Carly Fiorina

Carly Fiorina really puzzles me. In 2010, she ran for the United States Senate in California, and I was hoping she would win, along with gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman, but California has just become too “blue” to elect Republicans these days. (Arnold Schwarzenegger was an exception, but he was running in a field of over 100 candidates, and he was the best known, while the opposition was split.) Last year she decided to run for the 2016 Republican nomination for the Presidency, and though she was hardly my first choice, she was easily the best-qualified among the three that had no Governmental experience, so I was rather favorably inclined toward her. But I never anticipated the turn she has taken now.

When she withdrew from the race, it made sense because her polls were so low after an initial upward swing, but it troubled me to see her backing Ted Cruz. Still, I figured she was simply assuming that Cruz and Donald Trump were the only viable candidates, and she obviously did not like Trump. When subsequently she revealed that she had voted for Cruz even though her name was on the Virginia primary ballot, I cringed a bit, because at the time Virginia had its primary, there were others, such as Marco Rubio, who were still considered viable candidates.

And now she has accepted the role of vice-presidential candidate on the Cruz ticket. I never would have thought she'd be all in for Cruz to this extent. I'm obviously disappointed in Fiorina, and while previously I'd have thought she had a good political future (perhaps, now that she lives in Virginia, she could win a seat in the Senate), I've lot a lot of respect for her.

Working toward 2012 endorsements

Now that this year's election is over, it's time to start looking at 2012. I had hoped that Meg Whitman might have been elected Governor of California, and had she been, she would have been — as I said more than once — my first choice for the 2012 nomination. But I think that one of the qualifications that would have a major bearing on acceptability would be having run a State Government. (Running a big corporation, which Whitman certainly has done, is helpful, but I don't think enough.) So she's out of there for now. Being a Senator is about the only other qualification that I might accept as even close to a Governorship of a State, and if Carly Fiorina had won and Whitman had not, she might be my first choice. But she didn't win, either. So the two people I really might have endorsed enthusiastically under different circumstances are out. So who might I favor?

Two years ago, I was somewhat negative about Mitt Romney, in part because of some ambiguity in where he stood on a lot of issues. But in the current situation, the importance of economic issues makes Romney look pretty good to me. He is currently my #1.

I don't know as much about Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, but whatever I've seen about him I like. I am particularly impressed by something he's said which infuriates a lot of "social conservatives" — as I've said in the past, I think that they harm the party more than helping it, so what infuriates them pleases me. And Daniels has said that he felt that social issues should be de-emphasized, even though he is socially conservative. I strongly support his stand there and for that reason alone, he ranks high in my opinion. And his performance as Governor of Indiana is creditable. Daniels, then, is currently #2 on my list, and I would not be surprised if, on learning more about him, he moves up to #1.

Finally, recently I saw a story to the effect that former Governor of New York George Pataki might run. He is also someone I could easily support. Call him #3 for now; again, as time goes by, he might move up on the list, depending on what happens regarding Romney's or Daniels' actions.

Postmortems - Part 2 (Maryland/California/New York)

A local weekly newspaper in this area printed a headline, following the election, saying "GOP Wave misses Maryland." Yes, it certainly did. As I said in yesterday's post, the most important observation to take from Tuesday's election is that every State is different. Maryland is sandwiched between Pennsylvania and Virginia, both of which were great states for the GOP this year. (Virginia was already so red that there was not much to go redder, but the GOP took 3, or possibly 4, House seats away from the Democrats there. I'll say more about Pennsylvania in a subsequent post.) But in Maryland, as I said in my October 12, 2010 post, the GOP made hardly a dent in the blueness of the State. One House seat, which should have been Republican anyway, but which went to Democrat Frank Kratovil in 2008 because of an internecine split in the local GOP, came back home. A few more seats in the lower house of the State's legislature went red, but in the upper house, a couple went the other way. And a good former Governor, Bob Ehrlich, certainly not a bizarre "Tea Party" type, lost by 10 percentage points to the sitting Governor, Martin O'Malley. In the Senate, one of the most liberal members of the chamber, Barbara Mikulski, had no trouble winning by a much larger margin, over a pretty uninspiring Eric Wargotz, who was pretty much unknown outside his home county. As I said in that post on Oct. 12, it seemed strange to see the GOP winning all over the place, while seeing nothing but blue here at home. It may be because so many Marylanders are Federal Government employees, and thus unsympathetic to a "smaller Government" GOP, and rather sympathetic to a President Barack Obama who the rest of the country was rejecting. As I said earlier, O'Malley even invited Obama into the State to campaign for him, something most Democrats were certainly not doing. Pretty dispiriting, though I'm happy for the rest of the country.

New York didn't look much better. As a native of that State, I tried to follow it; the GOP didn't help their cause very much by nominating a lame excuse for a gubernatorial candidate, Carl Paladino. They elected a Democratic Governor and two Democratic Senators; most of the time you don't see two Senate seats filled in the same election in a State, but here there was one term expiring and the other seat vacant because Hillary Clinton had left to become Secretary of State, with Kirsten Gillebrand only appointed to an interim position. Both Gillebrand and Chuck Schumer easily won re-election, and Andrew Cuomo, son of a previous Governor, won the gubernatorial office.

While New York State elected the son of a governor from the 1980s and 1990s, California was restoring a governor who had served even earlier, in the 1970s and 1980s, Jerry Brown. Like New York and Maryland, California seemed to be bypassed by the GOP wave. And this one was even stranger, because in California, the GOP had some excellent candidates. Meg Whitman, running for Governor, and Carly Fiorina, running for the Senate, were well qualified, very desirable candidates, and both put millions of dollars of their own money into their campaigns. But Jerry Brown beat Whitman, and Barbara Boxer gained reelection to the Senate over Fiorina. I guess California voters just couldn't see what was best for them, but that's how democracy works sometimes.

Mixed emotions

The results of Tuesday's elections leave me with mixed emotions. On the one hand, Nancy Pelosi gets to hand her gavel over to John Boehner, which is absolutely great, and the Republicans gained a significant number of seats in the Senate (though not a majority, but nobody really expected that) and a bunch of Governorships as well. These are the positives. But it seems that none of the specific elections I really cared about went right, except perhaps in Alaska where the results are not too clear yet.

In the State I live in, Maryland, it seems that Martin O'Malley won by a rather big margin over Bob Ehrlich. Certainly this was not a big surprise, but Ehrlich seemed to have a real chance, and so this result was a major disappointment. In California, there was an even bigger disappointment: both Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina seemed to have good chances to win, but neither one could pull it off. And in my original home state of New York, only one of the third party candidates got the 50,000 votes needed to keep his party on the ballot, and that was the Green Party candidate, the one I liked least. (The Libertarian, Warren Redlich, came very close: nearly 45,000, but close is not enough to do it. And the other third party candidates got no more that 20,000-30,000 each.)

Florida is another state I was looking at. That one was not too bad — I was very pleased to see the Democrat, Kendrick Meek, finish third! And while I would have preferred Charlie Crist to the actual winner, Marco Rubio, I think Rubio would be a reasonably good choice from what I've seen.

The worst of the results this Tuesday was in Nevada. I really thought that Harry Reid could be defeated. But this was not to be. Apparently, by nominating Sharron Angle, just like Christine O'Donnell in Delaware, The Tea Partiers threw away a good chance to help throw the Democratic rascals out!

On Mark McKinnon's program (Part 1 of 3)

Mark McKinnon's post had a total of twelve proposals. Discussing all of them in one post would be impossibly long to digest. I'm going to divide them into three groups of four, and even so the posts will be quite long. His first point was:

1. Get lobbyists, corporations, unions, and bundlers out of buying federal elections. Give the power back to the voters. In the last two weeks before adjournment, House candidates attended more than 400 fundraisers in the D.C. area. The top 10 heavy hitters, a list that includes trial lawyers and more unions than corporations, have contributed more than $355 million to the two parties from 1989 through mid-September. Forty-eight Super PACs with unlimited giving potential, from the right and the left, have registered with the FEC in the last few months. No wonder 70 percent of voters believe most members of Congress are willing to sell their vote for a campaign contribution. We can start reforming the system by passing the Fair Elections Now Act, and we can radically disrupt the way campaigns are financed through state constitutional conventions. Congress won't reform itself, but the framers anticipated such a problem, giving us Article V to go around Congress.

This was the old McCain-Feingold Act's proposal. The whole reason that the Court found it unconstitutional was that it restricted First Amendment guarantees on freedom of speech. And I really think the court was right there — you just can't sensibly restrict freedom of speech just because some people (and corporations, but they simply act in accordance with whatever the people who control them want) have a lot of money and can buy more advertising. The fact is that money can't buy an election if the candidate isn't what the people want (think of Ross Perot). So this is no worry of mine. (Imagine if one could buy the Presidency, or a Governorship. I'd be happy that Meg Whitman would be unbeatable in California!)

2. Butcher the pork, freeze the fat. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is wrong. We do care about "all those little, tiny, yes, porky amendments." With a deficit of $1.4 trillion, does it make any sense to be spending taxpayer dollars on researching exotic ants in the Indian Ocean? If expanding the government to such gross levels was good for the health of the nation, Europe would be leading the world, not suffering from economic sclerosis. When the government tries to borrow and spend its way to economic growth, the private sector—the job creators—cuts back its investments in anticipation of tax increases. An economy that's hostile to business will go the way of Greece. It's time to focus government spending on only mission-critical services, and not just freeze spending but reduce spending to a fixed percent of GDP. All spending, discretionary and non-discretionary, needs to be on the table. No sacred cows. Not even NASA. (Call me an interplanetary isolationist, but I think we should take care of lives here on Earth before we search for life on other planets.) Follow the model of Secretary of Defense Bob Gates: Reduce overhead costs by eliminating excess and duplication without risking critical force structure. We should permanently ban earmarks. Break up spending bills into individual requests. And restrict emergency spending for real emergencies only.

To a large part I agree. But we need to set priorities, and some of these things may be well worth spending money on. I certainly would not shut down NASA. Government spending on scientific research may well be the only way to get it done. (I say this with a certain prejudice, because most of my working life was done on projects that were government-contracted, so I see more value to such work than McKinnon might!)

3. Call an end to the privileged class. Middle America believes in fair play, an equal opportunity to succeed or to fail. But as seen in the GM bailout, unions are protected from failure with taxpayer dollars. Unions have destroyed the manufacturing sector, forcing jobs overseas by driving labor costs above the price consumers here will pay. Though membership has drastically declined, there are now more union members in the public sector than in the private sector. Eighty-six percent of state- and local-government workers have employer-provided health insurance versus 45 percent of private-sector workers. And unfunded public pensions already threaten to bankrupt California and New York. It's time to get unions out of federal, state, county and municipal government services. And it's time to privatize non-essential government services. According to the Office of Management and Budget, one-third of federal employees have jobs that could be performed by a private contractor. There are probably more. Let's start by privatizing the ever-in-debt postal service, which pays 1,125 employees to sit idly each day at a cost of $50 million annually.

With most of this I agree. Especially what he says about unions, which have made us uncompetitive in the world. The remark about "federal employees [who] have jobs that could be performed by a private contractor" actually resonates with me, as I've had a lot of those private contractor jobs, and I think we worked a lot harder than our Government-employee opposite numbers.

4. Flatten the world (of the IRS). When unabashed capitalist Steve Forbes and former Gov. "Moonbeam" Jerry Brown are comparing notes on a flat tax, it's time to pay attention. Lower tax rates spur economic growth, which generates more government revenue. Both Presidents Kennedy and Reagan recognized this. And under President George W. Bush, get ready for this, the rich actually paid more in taxes—because tax rates were lowered. In 1980, when the top tax rate was 70 percent, the top one percent of earners paid 19 percent of all income taxes. In 2008, with a top tax rate at 35 percent, half the rate of 1980, the top one percent paid 38 percent of all income taxes, double the share of 1980. Today almost half in the country pay no federal income tax; many actually "make a profit" through tax rebates. Taking more taxes from job creators, as will happen if the Bush tax cuts are allowed to expire, creates no sustainable, self-funding jobs. A simplified, lowered, and flat tax will increase revenues and create an all-in approach that would force folks to think more clearly about benefits they will have to help fund. No deductions, credits, or loopholes. Only one exemption setting a taxable income threshold based on family size. A flat tax treats people fairly: Those who make 1,000 times more than the average Joe pay 1,000 times more in taxes. While I'll leave it for economists to pick the right rate for consumers and corporations, if 10 percent is good enough for God, 15 percent ought to be good enough for government work.

This is probably the right way to go, though the excat percentage will have to be determined by how much the money the Government actually needs, and that cannot be worked out until points #2 and #3 have been looked into. The "exemption setting a taxable income threshold" should be set based on the minimum amount needed to live, and thus automatically adjusted annually, based on cost of living, so people who do not make enough to live on don't get taxed out of money they cannot afford to give up. If this is done, I favor the proposal.

These are the first 4 of his 12 points; more to follow.

Recent polls for 2012

There have been polls among the Republicans seeking to determine their preferences for the 2012 nominee. And though I think one really ought to see what happens in next month's election, I am certainly interested in the results. They seem to put Mitt Romney first and Sarah Palin second, with other names well behind.

Now, of all the names being discussed, I can accept all of them except one: Mike Huckabee. But of the ones being discussed, Romney is my favorite, so I'm pretty happy so far. (I don't like the vacillation on some issues that Romney has shown in the past, so I'm not entirely happy with him. But he is certainly the most qualified, having been a Governor of a major state and a successful businessman, and actually making an Olympics profitable, which is usually impossible! I'd like to know more about two of the also-rans, Mitch Daniels of Indiana and Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota; what I've seen about them looks good, but I know too little. Palin is certainly not my first choice, but I don't see in her the idiot the Democrats make her out to be. She's too right-wing for my taste, but not as far to my right as Obama is to my left, so if Palin runs against Obama, she certainly gets my vote.

But what about next month? There are people like Meg Whitman, who are not being discussed so far, but if they win, I think they should be. So I think it is really too premature.

How to Vote in 2010

It's four weeks until Election Day, but because some states have early voting, it may be useful to mention these recommendations this early.

There are thirty-something states with elections for the United States Senate this year. With various degrees of enthusiasm, in all but two I hope that readers of this blog will vote for the Republican candidate, as a rebuff to the Harry Reid leadership if for nothing else. (Hopefully, Reid will himself be retired by this year's vote, but I hardly expect Chuck Schumer's leadership to be any different.) In some cases, such as Sharron Angle in Nevada, Christine O'Donnell in Delaware, and even Eric Wargotz in my own state of Maryland, there is not much enthusiasm on my part, because the Republicans are rather badly flawed, and there could have been better candidates chosen in the primaries, but defeating the Obama/Reid/Pelosi agenda is first on the priorities. In other states, there are candidates about whom I am truly enthusiastic, such as Carly Fiorina in California. But in every case (except two, as I said), the Republican candidate is to be preferred.

The two exceptions are at opposite corners of the country: Florida and Alaska. In both cases there are Republicans who lost their party's nomination, but chose to run as independents, who are better than the official nominees, and who actually stand a chance to win. Unlike the usual situation, where voting for an independent would simply help elect the major-party candidate further from the preferred one, in both states the Democrat is probably going to finish third, behind both the official Republican candidate and the independent. And both Charlie Crist and Lisa Murkowski deserve support. I hope people in those states who like this blog will vote for them.

In the House of Representatives, the situation is somewhat similar. Obviously, in 434 of the 435 districts the name of Nancy Pelosi will not be on the ballot. But in a sense a vote for any Democrat is a vote for her, and helps the Obama/Reid/Pelosi agenda. So, in 434 districts (the one exception will be mentioned in a moment!) I hope the vote of anyone who reads and likes this blog will be cast, when possible, for the Republican. (In some of them, I'm sure, this will not be possible because the Republicans will not have a candidate, but I'm not sure which, or even how many, districts they are.)

Now that one exception: If you happen to live in the Sixth District of Virginia and read this post, I hope you will consider voting for Jeff Vanke, the Modern Whig Party's candidate. Though he is running against a Republican, the more votes Vanke gets, even if he does not win, the more there will be a sign of popular desire for some moderation in the two parties' combative attitudes. I do not expect Vanke to win (though I would not be unhappy if he did!) but I hope he gets a respectable vote total.

There are gubernatorial elections in a lot of states. I don't know much about most of the candidates, but I do heartily endorse Bob Ehrlich in Maryland, who was an excellent Governor when he was in office from 2003 to 2007, and I certainly hope that Californians will elect Meg Whitman. (The difference in terminology is simply because I only "endorse" candidates in elections where I myself can vote.)

I hope that readers of this blog will vote for the candidates I have mentioned favorably in this post.

The California elections for Governor and Senator

I just got finished reading this post. I was really heartened seeing the last sentence: "This is a very good sign for Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina." As regular readers of this blog know, I'm something of a fan of both those candidates. Particularly in these hard economic times, Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina are exactly the kind of people we need running our state and Federal governments. So I hope that what the writer of that post saw really foretells what will happen this November.

Back to November

I've been talking a lot about the Maryland primary coming up in a little over a week. But there are interesting developments I want to comment relevant to the general election in November.


In California, most polls show the former head of eBay, Meg Whitman, with a small lead over Jerry Brown, who was a Governor there decades ago and is the son of another Governor. The lead is small: Real Clear Politics still calls the race a toss-up. But things look promising for Whitman. (Disclosure: If you read my posts mentioning Whitman, you'll see I'm a big fan of hers. I won't endorse her on this blog -- I don't take official positions in any election I can't vote in -- but I'm surely hoping she wins. And I will say this: If Meg Whitman is elected Governor of California in 2010, and chooses to run for the Presidency in 2012, unless she makes a total botch of her Governorship, she will have my endorsement for the Presidency.)

There's another election in California I'm watching, too: Carly Fiorina is running against Sen. Barbara Boxer. Unfortunately, the polls lean Boxer's way at the moment, but I'm hoping Fiorina can pull it off: as former Hewlett-Packard CEO, she has the experience we need in our government.

In general, it looks good for the GOP this November. The RCP projections still put the Democrats in the majority in the next Senate, but only 51-49 when you count Lieberman and Sanders, who caucus with them. And with some Democratic Senators not as gung-ho for Obama's "change" agenda as party affiliation might indicate, the GOP might actually be able to win some votes. And the GOP looks to win the House of Representatives. Retiring Nancy Pelosi from the Speakership looks very likely! I think that Pres. Obama is going to have a much harder time pushing his far-left agenda the next two years. Which is great!

The California primary results

Well, I am certainly happy to see that both Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman got their nominations in yesterday's primaries. As I've said before, it is people like these who are desperately needed to fix this government. Now it's on to November for these candidates, and I'm cheering from afar. I don't have money to contribute — and neither of these candidates needs money; both have heavily supported their primary campaigns with their own money — but they have all the moral support I can offer.

California and Kentucky

I've made some comments in this blog about Senate races in Pennsylvania and Florida, where I do not live, and now I'm adding some comments on two more states where I do not live, California and Kentucky. I hope that residents of those states who read this blog do not feel I should just mind my own business, but I think I need to make these comments.



In California, I've been very much attracted to the candidacies of two female entrepreneurs, Carly Fiorina for Senator and Meg Whitman for Governor. If either one wins the post she is seeking, she will instantly be my first choice for the Presidency in 2012.


Whitman seems to have a good chance of winning, and from 3000 miles away I am cheering her cause. In the primary, she is leading her closest opponent in recent polls by about 2 to 1. Fiorina may not even get the nomination, though she too is leading, more closely than Whitman, in recent polls, so lately I've been looking at her primary opponents, and I see one I like and one I do not.


What I've seen of Tom Campbell looks good. He's the sort of moderate Republican I think we need more of. It's too bad that Californians have to choose between Campbell and Fiorina; it would be nice to have both in Washington.

Unfortunately there is a third candidate, Chuck DeVore, exactly the sort of ideological purist I have been criticizing for weakening the party. I hope he is resoundingly rejected by California Republicans this coming week. (Latest polls show that he will be -- they show him getting around 15% of the vote.)


Kentucky already has had its primary, with Ron Paul's son, Rand Paul, getting a surprisingly strong win. While Rand Paul is not exactly an ideological clone of his father, they are not too different. And while Ron Paul is such an extreme libertarian that I'd be hard pressed to support him for the Presidency, I think his being in the House of Representatives as one of 435 is a good thing, as it gives libertarian ideas some exposure. And I think his son will serve the same purpose in the Senate. If the senate can have an openly avowed Socialist (Bernie Sanders), why not a far-out libertarian? It would be a good thing, I think, if Kentucky puts him in the Senate in the November election.

A broadcasting slip?

Last night I heard two commercials for Meg Whitman, former head of eBay, who is planning to run for Governor of California in 2010. The problem is, I live nowhere near California. What was going on?

I just hope the Whitman campaign wasn't billed for those ads. What kind of slip-up permits an ad for a California electoral candidate to be broadcast on a Washington, D. C. radio station, not once but twice?

Prospects for 2012

The 2009 elections are just over, and the 2010 elections have not yet been held, but it's really time to look toward 2012. Very likely, Barack Obama will be looking to gain a second term as President, and all people who are interested in defeating this attempt must get together on a suitable opponent.

One person who is already being touted as a candidate is former Alaska Governor, and 2008 Vice-Presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, who has just put out a book, which many people consider to be the start of her campaign for the 2012 nomination. One thing she has going for her is that defeated VP canddates are often given a chance to try for the Presidency — look at Walter Mondale and Bob Dole. Another thing in her favor is that history was made in 2008 with an African-American President, and history would be made again if Sarah Palin became the first female President.

But Palin would not get the feminist vote — any more than Clarence Thomas or Alan Keyes gets support from African-American groups. Policy trumps race, and the liberals who constitute the majority of the African-American community consider Thomas and Keyes, if anything, to be traitors. And feminists would consider Palin the same.

Besides, there may by 2012 be two other viable female candidates, if either Meg Whitman or Carly Fiorina gets elected next year. Both of them are talking about running next year in California, one for governor, the other for the Senate. If either gets elected — in the biggest state of all, California — she will immediately become a hot item in the 2012 Presidential sweepstakes.

I do not consider Palin, as some did last year, unqualified. She served as a state Governor, probably the best preparation for the Presidency that our political system provides, and did, so far as I can tell, an excellent job (though quitting makes one wonder whether she could take a 4-year term in the White House). And if she does get the nomination, I would certainly vote for her against Obama. But she is hardly my choice; for one thing, there are more experienced and more highly qualified candidates out there; for another; she's more aligned with the conservative extremists in the party than would make me comfortable.

If either Fiorina or Whitman gets elected next year, she will be a good choice; both have run major corporations, but as of 2009, neither has any political experience, and if either one has, by 2012, this political experience, she will be a great choice. Mitt Romney, who was not my choice in 2008, would be a better choice in 2012, though the reasons for my discomfort in 2008 would still apply — his ideas have changed a lot in recent years, and one can not really be sure how conservative or how liberal he is on those issued where he seems to have effected a conversion. But he has the experience of being both a state Governor (and in a much bigger state than Alaska) and a corporate executive, which makes his qualifications pretty impressive.

A name often mentioned is Tim Pawlenty, like Palin and Romney a state Governor. All I can say is I don't know much about him. Possibly if I did, I'd like him, possibly not, but I can't say very much.

One former Governor I could not support — to the point that if he is nominated by the GOP, I vote third party — is Mike Huckabee. He is the personification of just about everything I oppose: left where I'm right and right where I'm left. And he is the most extreme member of the religious Right since the days of Pat Robertson. It really troubles me to see him leading in polls among Republicans thinking about the 2012 election; One can only hope that by 2012 his star fades.