You gotta hand it to Carly Fiorina. Love her or hate her, you can’t help watching her Internet-only ad, and that’s what campaign ads are all about—getting eyeballs. Described as everything from an SNL skit to what would happen if the kid from The Omen directed an episode of Teletubbies, it’s already gotten 375,000 hits in Youtube, and the number keeps going up and up.
The ad is aimed against local guy Tom Campbell, another Republican, which can only leave people wondering what’s up Fiorina’s sleeve if she wins the race and takes on Barbara Boxer (possibly something with a 666 tattoo?). The video opens with a pastoral scene of sheep grazing peacefully in a California pasture. Purity … Piety … Our fiscal conservative leaders (is she suggesting that they are sheep?). One of these sheep is Tom Campell, “who would never lead us astray, his pedestal so high.” But is Tom Campbell really a conservative? No, we soon find out. He is a “wolf in sheep’s clothing (or rather an actor dressed like a wolf in sheep’s clothing). Worst of all, he is a FCINO (fiscal conservative in name only).
Julie Soderlund, who is running the campaign, says it has been “energized” by the response to the ad: could she be hinting that the next one stars the Energizer Bunny defeating King Kong?
Whatever it is, it will definitely be worth watching. “We can expect to see equally if not more shocking Web-based ads or videos coming from our campaign moving forward,” Soderland said. Which can only leave people wondering, who’s the real FCINO (“effing crazy in name only”)?
Read More at KCBS.
Read More at the Huffington Post.
Read More at the Daily Beast.
Tom Campbell’s a smart moderate with a strong record of pubic service, and might even be able to give a sitting Democratic Senator a run in California. Fiorina’s an ideological conservative (opposed to gay marriage; anti-choice) who has never even bothered to vote.
As a Democrat myself, I’m glad (but not surprised) to see her way ahead of Campbell in the polls, and glad to see her attack video getting so much coverage.
I can’t wait until people start using Carly’s track record at HP against her. In her short tenure, she caused a huge brain drain in the company as she turned HP from a tech company to a consumer appliance company. She pushed cost a lot of Californians jobs by closing local factories and moving them to India and China. Right before the board fired her for incompetance, she laid off 25,000 engineers, then pocketed their salaries by walking away with a $22M severance package. It takes does not take genius to fire people.
As a democrat, I hope that this woman becomes the next Republican hopeful.
The partisan primary process pushes candidates to the extremes as they try to appeal to their partisans to get the nomination.
It seems like California did something wacky where people could cross vote in primaries and if you wanted to help your candidate (who was unopposed and a shoo-in for the nomination) you could ask for the other party’s primary ballot and vote for the biggest loser in the race.
I think this actually was used on an organized basis by some party activists (Hershensohn?) I haven’t paid close attention to CA state politics in awhile so I’m not sure if this is still the case. I always thought it was dishonorable to vote for some other parties nominee just to sabotage the process and get a loser on the general election ballot. If my candidate can’t win on their own merits, I’d rather lose honorably than win dishonorably.
Now to Carly Fiorina. The classic method for the party operatives to get a contested seat is to sneak in a dark horse who has no public record to be used against them. Classic technique is to distort the public record of people who have a track record (city council, school board, state assembly, etc.) in hit pieces that come out timed in such away that the emotional appeal wins out before people have time to digest that facts. A good hit piece lands in the mail box Saturday before the Tuesday election. No time to respond except maybe via an expensive television ad, and by then people are already over saturated with ads and tune out.
Carly has not track record for civic life (public office) but I’m not an elitist who believes that only professional politicians are equipped to hold high public office. Look at the idiots at the Merc backing Larry Stone as saying a public body (assessment appeals board) should only have appointees with professional qualifications? I believe in common sense and the common man and what’s in the heart is as important as the documented evidence of what’s supposed to be in your head (degrees, pedigrees from prestigious schools and employers, commissions and such.)
If the laws are so complex that only lawyers can understand them and therefor anyone without a law degree should be barred from public office, we’ve just gotten taken too the cleaners and had a coup d’etat. I don’t believe that a considerate and deliberate person from humble means can’t make a difference in office. So Tom Campbell could be the best candidate, but then again so could Carly. I’ll wait and read in print what each has to say before I decide. As far as viral videos and social network campaigning (remember to friend potential voters, they are more likely to feel a personal connection) I think I’ll leave that to the digitally disconnected airheads who won’t vote unless they can do it with IM.