn’t be ruined by management was rather low. Fiorona just made it happen sooner rather than later. Best case would be something like Microsoft, where they are bumbling along making money but trying/failing to find new markets. It’s more than a little annoying that the core business of test equipment didn’t keep the HP name. But there are some really nice instruments that haven’t been updated in decades. That never would have been the case in the heyday of the company.
mai naem mobile
@sigaba: if that’s true she’s an idiot and should not allowed near a cabinet position forget the presidency. The first couple of home printers I got were HP and I switched to Canon specifically because of the cartridge cost. I use an old workhorse HP BW LaserJet now that I found at a FDIC bank closure auction. The generic cartridge is like $125 but I get a gazillion copies out of it.
Elizabelle
@bystander: Yeah, the NOVA show looks good.
And TCM has Jean-Luc Goddard’s “Breathless” at 8.
Only good thing about watching the debate is discussing it with you all in real time. Otherwise, it’s painful to see people lie so fulsomely, and say what terrible shape our country is in. Could always be better, but we are so lucky to have Obama and the Democrats.
Dog knows the GOP has not learned anything new, and now their base has kinda figured that out. Which makes them lie and bray and say even more outrageous things.
What will MSNBC do during their airtime, since they can’t cut to a Trump event, as they are prone to do now? Constantly.
jl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Other commenters who responded agree with my memory. it looked l ike a closer race than it was. Boxer in the Senate has always had relatively low poll numbers than make her look vulnerable, then she has a narrow but steadily increasing lead during the campaign, and wins easily.
Interesting that Meg Whitman is now running HP, and from a business report I heard last night, not doing much better than Fiorina at it. HP has never recovered from the very ill advised merger.
Joel
@Brachiator: Cook, NY Times, Rasmussen, and RCP looked pretty dumb on that one.
Although to be fair, Rasmussen and RCP are partisan outfits.
NotMax
@Cervantes
Okay, even this geezer can take a hint.
But still, if the shoe fits…
trollhattan
@joel hanes:
Same thing with Jerry and Whitman–folks were going nuts because Jerry did nothing while Whitman was running up and down the state at mach speed, shooting money out of cannons at anything that moved. This went on for months on end. Jerry basically pops up at about 11:30, waves and says, “My name is Jerry, I’m running for governor, a job I’m familiar with and love, and I’d like your vote.”
It was glorious.
Peale
@Brachiator: Was Survey USA the company that Kos used to hire who they had to get rid of? I think it was 2009 and Kos was still tracking Obama’s approval rating. Their tracker was always 10-15 points higher than everyone else’s and it turned out that that the company seemed to be providing the numbers the readers wanted.
Baud
@Elizabelle:
During the last debate, they talked about the debate as it was happening.
jl
@trollhattan: Whitman had an odd habit of insulting parts of the state that were most likely to vote for her. She was a horrid candidate who seemed to piss more people off every time she opened her mouth.
I think there are some very good, much more moderate women GOPers in California who would do better statewide. Maybe Ashley Swearengin, Mayor of Fresno (speaking of places that Whitman insulted). But I think she is a Schwarzenegger style moderate (Edit: hence considered a commie and Marxist who utters forbidden words and thoughts) and would never get much backing from state GOP for gov or US Senate.
I don’t understand why messes like Fiorini or Whitman got backing.
Edit: specifically to your observation, I think Brown saw what a total hash Whitman was making of it, so he laid low and in effect let her do his campaigning for him.
JPL
@Baud: Chris Hayes is going to have Ahmed Mohammed on.
also.. I haven’t seen Ahmed mention the White House visit, but he did comment about the MIT invite. That’s his dream school
Baud
@JPL:
Well, that’s cool. Score one for MSNBC.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Just saw John Harwood, who I think is one of the better Beltway political reporters, talking about tonight’s debate and his interview with Florin. All the talk was about Trump, and was she going to take him on, and was Jeb? also going to get tough, and….
meanwhile the chyron below their heads quote her as saying “one nation can’t make any difference in climate change”. Which applies to the upcoming talks in Paris… how?
ETA: so that means she acknowledges climate change exists, and is a problem, and the nations of the world should do something to make a difference? I think that sets her apart. I’ll bet a penny it comes up in the debate.
shell
But three frigging hours PLUS the kiddie pool debate earlier…who in Gods name has the strength.
FlipYrWhig
@Brachiator: WHY CANT SHE SEAL THE DEAL ALAN CRANSTONS BONES SHOULD RUN INSTEAD
Mary G
@trollhattan: Yes! I remember Meg just saturating the airwaves and mailers constantly for over a year, then right before the election Jerry popped up with one TV ad that was just clips of Meg saying something followed by clips of Arnold saying exactly the same thing in almost the same words. The tag line was something like “that didn’t work before, it wouldn’t work again,
vote for Jerry” and he won running away. It was hilarious.
ETA: Link
Elizabelle
Wonkette had a link to the Demon Sheep ad.
Which was deployed against primary opponent Tom Campbell. (One charge is that Campbell failed to sign Grover Norquist’s pledge, while depicting Carly Fiorina’s signed copy. That looks oddly good for Campbell, in retrospect.)
Demon sheep appears about 2:20 of a 3:30 video.
Another very strange thing about this ad: it’s got sheep (masticating, falling off a pedestal), hogs (penned up), white people, white people, and more white people.
There is one black woman maybe a minute in, as a “typical voter” — blink and you miss her, and one young Latino guy. Otherwise: it’s all white people, and I noticed that on first viewing. Very, very strange for California.
Fiorina’s face never appears.
Very, very odd ad.
Baud
@shell: I doubt even God has the strength.
jl
@Mary G: Arnold’s popularity was down the crapper around the time of the campaign. Whitman should have known to distinguish herself from him. Instead she seemed to think she should run on his legacy, beside saying things that pissed off locals wherever she appeared.
Betty Cracker
@Mary G: Also, remember how Whitman walked right into a tar pit with one ad extolling the virtues of the California of yesteryear, when she arrived to make her fortune, and Brown pointed out that HE was governor then? LMAO! I enjoyed that a continent away!
trollhattan
@Mary G:
Thanks for the trip down memory lane. What a devastating ad; I shuddered at least twice watching it again.
Elizabelle
@Mary G:
Pretty good article from the NY Daily News, of all places, that makes your (and others’) point about Whitman spending and spending, Brown having to hold his fire (because much less cash), and taking her on at the very end, very effectively, when voters had tuned in.
Bit of a typo here (of several zeroes), but you get the point:
earlier in story:
trollhattan
@Betty Cracker:
When they debated Whitman had some statement about how law enforcement supported her because of her tough record on crime. Wha?!? She also supported the death penalty because we were running out of room at San Quentin’s death row and she didn’t want to pay to build a second.
Amir Khalid
The CNN prme-time debate will be three hours long? That works out to about 15 minutes airtime for each of 11 candidates. I doubt any of them has more than two minutes of content to offer.
Keith P.
I think there’s actually a halfway decent chance tonight that The Donald blurts out “Angry Bitch Face” at some point while explaining the Fiorina dustup. Then he’ll shrug his shoulders and go “WHAAAAAAaaatttttt??? It’s a figure…of…SPEECH, folks.” Epic pile-on.
Baud
@Amir Khalid: I’m surprised the RNC agreed to it. That is a really long time.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
OT: Just listened to Luke Russert’s report on the bill for 9/11 responders’ health care that Jon Stewart is lobbying for. Little Lord Luckysperm said the bill is ‘controversial” because of “fiscal conservatives”. The word “Republican” was never used. He did point out that Jon Stewart first “lended” his support to this cause five years ago.
Mike J
@Elizabelle: My preferred translation of the last line is the least literal, but works best in english
SPOILERS for a 55 year old film
M Life’s a bitch
P What did he say?
Cop He said you’re a bitch.
bystander
I’m watching MSNBC’s coverage of the campaign to make 9/11 first responder healthcare funding permanent. Why is it that none of them, not Carolyn Maloney, not Jon (Both Sides Do It) Stewart, and not the responders’s spokesmodel/rep, can say just who it is who is blocking the funding?
Elizabelle
Isn’t the debate two hours, 9 to 11 Eastern time? Think there’s an Anderson Cooper show after it, and then a rebroadcast shortly after 1 a.m.
Unless plans have changed. That’s what my telly schedule says.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:@bystander:
Because it’s not Democrats blocking the funding.
trollhattan
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Ugh, that’s lame even for him. Piling the pie deeper, or somesuch.
Elizabelle
@bystander: Yeah. It’s ridiculous when people cannot place the responsibility where it lies.
It’s Republicans in Congress.
Not Congress.
Low info voters would understand that, if it were repeated again and again and again. As inaccurate info is broadcast again and again and again on Fox.
Prob why the corporately owned media does not do it. Thumbs on the scale for Republicans. But it just frustrates Democrats, and the GOP base has realized what jackholes the GOP elected officials and establishment are even without the media pointing that out.
BGinCHI
Trump is just jealous that her boobs are smaller than his.
What? Too soon?
Elizabelle
@Mary G: Thank you for that link.
Devastating ad.
jl
@BGinCHI: There going be a swimsuit competition at the beauty pageant tonight. Whew… glad I will just be listening.
trollhattan
@BGinCHI:
When I see Fiorina I don’t see the wrinkles she’s suddenly bragging about, I see a character from Gilliam’s “Brazil.”
BGinCHI
@jl: Swim suit was Perry’s only shot. Too bad he’ll miss out.
NotMax
@Elizabelle
May be that the separate show with the ones who didn’t make the cut of 11 airs directly beforehand?
BGinCHI
@trollhattan: Genius.
She only lacks the hat.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Elizabelle:
Republican primary ads out here tend to be very, very odd. See if you can find the Neel Kashkari primary ad from 2014 where he fires off a gun to show he loves guns. AND HE GOT THE NOMINATION.
Even worse, he actually was the least repulsive Republican running. At least one was a militia member.
Elizabelle
@NotMax: Could be.
Forgot about the kiddie pool.
What’s in that one, Graham and Gilmore and Jindal?
HumboldtBlue
@trollhattan: I had to cover Whitman more than once and I will give her this — she was able to appear warm and engaging up close and personal. However, her primary strategy revolved around pointing out how awesome Texas was doing under Perry and shitting on California.
Then Jerry shows up ready to pounce and everyone was like .. “how is he so prepared?” because they forgot he had been cooling his heels and honing his outstanding political craftmanship by being the Mayor of Oakland, a job as hopeless and futile as any staff position in the Rubio campaign.
NotMax
@Mary G
Vaguely recall some articles about how Whitman had so oversaturated the airwaves, well past the point of diminishing returns, that people were shouting “Make it stop!” whenever an ad popped up.
Kay
I think they’re going to promote Kasich because he wants to privatize Social Security yet isn’t a loser like Christie.
But I just focus on Walker and Kasich. I don’t have the energy for all these other people.
NotMax
@Elizabelle
Read somewhere that Gilmore didn’t even make the cut for the B-team show.
Baud
@Kay: I believe it. MSNBC was gushing over Kasich and Rubio last time, so I’d imagine tonight will be no different.
Elizabelle
@NotMax: I do not understand what Gilmore is doing in the race, at all. Doubt he could even take a state race in Virginia. Maybe a very, very local one.
Is a puzzle.
Cervantes
Does the article say how much the unions spent on Brown’s behalf?
(I’m glad they were able to — but the fact is, they did.)
Baud
@Elizabelle:
He’s their Chaffee. Or is Chaffee our Gilmore?
NotMax
Will Huckabee be wearing a shirt (or perhaps a tie) emblazoned with a photo of Kim Davis?
KG
@jl: Swearengin and Faulconer (the mayor of San Diego) have been the names popping up as potential gubernatorial candidates in 2018. the interesting thing is, they don’t really need the party support anymore because we’ve switched to an open primary system. I actually wouldn’t be surprised to see the general election for the senate next year be between two Democrats. It’s going to happen statewide at some point, and none of the Republican candidates right now seem plausible statewide. of course, there’s been pretty much no polling yet, so who knows?
Peale
@Baud: I would think he’s this cycle’s Buddy Roemer…but then I actually liked Buddy. Is there anything likeable about Gilmore?
Baud
@Peale: I thought the one and only criteria for running for the GOP ticket was to be unlikable.
NotMax
@Baud
Chafee is our Pataki.
Lessig might be our Gilmore.
Baud
@NotMax: Lessig has a purpose. It’s a lame why to promote his cause, but I understand why he’s in it. Pataki and Gilmore — no clue.
HumboldtBlue
@Cervantes:
Unions and Jerry Brown go back a long way. Politifact reported on a Whitman ad back 2010
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud: I’ve said this before, but Kasich was Tweety’s original man-crush, before the Codpiece, before Fred Thompson and his Aqua Velva, there was Kasich. A couple years ago, I think before he announced for OH gov, Tweety had him on as a pundit, paired with Joan Walsh. Katich was revving up his sonofamailman schtick to argue for austerity, and Joan Walsh pointed out that he was very recently a high paid employee of Lehman Bros. You couldn’t hear Kasich shouting her down because Tweety was doing it louder.
Kay
@Baud:
I have to watch or they’ll exaggerate and I won’t know. It might be worth it for Rand Paul. I watched his Senate debate. He’s not a “maverick”- he’s just an extremely cranky individual. The overall effect you get is “this person is irritated that he has to be there at all”.
Elizabelle
@Peale: He’s not George Allen.
trollhattan
@Elizabelle:
Colbert offered a woman in the audience a hundred bucks if she could name a candidate (Gilmore) from head shots of all the Republicans. She couldn’t, nor could I. “Who?”
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I’m sure there was someone before Kasich as well.
@Kay: He’s not the man his old man was. Sigh.
Elizabelle
@Cervantes: No. Union spending or unions as a factor at all never addressed in the NYDN article.
goblue72
@trollhattan: @HumboldtBlue: Contrary to perceptions elsewhere in the state, Jerry actually scored some big wins while Mayor of Oakland – in particular, his “10K Plan” to bring 10,000 new residents to downtown Oakland proved to be a powerful piece of political framing to get developers willing to build in Oakland. He and his staff managed to push through a huge number of planning approvals for development deals, in a City bureaucracy known for being the epitome of sclerotic. In particular, the Uptown section of Oakland is unrecognizeable today, being one of the hottest bar/restaurant/live music areas in the Bay Area. San Franciscans actually voluntarily come over here now on weekends.
Amir Khalid
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
My own response to that is probably the same as yours: “Fuck that noise. America owes them everything.”
Lord Baldrick
I was working in HP Finance during the Failurina era. One early move of hers was to kill off HP’s Profit-Sharing plan in lieu of a plan that saw her take home a bonus of over 400% while rank-and-file dropped from 7% to 1.5%.
She also used the Compaq event to force out a lot of old HP folks in favor of Compaq people. We called it the Compaq acquisition.
A genuinely mean-spirited person.
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Oh, they adore him. Did you hear what he said about Social Security? Bush couldn’t privatize because he wasn’t bipartisan enough. Kasich will “meet with Democrats”. Swoon. All of Morning Joe just fell in love. I was with the county Democrats all day Sunday and I asked “are you worried about Kasich? and the chair said “no, she’ll think of something” meaning Hillary. Think of something? Like what? Vince Foster him?
boatboy_srq
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Clearly not a gifted speaker…
trollhattan
@KG:
Kristen Olson can go on the list, perhaps Ling Ling Chang as well. Several up-and-coming Republican women in the state.
trollhattan
@boatboy_srq:
A grifted speaker, perhaps?
Baud
@Kay:
Wouldn’t she have to sleep with Kasich first?
(I hope I’m not getting my “scandals” mixed up.)
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Amir Khalid: Yup
@Kay: I suspect/hope that Kasich is enough of a true believer, unlike his latter-day imitator Paul Ryan, to ride privatization all the way to losing thirty states, including Ohio, should he make the general.
boatboy_srq
@trollhattan: Only if he found it here.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Kasich is very practical and Marco is oh so dreamy.
Kay
@Baud:
I always thought that part was tawdry. I just went with murder. The other is none of my business. She doesn’t need a motive anyway, as you know. She’s inherently evil.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
We could make Clinton scandal refrigerator magnets and pre-write columns for Fournier, MoDo and the Nooners
Larryb
What was cool about it was that it was the same year another former CEO, Meg Whitman, went up against Jerry Brown for Governor. Having 2 candidates widely viewed as running vanity campaigns at the same time, and having them both crater so spectacularly, was pure comic gold. Their campaigns were so lavish that the snark was that between them they saved the california’s catering industry from the worst effects of the recession. It was a bright spot in an otherwise gloomy 2010
boatboy_srq
@BillinGlendaleCA: Sounds like the makings of a fine marr- oh, wait…
Elizabelle
@trollhattan: Only reason I could ID Gilmore is living in Virginia.
LOL. I guess most of us are political junkies, and can name these a-holes. The general public is luckier there, are they not?
trollhattan
@goblue72:
From memory, his biggest scalp as AJ was nailing Countrywide Mortgage for predatory lending. Was settled after the geniuses at Bank of America acquired Countrywide’s corpse (which I still don’t understand).
goblue72
@jl: Meg also had deep pockets and Jerry was playing a keep his powder dry strategy in terms of media buys. His campaign did get it into gear, but not until after – as you note – Queen Meg wasted a lot of money.
Plus, Jerry is a powerful S.O.B. in California Democratic machine politics. He didn’t go from Mayor of Oakland to re-Governor. He was the state Attorney General when he ran for the Governor’s office – AG being an office he also barely had to lift a finger to win & that was basically given to him. He’s hooked up tight with all the big power brokers in the state Democratic party. Dianne Feinstein officiated at his wedding, after all. During the primary, Gavin Newsom (Mayor of San Francisco) and Antonia Villaraigosa (Mayor of LA) had announced early they were running for Governor. Jerry announced late in the primary season, farted, and Gavin & Tony quickly dropped out.
On the other hand, as good a job as Jerry has done managing the state’s finances, he hasn’t been that great on actually solving some of the BFD challenges the state has. He’s obsessed with his legacy – and the shadow cast by his dad, Gov Pat Brown – such that he’s far too taken with wanting to leave behind a BIG infrastructure project for the state – hence his love affair with High Speed Rail which almost everyone else in the state now accepts is just a white elephant. He’s been unable to pull together a deal between Big Ag in the valley and the Greens on the coast for a water deal – and he seems completely tone deaf to the housing affordability crisis that is just killing working and middle class families in the coastal job centers (Bay Area, LA, San Diego, etc)
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Kay:
The media adores Kasich, but he hasn’t got a chance in hell with Republican primary voters. Which is good for Dems, because he’s probably the only one of them who might be able to peel off a few “fiscally conservative” voters.
Baud
@Kay:
You’re a classy lady.
boatboy_srq
@Kay:
Makes you wonder why they’re so obsessed with the IslamoFascoSoshulism the Dems intend to inflict on the US when Dems are such agreeable squishes, doesn’t it?
CONGRATULATIONS!
Fiorina is going to end her campaign tonight. Not officially, but she’ll fuck it up beyond repair.
She’s going to try to make a big play, and she’s going to fuck it up and fall flat on her face, and this time there’s no place to “fail up” to.
She has done this same pattern of behavior with every single challenge in her life. That’s not going to change tonight.
@Betty Cracker: Gee, you think? Anybody but Trump, that’s what the media wants.
Elizabelle
@Larryb: $140 million buys a lot of catering. Funny.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@goblue72:
To be fair, Antonio and Gavin also had to drop out because they couldn’t keep their goddamned flies zipped. They could run against each other and neutralize that, but they can’t run against anyone who can throw that in their faces.
shortstop
@trollhattan: I know! I can’t get enough of it. I believe I’m going to start egging him on: “Did you see that Meg Whitman backed the Iran deal?” “Wow, I can’t believe Meg wants to increase funding to Planned Parenthood.” Etc.
jl
@HumboldtBlue:
” and shitting on California. ”
Whitman may or may not be able to appear warm and engaging up close and personal. That is a matter of personal style and taste I suppose.
But, that is what I meant by insulting people. She left places and people felt like her remarks were tantamount to shitting on them. She really pissed the natives off, which is a bad thing to do when you want to natives to vote for you in an election.
shortstop
@BGinCHI: Too soon after what? Has he been swimming in public and I missed it? PRAISE JESUS THAT I DID!
HumboldtBlue
@goblue72: Yes, I completely skipped over his AG stint. His time in Oakland was classic Jerry as you point out and the fact that high speed rail has died says a lot more about our national aversion to effective mass transit than to his dreaming of pipes.
He can’t pull together that water deal because he can’t override federal enviro laws and the biggest money men in the San Joaquin valley would rather suck their water tables dry and sink 100 feet than cut a deal with lefty-greenie-pinko-rats.
Also, the valley farmers have lost yet another legal fight to steal more water from our region and was pointed out to them once again in August, water contracts that were ratified in the past don’t get shredded because you built your entire existence in a semi-desert that just happens to contain some of the richest farmland in the world. So they are either going to have to build desalinization plants or those massive tunnels Jerry has backed in order to water their vast fields of alfalfa.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
A few months ago I thought his medicare expansion apostasy would be the end of him, now… who knows? I think Trump has scrambled all the eggs in the basket. I still can’t quite grok that Trump might win the nomination, but I think at this point I could imagine Jeb?, Li’l Marco, Kasich or Trump getting it.
I could see him winning over some tote-baggers, too.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@shortstop: I doubt that coiffe goes anywhere near water in public. I wonder if his stylist lives in?
Elizabelle
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): Did you like the PBS shows on Walt Disney? I missed a lot of the first, but loved the segment about Snow White.
Last night’s featured some Bambi footage — the hunters and his mother — and it hit so hard. First time I’d seen it since my own mother died. It was a knife. (Funny, didn’t even notice it much as a small child; I don’t know why that is. Could they have been showing an edited version in the 1960s or 70s?)
DVRd the shows, so I will watch them again, in full.
Elizabelle
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yes. Purity pony totebaggers will be a problem. I hope it does not come to that.
We need Obama out there, full strength, and as much as he can. Whoever the Dem is might have to be pulled over the finish line. Media in the tank; unlimited gazillionaire money for “uncoordinated” advertising. Hearing the Kochs are starting to look seriously at groundgame.
Baud
@Elizabelle:
Wouldn’t Sanders winning the nom have the same effect? If our victory depends on totebaggers, we are screwed.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@goblue72:
Also, we fucking *need* high-speed rail in this state. It’s a disgrace that it takes 12 hours to get from LA to SF by train, but only 8 hours by car.
Elizabelle
@Baud: I would not depend on totebaggers for anything.
This is going to be a hellacious election. Or not. Cannot tell at all, this far out. But I do not trust corporate America.
jl
@goblue72: I agree with your evaluation of Brown. He was a good mayor of Oakland and a good AG for CA. But he has not been good on some important social justice issues, or has not been very effective.
Brown seems obsessed with leaving record of fiscal responsbility, and has not done all that much about CA’s overly pro-cyclical tax revenue structure, so is just riding on the recovery to pile up his precious rainy day fund, and saying “Well, I’ve always been a tightwad’.
Not sure anyone can thread the needle of CA’s water problems, until some large institutional issues change, or (God forbid) drought continues a a real crisis emerges that forces a change. I hope that latter doesn’t happen, but given water’s status in state constitution, the state government could make big changes if it needed to, but powerful political blocs prevent anything from happening.
Baud
@Elizabelle: I don’t trust anybody. If it were only corporate America who voted against Dems, we’d be dominant.
bystander
@Elizabelle: Thanks. Color me unsurprised.
Jparente
@pacem appellant: Richard III was a victim of Tudor propaganda, cemented into place by William Shakespeare. There have been several recent documentaries regarding this subject. The case was laid out, anew, with the recent discovery of his Majesty’s body. I’m sorry that I don’t have ready references but a google search of Richard III should provide all the fascinating references you could enjoy.
I can suggest that you look up and read “The Daughter of Time” an novel by Josephene Tay. It is part of her series of detective novels and it is considered by many to be one of the greatest detective novels ever written. Josephene Tay wrote at about the same time as the great Agatha Christie.
In “The Daughter of Time” she re-visits the case of Richard III. She does it beautifully. It is a great read.
Enjoy!
jl
@HumboldtBlue: My understanding is that CA state constitution makes water a public resource that state can allocate to best public use, so state government can do pretty much what it wants. So, every challenge to drought legislation and reg action I have heard has gone down, except a couple that involve prop 13 (which I don’t think was around during the last really bad drought).
Jim, Foolish Literalist
When I say “tote-baggers”, I mean middle- to upper-middle class types who pat themselves on the back for being “socially liberal and fiscally conservative”, the kind of people who could tell themselves that Kasich isn’t one of those Republicans, that they’re voting for Deficit Reduction, not the capital gains tax cut.
I think DougJ coined the term, we need a ruling.
Kay
@Baud:
My eldest son is sort of contrarian politically. He votes for Democrats but he’s often opposite whatever the theme ‘o the election is. We email back and forth about politics. He told me he’s voting for Clinton because “she’s our Nixon”
I responded “our Nixon”?
He means this in a nice way- like she’ll get a lot done before they catch her at anything. I think it’s hysterical. The whole country is looking for “authenticity” and “not a career politician” and he’s looking for the Democrats Nixon- a ruthless and effective tactician :)
CONGRATULATIONS!
@jl: I saw her one and only presser. Her palpable rage at having to answer questions from the commoners was incredible. Her handler had to end it early. I’ve never seen another human being with that kind of a lack of social skills in my life, and I work with software engineers!
shortstop
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I think your assessment’s dead on. Purity ponies aren’t totebaggers; they’re the people hitting me in the head on the El with the backpacks they won’t take off even in a crowd.
(Yes, I often use a backpack myself in daily life, but try to be courteous about it.)
Origuy
@joel hanes:
I got some more information on the layoff. According to what Meg Whitman said, the cuts will be in Enterprise Services. Now, ES covers a lot of ground, but most of it was the old Electronic Data Systems, which HP bought in 2008. I never thought it was a good fit, because EDS did IBM mainframe services. Carly and Meg can’t get blamed for EDS, because it was a Mark Hurd idea.
shortstop
@CONGRATULATIONS!: I get the same vibe from Rand Paul, which really makes me giggle. You’re not within your dad’s insulated compound of slack-jawed sycophants any more, buddy; you’re a US senator, and you need to answer questions with some grace.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
OT: I made the mistake of wandering into a right wing twitter thread. Would anyone care to guess which of today’s political stories inspired this?
Baud
@Kay: If the GOP keeps hold of the house, I think they will try to impeach Hillary, so Nixon is an apt metaphor.
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
That is actually Kasich’s base in Ohio. It’s not that they’re “socially liberal” though. They just don’t care as long as he doesn’t talk about opposition to abortion a lot and embarrass them, or say anything racist.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud: I’m surprised Boehner’s been able to keep a lid on impeachment this long.
shortstop
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Muslim kid brings clock to school is my guess.
michael hiltzik
Since you were kind enough to ask, here’s some of my coverage from the LAT:
http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-non-californians-carly-fiorina-20150811-column.html
http://articles.latimes.com/2009/nov/05/business/fi-hiltzik5
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kay: one thing Trump is doing is shining a bright light on the class divisions in the Republican Party. Kim Davis, too, in a different way.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@shortstop: Yup.
jl
@shortstop: I heard on news Obama invited the kid and the engineering teacher to WH to show it off. I bet that is it.
Applejinx
Trump has one potentially great line against Fiorina, though it’s good and nasty.
If Fiorina manages to say anything really harsh that puts Trump on the spot, pretty much all he needs to do is pause, give her a longsuffering look (a ‘sheesh’ look), pause… and quip ‘Whatever’.
That’d kill with the audience. It would simultaneously imply that he didn’t care, plus anybody familiar with the previous debate would know he just called her a c**t without saying it. Such is the Repub primary audience that they’d probably go nuts, and he’d win the point. I’m tempted to try and bet that he’ll do it.
The great thing is, he himself will have set that one up, as he’s the one making the remarks about Megyn Kelly and it was his turn of phrase. It’s a perfect setup for stinging Fiorina with, and I think that might be intentional.
Heliopause
This kid’s table debate is hilarious. Not the candidates, CNN’s presentation of it. Professional wrestling is less ostentatiously stupid.
HumboldtBlue
@jl: It’s a lot more complicated than that. Both tribal and civic interests on the North Coast have agreements at the state and federal level that stretch back to the 1950s ensuring that our rivers are allowed minimal amounts of water every year. Repeatedly over the past decades central California farmers have sued to get more of that water and repeatedly they have been turned down (not without some setbacks for local stakeholders and not without some very close calls).
Granted, my very limited familiarity on riparian rights is extremely localized. There is a contentious Klamath agreement that has just fallen apart after the Yurok tribe pulled out. It seems the state and power companies were negotiating with Klamath (Oregon) farmers in secret in violation of the original Klamath agreement cemented in 2010 and updated in 2012. Congress has refused to act and now we are back to square one.
Don’t, I repeat DON’T get involved in California water politics.
trollhattan
@jl: This (water law) is in RanchandSyrup’s wheelhouse but there’s no California monolithic water authority. In fact before last year there was not even statewide monitoring of groundwater, just in select basins (Texas has more stringent groundwater regulation than California). Too, there’s federal water (CVP) State water (SWP) and senior rights holders who can to a large extent still say “fuck you very much.”
Driving home through the eastern San Joaquin Valley in late August, I was shocked at how much flood irrigation I was seeing, not to mention thousands of acres of newly planted orchards and vineyards.
shortstop
@jl: He did. He tweeted an invitation and to be perfectly honest, I did think there was a bit of trolling in that move. Not that I disapprove in any way whatsoever.
Tom F
Re: Fiorina’s Silicon Valley support during her Senate run – she lost statewide about %50-%40; lost in Santa Clara County (basically Silicon Valley) about %60-%30.
eemom
Rude Pundit is live snarking tonight’s shitshow! That is like the only thing imaginable that could possibly tempt me to watch.
Gian
@jl:
they are better at networking and infighting than leading. So they backstab, cajole, befriend and get to the top gig, and then when they have to rely on other skills, they flounder.
they’re not stupid, but they clearly feel entitled to positions beyond their abilities and will do whatever they can to get them. in some respects they remind me of the people who insist they have to pass traffic to be in front of the line, and then go slow when they get there
HumboldtBlue
@trollhattan:
That describes stakeholders up here.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@shortstop: I think it’s great, I will admit to even having been a bit moved by it. I think the “kid scientist” days at the White House has been going on a while, but Obama really seems to dig it. I also find myself wondering if/how this story, from the kid’s arrest to the WH invitation, is playing abroad.
reality-based
@geg6:
no – as someone who worked in ethernet switching, a field that Lucenty should have OWNED – she was NOT competent at Lucent. first thing she did at HP – lay off a BUNCH of engineers, hire a lot more marketing/PR folks whose job seemed mostly to consist of promoting Carly Fiorina.
Brachiator
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Well, let’s see. Obama was quoted as saying it was a nice day?
Because as near as I can tell, everything that Obama does upsets the permanently aggravated. He could do and say exactly what Reagan said on a similar occasion, and Obama would still be anti-American, anti-patriotic, etc.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
ISIS is thrilled that their plan to infiltrate the White House is working out so perfectly.
jl
@HumboldtBlue: thanks, I am not familiar with water law for CA indigenous nations at all.
@trollhattan: True. What is shocking is how little the state gov has done compared to what its constitutional powers are.
I am not so concerned about exact type of irrigation used, since whether flood or sprinkler is better depends on so many very local factors, like type of soil and even how the land is graded. All I know is that if the farmers are paying a hugely subsidized price, a lot of it will be wasted and that is bad.
But I agree with you about the new planting, I’ve heard from my Central Valley ag kin, that seems to be a big export crop investment boom right now. Very short run thinking, and some of it may be a scam, given how many projects are started, suck up huge amounts of water, and then get abandoned. Though I suppose it is good many of them do get torn up prematurely, by normal orchard standards. I don’t know enough to understand it well, but I know a lot of people are pissed about them sucking up water and being backed by huge financial investment operations.
VOR
@Origuy: true, but Carly tried to buy PWC to fill the same services role. IIRC HP offered $18B, which PWC turned down but then IBM bought it not long after for something like $3B.
Tyro
@burnspbesq: Except that it became too big and unmanageable because of Fiorina.
(One can argue that the “real HP” still exists in the form of Agilent, the electronic device and measurement company spun out of HP during Fiorina’s tenure)
Cervantes
@Brachiator:
I can’t imagine that.
Brachiator
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Check this out. Some absolutely great responses. I also think a number of tech blogs and podcasts are picking it up and laying the smack down.
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/sep/16/istandwithahmed-obama-zuckerberg-internet-rally-texas-student
Elizabelle
Betty’s put up a JV debate thread.
Spoiler alert: some commenters are not really watching the debate.
We’re like most of America, in that.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Brachiator: I was so angry when I heard that story, it makes me happy to see that.
Brachiator
@Cervantes: RE: He could do and say exactly what Reagan said on a similar occasion
Not really a point worth debating.
One thing that quickly came to mind was false outrage over Obama putting his feet on the desk in the Oval Office.
Horrors! Never been done before. No true president would do something so foul. That Obama is desecrating the White House. What? Darn you, google search.
shortstop
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I have no doubt at all that he’s sincerely proud of the kid, as he is of all the other young scientists he’s lauded and invited over. I just think there was some level of awareness that wingnut heads would explode. And I’m fine with that. The guy has fucking earned it with the crap he’s taken from these douchebags.
Jake the anti so shul soshulist
@KG: @Lord Baldrick:
That reminds me of something that happened at the company I worked for. The CEO of Corp WE, which I worked for, had previously worked for Corp WI. Corp WE later bought out Corp WI.
Within a year or two most of the upper management had been replaced by role from Corp WI. Which led people to say the Corp WI had bought WE with W’S money.
goblue72
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): You can get from SFO to LAX in an hour and fifteen minutes on Southwest – often for under $150 roundtrip if you avoid holiday and/or last minute purchases.
That’s why the general public may as a general concept be supportive of HSR but isn’t in any hurry to get out into the streets demanding it.
Turgidson
@jl:
I’ve noted this before, but Swearengin scares me as a statewide candidate if the state party can get the fuck out of the way and allow her to run without swearing fealty to all the odious litmus tests the GOP imposes on its candidates. She’s pro-high speed rail and makes as much sense on the topic as anyone this side of Jerry himself when discussing it. She hasn’t a doctrinaire wingnut moron as Mayor of Fresno and it’s worked out fairly well for her and the city, which is showing some signs of life thanks in part to a revitalization project she champions. Which has earned her the admiration of James Fallows, at least.
I haven’t seen her on the teevee too much, but she seems capable of coming off as the kind of interesting, non-scary Republican that this state sometimes has a soft spot for (see Ahnold).
I’d react to her winning a major statewide office in the near future with mixed emotions. On one hand, I prefer that no Republican win any race anywhere, ever, until the party has clearly and definitively demonstrated that it is no longer in the thrall of dangerous lunatics and angry plutocrats. So I’d be worried if the party shows it can win again in CA without undergoing that transformation first. On the flip side of that token, I’d have some (no doubt misplaced) hope that she is the canary in the coal mine, governs as a reasonable person I even agree with sometimes, and shows the party a better way.
The country is better off if the GOP follows an example like that. But there’s no reason to think they will any time soon. Their “intellectuals” like the “reformicons” are almost all preening frauds who offer the same old regressive, disastrous bullshit and want a fucking cookie for managing to speak in complete sentences without foaming at the mouth or biting the head off a live chicken. Long way to go yet with that pack of braindead jackals.
ETA – forgot to mention, if she runs against Gavin fn Newsom in the governor race in 2018, I’d be tempted to consider voting for her. Don’t think I’d follow through with it, but it wouldn’t be a complete 100% no brainer like usual.
jl
@Turgidson: Thanks for info. Her wiki bio says she is running for State Controller. Which might be her best path forward, get elected to an executive branch slot.
I think some sane GOPers in CA would be a good thing here. I don’t see how they could go anyplace nationally, as long as the crazy GOP base runs things in the primaries.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@goblue72:
It takes me an hour to get to LAX from Burbank, plus I have to arrive at least 90 minutes prior to the flight, so that’s already over 2 hours of additional travel time before I even get on the plane. I can catch SW from Burbank to Oakland with a little less trouble, but then I have to battle traffic to get to SF.
Having come from an area with good trains (Chicago suburbs), I really think the resistance is that people don’t get how much more convenient and comfortable trains are. It’s a failure of imagination.
yoodow
@KG:
Oh really?
You might want to read this about Nut Meg:
http://www.alternet.org/story/148629/how_meg_whitman_failed_her_way_to_the_top_at_ebay,_collecting_billions_while_nearly_destroying_the_company
Cervantes
@Brachiator:
Hadn’t thought about doing that.